Everything Speaks

Are your communication tools clearly aligned around your vision?

Often, even with a clear vision in place, teams can struggle with polarity because they have not been provided tools that make team synergy and alignment easier. But often the team members are not to blame. If you asked them they might just say, “If we only knew what we were supposed to be saying!”

Give your team the gift of an aligned communication strategy. Develop your brand, provide key messaging and a style guide for your leaders. Communication tools will make your expectations clear because you have established a common way of seeing and saying who we are and where we are going. Just take a look at the before and after samples below.

Not only will you enhance synergy and alignment, but through clear and consistent messaging you will be understood more readily by the people you are trying to reach.

Try this:  Gather a sample of all your communication tools. (Include images of your website and social media.) Assess whether your message, both verbal and visual, are consistent and clear. Are they aligned across ministries and platforms? Have you given your people a clear pathway to assimilation into the church? Have you given your leaders tools to help them with aligned communication of the church’s vision and direction?

(If you are interested in having us help you with a Communications Assessment contact us and let us know how we can help)

\’blam-,stör-ming\ n. [From Latin blasphemare, to blaspheme; and Old English styrian, to stir]

1:  Business meeting that devolves into finding fault for projects gone wrong rather than looking for successful results.  2: A discussion between colleagues involving major finger pointing. USAGE: Blamestorming can last hours until a culprit is identified for each step of a failed project.  In excess, it can be characteristic of weak management.

EXAMPLE: “Where is everyone?” “Oh, they’ve been in that blamestoming session for hours.  No wonder we can’t get anything done around here.”

Thanks to Southwest Airlines in-air magazine for this great entry in their “Spirit Lexicon” business dictionary.

Do you want to create energy and innovation for your next project?

Avoid blamestorming! You can either focus on failure or you can focus on the future.  Blamestoming is an energy sucker.  It sucks wind of of the sails of enthusiasm, it sucks motivation, it sucks innovation and it sucks the life out of momentum.  (OK, it just sucks….. sorry)

Sure, it is important to determine what caused the project to miss the mark, BUT do it without pointing fingers and getting hung up on the need to place blame.  Keep ideas at the center of your dialogues and remember to always focus all conversations on learning and results for the future.  Energy spent there is energy lost moving toward results that will propel your organization forward.  Look toward the future and encourage your reports to do so as well.

A few things to remember:

1. Your behavior as a manager transfers to your reports (don’t create a culture finger pointing)
2. Look for learning not blame – always lead with results and solutions in mind
3. Focus on ideas not people
4. Use those ideas to generate innovation that will drive your organization into the future

Whatever the reason, suppress any urge you have to waste energy on BLAME.  You will have more innovative, productive and enthusiastic teams when you focus on the future.

Does your team collaborate well and make decisions with absolute clarity?

Often when I work with team leader about building healthy teams, the frustration of how to attain consensus (agreement) and come to decisions that people are ready to implement is a key topic.  Frequently, the roadblock to moving an initiative forward is that a clear direction and decision has not been agreed upon.  Take a new look at collaboration and decision making.

Do you and your team have guidelines for how you collaborate and make decisions? Do you dialogue around an idea? Have you established a signal that indicates when the team has arrived at an agreed upon decision? Often, expectations are not met because there was never a point after some great ideation and brainstorming that the team had landed on a decision. Everyone felt energized by the flow ideas, but after the fact, no one was ready to act – mostly because they were unclear about what decision was reached.

Try this simple technique next time you have a team meeting. After robust dialogue around a decision that must be made, indicate to the team that it is time to commit to an agreed upon decision. We simply say, “Decide/Commit” and abbreviate it D/C. Then use the 100/80 rule of consensus. Rather than thinking about consensus as 80% of us are 100% on board with a decision, lead with the idea that you should have 100% of the team 80% (or better) on board with the decision. When your entire team is 80% in agreement, you can move ahead with everyone clear and moving in the same direction. And you avoid the possibility of having 20% of your team feeling dissatisfied. Expectations clearly stated. (for a closer look at collaboration and a tool to help you, check out collaborationcube.com).

If you would like to learn more about how to integrate this into your team meetings, contact me cheryl@auxano.com

While writing my next post on a leadership topic, I was distracted by the news of the tornados that destroyed Joplin, MO (following the weather disasters that have headlined the news recently). The stories of people helping people, caring and sharing speaks so strongly of the best of humanity.  And I thought that is not just the best, but the essence. Despite the chaos, God shows Himself through us – and, despite the negative the media promotes with sensational stories, I am inspired by the stories of support, faith and love born from the disaster. Prayers and love to all those who, with the best of His gift of humanity,  share His love. Wherever and whenever.

Recently I had the pleasure of spending time in a conversation about leadership with Dave Saathoff, lead pastor at City Church in San Antonio. I love the way he sees the role of the leader as a cultural architect. I asked him to expand on what that looks like. I paraphrase….

You wake up every morning with ONE thing – one focus.  PROTECT THE CULTURE.  If you do that, the culture becomes so potent that if anything tries to invade, disrupt or dilute your mission and culture, that the culture itself will expunge it [or them].

Imagine creating a culture that is so strong that intuitively stays on mission.  That it creates a missional force so strong that it protects itself with a powerful centripedal force as people are drawn to the core.  That the strong center actually (counterintuitively) results in a powerful centrifugal force of energy outward – away from the center.

Personally,  I think this is a great way to think about what the best leaders do.  Create a dynamic and powerful culture that releases its people to energetically live out the mission.

Cool.