Teamwork minus Good Conflict is NOT Teamwork

I've been helping a friend with identifying the cause of a problem he's been having within his company.

The problem; bad results of the timely deliver of products to the customers.

As I asked him questions, participated in conversations with the players involved, put-forth some suggestions, and continued to watch the results, here is what came out of this tough, but real-life problem;

1. there is a key vendor involved that has personnel on site at my friend's company

2. these vendor personnel are responsible for a very critical component of the product.

3. the vendor personnel are told by their management to not "complain" to their client (my friend's company)

The result..........bad delivery of product due, in a large part, because of the dysfunctional teamwork.

Teamwork

Lencioni, in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, describe Teamwork as having the following disciplines; building trust, mastering conflict, achieving commitment, embracing accountability, and executing for results.

I'll back into them...To have good teamwork you must execute for results. To execute for results you must embrace accountability. To embrace accountability you must achieve commitment. To achieve commitment you must master conflict. To master conflict you must build trust.

Lencioni claims that all five of these must happen, and essentially in this order, to do teamwork well.

My first read of Five Dysfuntions....... was some 7 years ago and I've very deligently practiced and tested Lencioni's "theory" since, and find him to be extremely accurate. It is obvious to the non-casual observer that this is more than theory. Lencioni writes from experience and I concur from experience after experience after experience.

Build trust to master conflict to achieve commitment to embrace accountability to execute for results.

In case there is any confusion on what I'm trying to get across....thinking outside the box, or anything along those lines, will lead to disruption, confusion, and not only unsuccessful results but an unhappy workplace.

My statement, I'm told, is very bold and that I realize, yet this comes from Experience-not opinion, evaluation and correction - not pipedreams and hope. Give me one person that is learning and changing from their experience over 10 that just want to set around a come up with new ideas any day.

Leading and Following is HARD

Leading AND following is difficult, if not just down right hard...yes, it is HARD, when the box is undefined.

Learning from the past tells me that I have to have procedures written down and then I have to use those procedures to make the changes that comes from the learning from the past.

So...

1. write the procedure
2. get everyone involved to acknowledge the procedure
3. talk about the procedure
4. live the procedure out by holding people accountable to the procedure
5. evaluate the the procedure on a passive and aggressive basis
6. be prepared to correct the procedure (start at #1 again)
7. keep the robust evaluation and correction going

This defines the box and allows leading and following to live well.

Define the Box

To lead well, we must have the box well defined.

Know your people.

Know your budget.

What do you need to make your numbers?

What numbers do you need to make?

You have know to what's available to you. What's in your box? What do you have to work with?

When this blog started out Alethes (our company) had 400 loan officers and 70 corporate employees. That started changing in mid to late 2008. Along with the mortgage industry's whoas, we've had our own; some due to what's been imposed on us, other self-inflicted.

Googling through the archives you'll find a maturing format in this blog. It was originally titled "Focus and Reflection," and there was a great deal of focus and reflection, but not near enough inside-the-box THINKING and BEHAVING. We, or at least I, talked a lot about leadership, but not near enough about following, and there were some unhealthy passive-agressive agendas among those on my leadership team. And we talked and acted out too much outside-the-box thinking.

Hopefully, I've learned a lot and will use this knowledge to change. I'm patiently working each day to learn where I'm going with my life, and my business. Still plenty of hurdles and slamming doors to deal with, but what doesn't kill you, will make you stronger. There are alot of opportunities out there for the survivors and I just need to remember that changes need to be s l o w .

Besides, if it does kill me, I'll be in heaven!

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The postings on this blog will vary in nature. Some can be very direct, others a “positive attitude” message. It is often a mixture of numbers, thanks, where we are at, some possibilities of the future, and/or uh ohs. I regularly attempt to draw myself and others to the past; from there we learn from our mistakes and victories.

While many of the original posting were primarily about corporate specifics, the intent will be to push and pull more from the overall culture of Alethes and include branch agendas.

One of my disciplines is Vulnerability; this, in part, means transparency and is a behavior for living out the core ideology of our Mission and Value Statements. At times, I’ve been accused of disclosing too much, but, I want you to trust there is little I'm holding back. If I have facts, and I deem them appropriate to disclose, I talk about them. I’ve been as vocal about the facts and changes as legally possible. I will always separate the facts from the speculation.

With the consistent industry changes, I'm constantly running scenarios and considering possibilities. While most never come to play, some have. I've also said, many times, "I don't know."

I look back at the many changes at Alethes and some of the announcements I've made don't seem so harsh, today, but they were hard at the time. And we've had some real surprises and disappointments. All-in-all, some have called it a cleansing while others have thought of it as a "purge."

I'll just say it has been a real growth experience and while I would rather have had better results, I'm personally a better person because of it. Alethes' mission statement says that we will glorify God and looking back I can see how we did not do that very well in a lot of ways. Now, in the tough times I'll have to concentrate on how to lead well and glorifying him. My manual for that is the Bible and specifically the book of 1 Peter.

To that end....