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collaboration

All Together Now

July 26, 2015 By Michele Woodward Leave a Comment

 

 

Sometimes, vector seamless pattern with a large group of men and women. flawhen tough decisions need to be made, you need to go back to basics.

I was talking with a woman the other day who was facing a thorny decision in her work. Should she or shouldn’t she? Worrying, ruminating and floundering, she turned to me and said, “What do I do?”

Shoot, I didn’t know. But I did ask one question, “At this point in your life, what’s your biggest priority?”

And she paused.

A longish pause.

Then she started to laugh. “No one has asked me that through this whole thing. I haven’t even asked myself that!”

And just like that, the path forward opened up. She knew what she was going to do – which wasn’t going to be easy, but it certainly was very clear.

I tend to ask clients-in-crisis like this to think about their priorities and their values. What’s important? What do they value the most?

It used to surprise me that nearly every person used the same words to describe at least one of their top values – words like Connection, Belongingness, Together, To Be With, Team.

I’ve learned that for so many of us it’s the connection with others that really gives our lives a sense of meaning.

And yet so many of these same people tell me that the workplace is the last place they can expect to find real, authentic belongingness.

Last week I spoke with a senior guy at a huge multi-national company. Part of our work together has been deciphering the world-class, sharp-elbowed office politics played within the organization.

Now, the higher up the leadership pyramid you go, the more intense the office politics get in most organizations – elbows are much pointier and jabbier.

My senior guy was telling me how the people one level above him act at meetings. “They never participate,” he said. “They just sit there with their fingers templed in front of them and say, ‘Thank you for your input. We will be getting back to you.’ Where’s the collaboration? The connection? The sharing of information? I feel like a sitting duck because I never know if I’ve made a good presentation or not. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing because I don’t have all the information! Are we working for the same company, or not?”

Ah, Grasshopper, what you see here is a blatant power play. What you observe is information hoarding. And – I’ll go even further – it’s bullying.

Last summer I led a webinar for the Harvard Business Review on bullies and jerks in the workplace. It turned out to be one of the most popular webinars HBR has ever offered – which is great and at the same time, very sad.

In that webinar, I defined a bully as someone who tries to keep you from being able to do your job and/or tries to crush your sense of self.

My guy’s senior colleagues with their templed fingers think they are playing politics but in reality they are blocking collaboration, making things harder than they have to be and killing the efficiency of the group. They have learned to be bullies.

Perhaps they do this under the mistaken belief that powerful people behave a certain way. It’s a bit of John Wayne with a smidge of Clint Eastwood and just a soupçon of The Donald. You know who I’m talking about – a solo contributor with power, who leaves people trembling in his wake. Who has no time for other people unless they’re passing him ammo or a whiskey bottle.

You know the guy. And this archetype may have worked in a different day and age, with a different generation. But, today, it’s in direct opposition to what most people crave in their work.

They want togetherness. They want feedback on their impact, reflected in their connection with friends and colleagues – probably because formal feedback processes aren’t really working.

The best leaders today know this.

They know that there’s a new yardstick for measuring leadership effectiveness, and it’s not how many people stand up when you walk into a room. And it’s not about how much information  you hoard.

It’s about how well the people who work for you perform.

It’s about what they accomplish.

It’s about their efficiency and their impact.

It’s about how they collaborate, belong and connect.

So if you are a leader in an organization and you have a tendency to hoard information, to temple your fingers, to be a lone wolf?

You’ve gotta knock that off.

Start collaborating. Share. Ask questions. Listen. Seek advice.

Provide an environment where your people can connect and belong. Give them a way to find meaning.

And if you do, here’s the promise: You will have more productive people, better teams, greater impact and more success.

Together, connected, with, belonging – those are the words, and the only way we’re all going to move forward.

 

Filed Under: Authenticity, Blog, Clarity, Happier Living, Managing Change, Uncategorized, WiseWork Tagged With: belonging, bully, bullying, collaboration, Harvard Business Review, leadership, workplace bullying

Us vs. Them

May 19, 2013 By Michele Woodward 1 Comment

Isolated diversity tree hands

 

Sometimes it’s the administration who’s the “us” and the faculty who’s the “them”.

And then, sometimes, it’s the administration and the faculty who are the “us” and the students who are the “them”.

Parents, it seems, are always “them”.

HR is “us” when there are a flood of  job applicants clamoring to get interviews, and HR is “them” when we can’t get in the door.

Patients in the ER are “them” when doctors and nurses feel overworked and concerned about narcotics-shopping.

Yet these same medical professionals become “them” when patients wait for hours to be seen.

Us.

Them.

For.

Against.

Win.

Lose.

Perhaps this “us vs. them” setup is a reflection of the basic human need for belongingness. For tribe. For clan.

For knowing where we stand in relation to others.

Who’s a friend? Who’s an enemy?

But what if that didn’t matter? What if you simply knew where you stood all the time?

What if you took a deep breath and tried on the radical idea that there was no “them” – there was only “us”?

Could you stand tall every minute of every day as a part of “us”?

What if, rather than deciding that the 911 caller was one of “them” – those corrupt and sneaky people who only want free transportation to the hospital – and let the phone ring 15 times or go to voice mail, the dispatcher answered on the first ring and was as helpful as possible for as long as she was needed?

What if rather than bristling at questions, the teacher saw the parent as an ally in the educational journey of a child?

What if rather than failure, we saw humanity in the eyes of the struggling?

What if in politics we could refrain from categorizing and limiting into rigid definitions of “us” and “them”? Might we actually get things accomplished for the common good?

[Be still my beating heart.]

Maslow suggested the highest expression of human full potential is a state he called “self-actualization”, or “the need to be good, to be fully alive and to find meaning in life.”

And you don’t get there by hating and dividing, darlings.

You get there by seeing the “us” in everyone. 

I have observed something in the last few years – have you seen it? People are clamoring to unite around something. You saw it with the Boston bombings as people lined the streets applauding the first responders. You saw it recently in Cincinnati when crowds spontaneously gathered to welcome three kidnapped women home. You see it in baseball stadiums as we stand in the third inning to honor our men and women in uniform.

We see it whenever people rush to help, rather than rush away.

That’s honoring the “us” in everyday life.

That’s a movement toward good.

And that’s what increasing numbers of people aim to do each and every day – they choose to see the “us” reflected in everyone they encounter.

Which changes the world.

In case you’re wondering, there’s plenty room for you in this movement, too.

All you have to do is join “us”.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Clarity, Happier Living, Managing Change, Uncategorized, WiseWork Tagged With: acceptance, belongingness, clarity, collaboration, community, happiness, meaning and purpose, thoughts

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