It takes only one individual to hurt a team

One of the realities of teams is that it takes only one individual who is not in alignment with the rest of the team to significantly impact the unity of the team. This can be a result of any number of issues. For instance, they:

• may not be in agreement with the direction of the team or organization
• do not pull their own weight in terms of productivity and results
• may have attitudes that are counterproductive to a healthy team: cynicism, sarcasm, lack of trust or some other unhelpful attitude
• may like to do their own thing and are not committed to working as a productive team member
• may have Emotional Intelligence (EQ) issues that disrupt the health of the team
• may not be teachable or coachable
• may be very smart and successful but will not cooperate with others

Here is the reality. It takes only one member of the team to pull down the rest of the team, and to take a huge emotional toll on the other team members and the team leader. All of this hurts the overall missional effectiveness of the organization and creates discouragement among team members.

Ministries often ignore these situations in the name of "grace." We hope they will go away, but they rarely do without intentional and direct intervention. When we do not resolve these negative behaviors we unfairly punish the rest of the team who must live with the unhealth of one member, and we hurt the missional effectiveness of the organization.

If you have a situation where a team member is not in sync and is hurting the team, consider these options.

1. Provide very direct and immediate feedback in person and follow up in writing indicating the problems and the necessary changes that are necessary of they are to continue to play a role on the team and in the ministry. Be direct, honest and defining. Indirect communication is unlikely to work in these situations.
2. Establish time parameters in which the issues must be resolved or they will be placed on a probationary status. If they need additional coaching during this time, provide it and always give honest direct feedback verbally and in writing.
3. If there is not adequate progress, place the individual on a probationary status (in writing - always document) with the understanding that if there is not appropriate resolution they will not be able to continue on the team or with the organization.
4. Be willing to let them go and transition them out of the organization if they do not meet the requirements of the probationary period.

Your willingness as a leader to take appropriate steps in cases like this sends a powerful message to the rest of your team that you care about their health and the health of the organization. When one does not take these steps the opposite message is sent - and clearly read that our organization does not take health seriously. Lack of action also fuels cynicism toward leadership and their unwillingness to deal with situations that are at odds with organizational values.

The emotional and energy toll that is paid for allowing an unhealthy team member to continue is higher than we realize until the issue has been resolved and we finally realize the price we paid. Don't allow one individual to pull the rest of the team down.

Five EQ skills that can transform a team or organization

The average level of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) within an organization or team has a direct impact on the success of that group. The higher the EQ skills of a team, the better they relate, the more candid they are, the less conflict they have, and the health of relationships is stronger. All of these contribute to greater cooperation, more innovative thinking, cooperation, and a lack of infighting and politics. This also applies to boards and in the church world to congregations.

There are five EQ skills that can literally transform a team or organization if leadership focuses on them, trains their staff, and communicates these skills regularly. These five skills can be learned, but we must also unlearn some unhelpful habits to get to a place of health.

The first skill is that of self-definition. Self-defined individuals think for themselves rather than simply taking the party line, verbalize their views even when it may be lonely, and do not worry what others might think of them. They are secure in who they are and what they believe. Innovation experts say that this skill, along with a culture that invites it is one of the most significant keys to innovation.

The second skill follows from the first. It is the ability of a team to engage in robust dialogue where any issue can be put on the table, with the exception of personal attacks or hidden agendas. Where this does not happen, it is almost exclusively the fault of leaders who are threatened by direct dialogue that might rock the boat. The ability to engage in robust dialogue invites ideas, observations, and innovation, while the inability kills both ideas and innovation.

A third skill is essential to the first two, and that is a non-defensive attitude on the part of all team members. It is an attitude of "nothing to prove and nothing to lose" where we do not have to be right and where we approach our work with open rather than closed minds. Defensiveness shuts down conversation, whereas non-defensiveness invites conversation, ideas, dreams, innovation, and the ability to look at situations with new eyes.

The fourth skill comes into play when we don't do the first three as well as we could: conflict resolution: the ability to quickly address conflict, de-escalate the issue, look for a win-win solution, and normalize the relationship. Conflict is not bad. Unaddressed conflict, however, is toxic. Think of the mental and emotional energy that is spent in unresolved conflict. People can be taught how to resolve conflict and to think of it in three steps: address it, look for a win/win solution, and normalize the relationship.

The fifth EQ skill that can transform a team or organization is the simple agreement to ban gossip. Gossip is the transmission of second or third-hand information to others that is prejudicial or first-hand information that is harmful and which need not be shared. All gossip is toxic to relationships, teams, and organizations so a concerted effort should be made to eradicate it.

Take a moment and think about what your team or organization would look like with these five skills being lived out by all members. They can be taught and practiced, and over time, they will transform your team or organization.

Six common misconceptions about Teamwork - From the Harvard Business Review

Six Common Misperceptions about Teamwork

Healthy staff cultures

In my work with churches and Christian organizations I see more unhealthy than healthy staff cultures. I would love to reverse that order. It is truly a gift to work in a healthy environment and can be a curse to work in an unhealthy one. Here are some of the components of a truly healthy staff culture.

1. A leader who is open, humble, non-defensive and collaborative.

2. An environment where robust dialogue is welcomed and encouraged along with unity once decisions have been made.

3. Having the right people in the right seats.

4. High EQ (Emotional Intelligence) among staff members and leaders.

5. Clarity of direction as to where the organization is headed.

6. Having clarity in one's role and the necessary tools to accomplish one's job.

7. A collegial open atmosphere from the leader on down.

8. The ability to speak into things that impact one's job.

9. Candid, honest dialogue and conversation in an atmosphere of respect.

10. High in both empowerment and accountability.

My new book, Deep Influence: Unseen Practices That Will Revolutionize Your Leadership, is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

12 questions to measure the engagement of your staff from the Gallup organization

In my work with organizations, a common theme is that staff often don't feel that their organization or supervisors genuinely care about them, their work or their development. Yet the happiness of our staff is critical to the success of an organization. The Gallup organization has identified twelve critical questions that measure the engagement of staff. They also give supervisors an outline of things they need to be paying attention to. Here they are:

• Do you know what is expected of you at work?
• Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right?
• At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
• In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
• Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?
• Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
• At work, do your opinions seem to count?
• Does the purpose of your organisation make you feel your job is important?
• Are your colleagues committed to doing quality work?
• Do you have a best friend at work?
• In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
• In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

Source: Gallup's 12 questions taken from 'Elements of great managing' by Rodd Wagner and James Harter (Gallup 2006)

An interesting and challenging job of staff

One of the jobs of staff is to keep their leader out of trouble: From making poor decisions, driving down the wrong road or ignoring warning signs that they need to be aware of. It is not always an easy job depending on one's leader but it is important because bad decisions by our leader carry consequences for the organization, its staff and its mission.

Some leaders (the healthy ones) both welcome and expect candid feedback and counsel. They are under no illusions that they are always right and seek the widest counsel possible. Other leaders frankly are not very open and it is a more delicate matter.

I have worked for both kinds of leaders. For those that are sensitive about counsel or feedback, one needs to think through an approach that will be most likely to be heard. All of us respond in different ways and I am sure my own staff think through how they can best address issues with me. That is not a bad thing, it is a wise thing.

It is easy for staff who see a potential train wreck coming to keep their heads down and their mouths shut but this is a shirking of responsibility - with the exception of highly narcissistic leaders for whom no feedback is productive. Whether our leader takes our advice or counsel is not our responsibility - sharing our concerns is because the health of the organization is at stake.

And if we are leaders we ought to invite such feedback and counsel. We decide how easy it is for our staff to engage us. And that is a measure of our own EQ and humility. 

Healthy teams

Consider this definition of a healthy team: A high impact ministry team is a group of missionally aligned and healthy individuals working strategically together under good leadership toward common objectives, with accountability for results. All of these same criteria apply to healthy church boards as well.

A team is not simply a random group of people thrown together because there are slots to fill - at least healthy teams are not built that way. Think of the team you are on or the team you lead and consider these key elements of healthy teams.

Healthy teams are missionally aligned.

They are made up of people who are all committed to the same mission and understand with great clarity what that mission is (see the last blog on alignment). Mission is the true glue that holds the team together more than any other factor. Non aligned teams are not teams because by definition they cannot be moving together in the same direction (the arrows don't all point in one direction).

They are made up of healthy individuals.

Too often we ignore the issue of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) when building team. Healthy individuals are open to the opinions of others, lack defensiveness, are aware of who they are and how others perceive them, are able to release people rather than control them, can engage in constructive and robust dialogue and have the ability to abide by common decisions.

When you consider the definition of a healthy person above, you realize how critical that is for a team to function well because in the absence of that kind of health teams will be dysfunctional and dysfunctional teams are never high impact.

They work strategically together toward common objectives.

Good teams are those where the members are committed to working syneristically together rather than simply doing their own thing and showing up for meetings and pretending it is "team." This means that team members embrace the objectives of the whole team and take the whole team into consideration in decisions that they make. It is about "we" not "me." Teams that are about "me" rather than "we" are not true teams and do not see the same results.

They have good leadership.

Teams are not led by committee. Someone must lead and provide the necessary clarity and direction and accountability but in an open, collegial atmosphere where robust dialogue is practiced and the team has ownership of their objectives. But there must be leaders. In fact, good leaders are those who can do just that.

Passive leaders cannot lead healthy teams and in the absence of leadership someone else will step in or the team will exist as a "gathering" but will not be team.

This requires team leaders to put a lot of time into team meetings for the sake of missional alignment, increasing the health quotient of team members (development), white boarding strategy together, determining common objectives and ensuring that there are real results. Team leaders cannot treat team meetings lightly if they want to lead a healthy team.

They hold members accountable for results.

This is not very popular or common in ministry circles. We focus more on relationships than we do on ministry results and do not exercised the discipline which teams in the marketplace must exercise in order to stay viable. It is sad, however, because the mission of the church and other ministries has eternal implications not just quarterly returns. Thus results matter, quality matters, discipline matters and measurement of how well we are doing matters.

Where there is no accountability for results, there cannot be healthy team. Nor will you attract or keep high quality ministry personnel who want their lives to count.

How healthy is the team you lead or the one you serve on? What could you be doing differently to raise the level of its healthy and effectiveness?

The glue that holds good teams together

It is a fun game: how many cards can we stack on top of another until the house of cards comes down.

In real life, it is more serious - for leaders and team leaders. The measure of our leadership is not what happens when we are leading but what happens when we leave. Does what we built hang together and continue to flourish or does it come apart like a house of cards?

Some leaders build their team or organization on the force of their personality but once they are gone the glue is gone - the cards fall. Other, wiser leaders build their team or organization on values and principles and good people. When they are gone, the values, principles and good people remain and the organization or team continues strong. These leaders have not built a house of cards but a team of strength.

If you are a leader here is a question you should ask. If I disappeared today, what would happen? Would the direction and effectiveness continue in spite of my absence or would it flounder and come apart? In too many cases the reality is the latter rather than the former.

True team and organizational strength is built on a commonly held mission, set of guiding principles, central ministry focus and a carefully built culture that is held, believed in and practiced by everyone. It is in their bones, not just in their leader because their leader has brought alignment around beliefs and practices not around their personality or authority. One builds true long term stability while the other builds temporary but weak alignment.

The mission clarifies what you are about. The guiding principles clarify how you go about doing what you are about. The central ministry focus clarifies what you must do day in and day out to succeed and the culture clarifies the ethos that you are committed to creating. These are the four most important questions every leader answers for their team or organization and they are the glue that holds people together for maximum alignment and ministry passion.

Missional glue is far more powerful than the glue of one's personality - especially if one wants to build something that has influence beyond their time in leadership. It is also a sign of a humble leader when they build around a set of principles and values and a clear mission, rather than themselves. After all it is not about us but the mission God has entrusted to us. 

If you want help in building a ministry based on those principles that will last, read Leading From the Sandbox. It contains the secrets of clarifying those things that are most important for your team or organization. It will take you from a house of cards to a house intentionally built to last.

Loyalty: To the leader or to the mission of the organization?

Recently I led a retreat for a senior group of executives who desire to go to the next level. Each of them is fiercely loyal to their founder/leader. Yet, among themselves there is a fair amount of dissonance with sometimes poor cooperation, siloed departments and lack of cooperation. Why is that when there is such strong loyalty to the leader?

The answer is relatively simply. If my primary loyalty is to my leader I will do everything I can to please him/her but that does not mean that I need to relate well to my peers. It may even be that I jockey with my peers for the "affection" of my leader at the expense of relating and cooperating with my peers as I need to.

Now think about this: If my primary loyalty is to the mission of the organization I will have a different perspective on cooperating with others on the team. After all, for the organization to be successful it must have an integrated, results oriented, synergistic team all pulling in the same direction. Pleasing the leader is replaced by the success of the organization and the fulfillment of its mission.

It is a small difference in focus that has huge consequences for how we act and think. In this case, the leader was frustrated by the lack of commitment to a common mission. We clarified that mission and did a reset of the team's loyalty around that compelling mission which will necessitate that they think and relate differently than they have. A small shift with significant consequences.

Why I love working with my team

I am in an enviable position with a senior team that is amazing - 13 leaders. I love working with them, enjoy their company, and we are on a common mission to see 100 million people impacted with the gospel and to multiply transformational churches globally. Here is why I love working with them.

1. The team is deeply committed to our mission. The missional glue is strong and when a team lives and breathes an organization's purpose, there is energy, synergy and a common bond that is second to none.

2. The team has really good EQ! Problematic EQ can kill an other wise good team but this team has great EQ. We can engage in the most robust dialogue while staying in relationship and it is in our clash of ideas that we see the best decisions emerge. The high EQ factor makes for healthy relationships.

3. The team allows each leader to lead in their arena but supports one another heavily. There is no competition and no turf wars or silos on this team. We respect one another's expertise, support each other and work toward common goals. At the same time we can ask critical questions and challenge one another which keeps us sharp.

4. There are no elephants on the team - no issues that cannot be put on the table and discussed. And when they are there are no personal attacks or hidden agendas. Elephants are only issues in disguise that once named can be managed. We work together with a great deal of transparency and honesty.

5. The team is never satisfied with what is and is always pressing into what could be and greater missional effectiveness. I love the sense of urgency that the team has and while we celebrate the wins we are never content to stay where we are but are always asking how we can do better.

6. The team loves to pray together and for one another. They know that unless God is in it and unless we live in the power of the Holy Spirit that we're not going to get where we want to go. We enjoy our times of worship and prayer.

7. The team is always ready to think in new ways and try new things. There is no sense of status quo but one of entrepreneurial thinking that is refreshing and keeps me as the team leader on my toes. And they are not afraid to challenge me!

8. The team believes in ministry excellence. If we are going to do something we are going to do it well even if it means finding new and better ways of doing things. 

9. The team has longevity. While there is turnover as God leads individuals there are long term relationships on the team that have made for great trust and deep relationships. 

Every day I thank God for the amazing team He has provided me and ReachGlobal. Healthy teams are a joy to be a part of.