Your teams are capable. Is their performance showing it?
“My team should be performing better than it is—and I can see the symptoms, but I can’t figure out what’s really getting in the way.”
It’s easy to think your team’s performance gaps are caused by communication breakdowns, slow decision-making, or accountability issues that keep getting in the way.
What I’ve found is that those are often symptoms. The real problem is usually in the patterns driving how people interpret situations, respond to one another, and make decisions.
Tell me if this sounds familiar. You have this one guy on your team, an older employee, who can never seem to get on board with changes you want to make to the team’s processes, systems, or incentives.
You’d love to let him go, but he’s actually really good at his job. He’s just not really good at playing nice on the team.
So you feel stuck.
What if there were a way to resolve the issue to everyone’s satisfaction? I maintain there is.
Very early in my management career, I was tasked with implementing a radically new system onto a team of about 50 people, most of whom were not tech savvy and had no interest in becoming tech savvy. We all expected some pushback from the team, but we knew this one guy was just going to put up as much resistance as possible to the project.
So, I asked to have him put on the transition team. I solicited his input and asked him to make some recommendations for how we implemented and used the system. He was definitely not on board at first, but over time, as he grew to trust that I really did want his input, he became one of the most effective members of the team. His skepticism allowed us to avoid making some costly mistakes that may have delayed the project or created errors in the output.
When we went to roll the system out to the entire team, he was not the fly in the ointment. He was an advocate.
What changed? Instead of having his skepticism met with resistance and dismissal, it was elevated to valuable input. Moreover, the other team members were able to see the value he brought to the team more clearly.
We often make assumptions about people’s motives, character, and capabilities. But those are always formed through our own lens of experience.
Companies hire me to uncover those patterns, help them create behavior shifts, and turn those shifts into more effective ways to work together, improving productivity and results.
When we open up our lens and re-orient our interpretations, we are better able to see other ways of succeeding. We learn and grow. And the team’s performance improves dramatically.
And when we come in and help you and your team improve their own results, we measure the team before and after, so this isn’t just about whether people enjoyed the experience. We can look at whether the way the team actually performs has improved.
So, when you think about what your teams struggle with, where would you say your biggest opportunity is?
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