INTRODUCTION:
This is an area that many leaders find a bit difficult. Many leaders are big picture people and often have a little difficulty focusing in on the details. To organize anything requires that we be able to see the details. So what’s a leader to do? I see 5 critical pieces to organizing for success.
First, whether you feel it is important or not at this very moment in time, begin right now acting as if you believe organizing is important; that you truly value the process of organizing. This first step will do several great things for your team not the least of which will be endearing yourself to the people on your team who are extremely organized. These people are motivated by order, structure, and adherence to regulation. Your outward demonstration of valuing organization will be a huge plus to the folks. Of course, there will some “shoot-from-the-hip” folks that will think you’ve gone a little bonkers but you can let these people know that you really believe that a more organized approach will actually provide greater freedom for their more freewheeling approach.
Second, emancipate your organizers. This may really cause you some angst but as I recently found, when you do so and then hang on for dear life, the final product is something you can really appreciate. I have always been somewhat of a vertical organizer—you know there are piles everywhere and I have a pretty good idea what is in each pile. Although this works for me, most of the time (I have lost a document on occasion), the more aesthetically motivated people around me are driven to distraction by my apparent lack of concern for their sense of harmony and balance in the workplace. By turning the organizers loose on the organizational process you find out how much enjoyment and satisfaction this brings to those people, demonstrates how much you value them as members of the team, and your space, your team, your processes, and your procedures acquire more efficient systems for operation.
The third step is to agree to maintain the order, structure and systems that have been established and to commit, 100%, to that maintenance. Again, the organizers on the team need to have the freedom to help keep everyone on track. Some on the team may begin to feel that you have given the organizers too much power but the great leader understands that there are many places where team members should have the power and freedom to make critical decisions in areas that are not in your wheelhouse. If you are not a strategic thinker then you should emancipate the strategists in your midst. If you are not a strong influencer then you should allow the influencers to have at the influencing actions of the team. Or, if you lack technical competence in one or more areas that fall under your leadership, you absolutely must free up those that have those technical competencies so that the team has a chance to succeed. So it’s not about giving the organizers too much power, it’s about giving the people who are best able to carry the torch in specific critical areas the power they need in order to help the team succeed.
The fourth step is creating the ongoing support mechanisms needed to transform the organizing action into a cultural norm. For those people who are not as well organized this step is the most important of the five. A cultural norm is something that any person can readily witness upon engaging with members of the team. It will be seen, heard, and felt during such interactions. The reason this is so important is that unless this is done the disorganized will return to their prior state of maximum randomness or chaos. If that happens and the disorganized begin to carry out team functions in a way that lacks the agreed upon levels of organization, you will render the last step impossible to complete. Should that happen what you’ve done is wasted a lot of time and why we really get organized is so that we can truly complete step five of this process.
Step five is to evaluate the effectiveness of the efficiency schemes created by the organizers. Although efficiency is a marvelous thing for those who love to be organized it does not mean that the work is getting done in a way that truly meets the expectations of the team. In order to evaluate the effectiveness requires that we have a crystal clear view of what the expected outcomes are. It requires that we know exactly how we will measure whether we have attained those desired outcomes or not. If we are organized and have not achieved our desired outcomes then we have really wasted our time. So, even though this is listed as step five, it is also step zero because we must have the evaluation system in place before we begin to organize. We absolutely must know why we are creating the organization schemes we are creating. And then every step along the organizing pathway needs to be constantly monitored for alignment with the expected and desired outcomes. The simple question of how will this organizing act, helps us achieve our goals and objectives is a question that needs to be asked frequently.
In order to succeed in this 5 step process for organizing, it is important to realize that some people will take to this like ducks to water and others will avoid it like the plague. You job is to get everyone on the same page and to be part of the organizing process. This means finding a way to help the unorganized (and loving it) to actually like getting organized and it means that we have to find a way to encourage keeping organized and discourage chaos. The great leader must figure all of this out and then create the environment that makes it easy to stay organized. The problem with too many organizing activities is that they only last a short time. Busy people make choices about what to do with their time. If I have to choose between straitening things up and spending time with a potential client, I’m choosing the client. So one of the big necessities is creating an environment that makes it just as easy to stay organized as it is to allow maximum randomness to set in.
Finally, the great leader understands that during times of high stress all people will return to their most natural tendencies. So the leader looks for signs of stress by how team members handle the world around them. If people are lapsing into chaos is it because of stress? If people aren’t getting their work done because they are straightening up and cleaning is it because of stress? If people are getting angry about little glitches in systems, is it because they are stressed? The very act of attending to what’s going on in the physical and structural world around the team helps to support the appropriate need for organization, lets team members know you care, and sends the message that without results we are all in trouble.
The Many Skills Needed by Leaders Part VI:
ORGANIZING: Everything we experience exists in some system of organization. Whether our own natural system lends itself to our getting work done may be a different matter. Some people seem to prefer allowing the randomness of the universe to dictate how things are arranged and how things get done. Most of us, however, realize that for the sake of efficiency, a more purposeful arrangement of people, things, and ideas will be more useful. Most of us also realize that a perfect organizational scheme is not only unnecessary but can be an inhibitor of success. So how much organization is essential? And how much randomness creates chaos? And how much pursuit of perfection inhibits progress? These organizational questions are keys to our success as leaders.
Most of our leadership activities will involve a number of moving parts. If every moving part was mechanical, as opposed to human, we could simply set our statistical levels for tolerance of variation and we could stick to that measure. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, we do not lead machines, we lead people. And people come in different sizes, shapes, and temperaments. This makes leadership so much more challenging. It’s not about widgets and gadgets, it’s about Toms and Suzies and Ralphs and Cindies. These people add character to the process and a great deal of variability.
Many weeks ago I wrote about who you really are. Well everything we discover about who we really are also applies to each person we will lead. Where you might be reflective and thoughtful, Tom might be action oriented and have a need to operate with urgency. And Cindy might be someone who prefers to spend her time relating to people and trying to influence their actions and Ralph might be much more concerned with accuracy and doing things the right way. Most teams have a variety of approaches and styles and it is the leaders job to help that diversity merge into a cohesive and cooperative unit with each person contributing his or her own unique skills and talents to the work of the group.
The act of organizing people can best be accomplished if you really know who the people are and then by knowing the values, beliefs, talents, skills, leadership preferences, and predominant behavioral tendencies of those people. They can then be organized around the work that must be done.
Successful teams are not all the same but they are organized around some common threads. Those threads are: 1) Vulnerable Trust which means being willing to take risks and being willing to let others do the same; 2) Conflict mastery so conflicts become constructive tools for the improvement of the team; 3) Commitment to the team and its goals and objectives and to every decision the team makes; 4) Mutual accountability for what is done and how it get done; 5) Everyone on the team is focused on the results. No matter what the preferences of each person on the team, they must organize themselves around these common threads.
SUMMATION:
There is an easy to use 5 step process for organizing any team. Those steps in summary are:
1. Value the very act of organizing
2. Emancipate the natural organizers on your team
3. Agree to maintain the organization scheme and get 100% commitments from the team
4. Create the support mechanisms that will make organizing a cultural norm for the team
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented organizing activities against desired team outcomes (develop this step before or simultaneous to step one and apply each step along this path)
To succeed in an organizing effort requires that you know your people; not just by name but by what motivates them and by how they relate to people, things, and ideas. It always helps if we can figure out who needs help and who can we rely on to make the process work. We also need to know who can get so wrapped up in organizing that they may completely lose sight of the bigger picture. Leaders need to really know their people.
Once a leader knows the team it is important that the team trusts the leader and the leader trusts the team. This trust is not just the reliability and honesty trust that says a person will do what they say they will do and be open and honest, it is also the vulnerability trust that says I am willing to share my weaknesses and areas where I lack confidence and I am trusting you to not take advantage of me. Similarly, if you will share the same with me you can trust me not to take advantage of you either. For it is only when we know where the weaknesses are that we can truly work well as a team because we can make sure all of the holes get filled, that all our strengths are used wisely, and that where each of us feels inadequate we get support from the rest of the team.
When we organize around our knowledge of our team we make the team stronger. By knowing, understanding, organizing, planning, implementing, and evaluating based on real trust, the probability of success rises. When a team lacks trust it breeds anger and resentment. Objectives and goals get pushed aside. The whole reason for the team existing at all gets perverted into more of a “We have to be here” scenario as opposed to a we are all in this together because we believe in a common mission and share a common vision and adhere to a common purpose. When we are truly all in this together the act of organizing really takes on meaning and provides for all of us the opportunity to fulfill our own dreams as well as the mission of the team.
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