Yesterday I did a workshop for a large entrenched hierarchical organization where the point of the exercise was getting employees to maximize organizational performance in an under resourced, stress filled environment grappling with change.
Leadership’s unintended negative impact wasn’t on the agenda. Unfortunately, that’s generally the case.
I love doing team building workshops when people enjoy the promise of a more productive and satisfying way of working together.
Then reality sets in when one courageous soul asks the question on everybody’s mind: “what can we do to get management to practice what we’ve learned here today?” Ouch.
There is a disconnect between leadership intentions and its real impact on creating a game changing work environment.
What symptoms do I hear that signal poor possibilities for high performance team alignment in spite of team building efforts? I hear comments like:
- We frequently experience unintended outcomes.
- Our solution just wasn’t big enough for the complex situation.
- We missed a big opportunity because we didn’t pivot soon enough.
- We’re in status quo mode and not hearing new ideas or new solutions.
- We’re losing talent to our competitors.
These symptoms spring from a variety of problems but too often mask underlying leadership blind spots about work culture challenges that result in poor organizational performance.
What would it take to for you to have cultural norms like these?
You Turbocharge Organizational Performance When:
- There is evidence of a high trust environment where everyone is transparent about what fears are present.
- Constructive dissent in service of the larger goal is expected and harvested.
- Lateral constructive feedback is evident.
- The organization systematically captures observations beyond current metrics.
- People routinely seek diverse perspectives from internal and external stakeholders.
Teams operating in an environment where these turbocharging dynamics are at play are working for leaders who fundamentally accept that mission, goals and objectives are embraced and met more easily where leaders cultivate a workplace where teams have the fuel to meet emerging opportunity which is the height of organizational performance that positions you for changes the future demands.