Dare to Disagree- Power of A Good Fight

I once had a senior boss who arrived on the job and handed out the Harvard Business Review Article,  "How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight" and then he proceeded to marginalize anyone who disagreed with him, even if it was in a one-on-one discussion.  Learning from Lencioni's The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, there was definitely an absence of trust.

Conflict is so important to an organization, yet it is viewed as a negative.  Differences create rich discussions and produce better outcomes.  Having conflict requires patience and energy but a good, clean debate or discussion leaves you with confidence in the outcomes and as a manager, you get the best out of your people.

How do we develop the skills:

Don't fear conflict, fear silence
Practice standing up to authority
Assume others have the same doubts
Voice concerns
Teach this early and often

http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_dare_to_disagree.html

Focus on WHY your organization does what it does and people will follow you wholeheartedly

What  you do, how do you do, and why does your organization exist?

Focus on the WHY and you will be able to inspire your workforce to do great things and your customers to purchase your products and/or services.

This is Simon Sinek's premise in his  TED talk , which is also a book

You want to do business with the people who believe what you believe.   They won't buy WHAT you do, they'll buy WHY you do it.

He links this to biology and the brain.  The limbic brain is responsible for feelings and decisionmaking and has no capacity for language.  Facts and figures don't drive behavior, people decide with their gut.  In order to do this they need to know WHY you do what you do.
Apple has been most successful with this model.

Hire people who believe in the WHY and they will work for you with all their heart.

Turning around a dysfunctional team

I reread Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team to refresh my knowledge for a challenge I have been facing at work.

Written in story format, the book tells the tale of a new boss coming into an organization that works in stovepipes.  Her goal is to get them to work as a team to ultimately succeed as a business.

Lencioni frames the dysfunction in the form of a pyramid:

First you need trust, then a dose of healthy conflict since people shouldn't be afraid to voice their opinions and concerns. This is followed by commitment to the team over individual loyalties, holding one another accountable, and ultimately focusing on achieving results for the organization.

 

In addition to addressing these parts of the pyramid, the boss also refers to exercises in teambuilding that take place such as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator .  You could also use other personality or value assessments such as the  DiSC or Four Lenses.

 

These tools help one another understand why we act the way we do and provide a framework for discussion. 

 

For an interesting perspective on personality tests and their limitations (are you a dog person or a cat person?), See Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker article  "Personality Plus"