Archives For Teamwork

Leading In The Moment

May 9, 2013 — Leave a comment

Yesterday our Digital Strategies team met for our monthly Strategy Day.

Strategy days allow us to devote longer sessions of up to two to three hours on a single issue or cluster of problems. We seek to dive deep and pray for wisdom to make one or two decisive calls that ensure we stay on track. We mine for conflict: opposing points of view, subsurface issues that tend to fester, places where someone hasn’t truly bought in at the heart level.

Yesterday while mining we struck gold.

How did I know? Emotions began to rise along with a few people’s tone of voice. While this could have derailed a typical meeting, two team members noticed the escalation and invited us to pause, pray, and take a few moments to dig even deeper. Once we ensured that relationships were ok and forgiveness was asked for where needed, we moved on the even more fruitful discovery and decision-making.

It took courage and Spirit-filled self-awareness for my two teammates to lead in the moment. I’m thankful they did. Their actions saved a meeting and allowed us to commit to a game-changing decision that will radically affect the way we operate in the next 12-36 months.

Where have you led (or failed to lead) in the moment?

In Leadership, Teamwork ,
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My Team Just Died

December 2, 2012 — Leave a comment

Groupthink can be a killer.

At a conference I’m attending we had a group synergy exercise. The facilitator broke us into groups of 6-10 people, then read us this scenario:

You are the only survivors of a plane crash. It’s January and you are somewhere in the Canadian Rockies. Daytime temps are 25 below zero; nighttime temps are 40 below zero. You are all dressed in business attire. Here is a list of 12 items you were able to salvage from the wreckage. Rank the items as needed, 1 to 12. Your survival depends on it!

We had a few minutes to rank the items personally, in silence. Then we were given 15 minutes to come together as a group, determine our survival strategy, and rank the items as a group.

My team’s strategy was to try to make it to the nearest town, about 30 km away. We prioritized our items.

After time was up, the first question the facilitator asked was how many of our teams would try to make it to the town, or would send one or two people to the town? Our team raised our hands. “You’re all dead.”

At the end of the time, the facilitator compared our personal rankings, group rankings and survival expert ratings. Apparently 26% of individuals score better than their teams, and 50% of teams score better than their smartest individual. Not so in our case. Several of my teammates (including me) scored better as individuals. We all would have survived if we hadn’t gotten sucked into groupthink under pressure.

In real life, we know teams tend to work well. I’m a strong believer in teamwork. However, there are times when It might be wise to give individuals a little bit of time and space to come up with great ideas on their own before forging a wonderfully mediocre, if not deadly, plan.

How might your team be getting sucked in to groupthink?

 

 

In Productivity, Teamwork
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My Thesis: A Paradigm for 21st Century Global Leaders

June 8, 2012 — 5 Comments

Do you wake up every day with a calling to lead people you can’t physically see or touch?

Do you regularly engage in team or project work with people from other cultures?

Do you long for the hype of “leader as omnipotent hero” to give way to a more authentic model of “leader as servant?”

If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, you may be interested in scanning through “Servant Leadership Across Distance and Cultures: A New Paradigm for 21st Century Global Leaders.” Catchy title, I know. Such is the nature of academic work. You can also find my thesis on the Downloads tab on my blog. I’d love your feedback.

Here’s the Abstract …

This project addresses the lack of a distance leadership paradigm to adequately prepare servant leaders who are capable of leading well across distance and cultures within Campus Crusade for Christ’s (CCC) global level of leadership.

Research explored three aspects of leadership: servant leadership, distance leadership, and cross-cultural leadership. First, servant leadership builds on and surpasses other leadership models for global work because it seeks first to serve and develop others into mature, autonomous leaders who will, in turn, serve others. Robert Greenleaf’s test for increasing personal autonomy in servant leadership is essential in distance leadership because close supervision is impossible and counterproductive to organizational effectiveness. Second, effective distance leaders learn to overcome relational distance by using advanced communications technology to build and sustain trusting relationships with followers, partners, and other leaders. Third, effective global leaders grow in self-awareness of their own cultural bias and learn how to manage cultural diversity by studying, respecting, and dialoguing about cultural differences.

Field interviews and group discussions with more than 80 of CCC’s global leaders highlighted personal humility and building trusting relationships as two keys to effectively leading across distance and cultures. Helps and hindrances were identified in three categories: communication-rich relationships, integrity and trustworthiness in personal character, and leadership competence in using advanced communications technology. Findings strongly supported biblical servant leadership examples of Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul, Kathleen Patterson’s servant leadership virtuous construct, and the GLOBE study of 62 societies’ culturally endorsed leadership theory (CLT).

The researcher presents a new paradigm for 21st century global leaders.

I welcome your feedback at kcochrum@gmail.com.

 

In Books & Quotes, Culture, Leadership, Productivity, Teamwork
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