‘Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organisational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.’

Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American industrialist

This chapter covers:

• what a ‘team’ looks like and how the types of teams you lead impact your leadership style
• how to balance one-on-one relationships with your team members with your relationship with the team as a whole
• tools and techniques to build rapport, enhance motivation and drive results
• trust, respect and inclusiveness – and why they matter.

Teambuilding is about creating a real sense of belonging and mobilising energy in one direction. Leaders recognise the importance of this when it comes to driving change and achieving results.

Before exploring the tools and techniques required to build a team, though, it is important to clarify the following three things:

• the concept of teams and leadership – how teams are formed
• the objectives of leaders with regard to their teams
• the duties of leaders towards their teams.

The concept of a team and leadership

The model shown in Figure 7.1 represents how teams are often formed in corporate environments.

However, this is not sufficient to entirely explain the notion of a ‘team’. In today’s world, a number of people put together simply to carry out an activity do not necessarily qualify as a team. There are other elements required, such as having a shared vision, personal relationships, co-creation and, as an emerging trend, a sense of community, collaboration and belonging.

In this chapter, the focus will be on leading a team as in dealing with relation to your direct reports – how to handle your peers and a team of leaders is analysed in Chapter 8. In this context, a team consists of two main dimensions – the building of individual relationships with each of the team members and the position of the leader in relation to the team as a whole.

The objectives of leaders for their teams may vary depending on the history of those teams. Is the leader inheriting a mature and stable team? In this case, the task for the new leader will be to establish him- or herself in an already formed group. Is the leader there to drive a change management agenda or create a new business? If so, it will be important for the leader to think in strategic terms about resources.

A definition of leadership by John Kotter¹ is that, essentially, leaders have two main duties: to align people in order to ensure delivery of the vision, motivate and energise them to create value.

With the above dimensions in mind, how can an individual excel in the delicate matter of building or leading a team made up of creatures as volatile, unpredictable and mysterious as human beings?

The following three cornerstones need to be considered and will be addressed in the rest of this chapter:

• Building rapport – commanding trust and respect or knowing how to connect with your team members.
• Motivation and setting objectives – aligning people appropriately in terms of what they need to achieve for themselves and the organisation or knowing how to get the best out of a team.
• Reward and recognition – creating sustained levels of performance or knowing how to push the team further.

Building rapport

Learning how to connect with your team can be summed up in two basic principles. The first is to invest time in getting to know them as people, to understand their drivers and their values. It requires you to hone your listening and observation skills and multiply one-on-one interactions. Getting to know your team members is particularly efficient if you are also prepared to let them know you. Creating a sense of reciprocity is key. The second principle is to aim to create an environment of trust, inclusiveness and respect that will be conducive to a productive team atmosphere. This can be achieved by paying attention to a set of attributes – being transparent and being supportive – and consistently demonstrating a certain set of behaviours – valuing difference, empowering people and righting wrongs. All of this needs to be underpinned by reciprocity and communication.

Human beings are highly social creatures who thrive on establishing emotional bonds. Anyone is more willing to deliver, push themselves and help someone they like, respect or trust than someone they do not.

According to Daniel Goleman,² ‘emotional intelligence’ is what distinguishes great leaders from merely good ones. It is the ability to understand other people’s emotional make-up by means of empathy and relying on social skills to move people in the right direction.

Leaders need to heighten their ability to be inclusive, think globally and be collaborative. This is the first filter to use when building or leading a team, while the second is authenticity and being true to oneself. Everything that follows needs to be done while keeping the following two questions in mind:

• How can I demonstrate the leadership values of the future?
• How can I remain authentic with my team?

Knowing me, knowing you … creating a personal bond

Getting to know people is a two-way process. It should be rooted in a genuine desire to get inside your team members’ heads, to know them as people. It also requires the introduction of a certain level of reciprocity, letting them know you as a person, too – not only as a figure of authority – and creating a feeling of equality. The following four suggestions would make a good starting point:

• invest time in understanding who they are
• invest time in interacting with them in different capacities
• create a regular schedule of diverse channels of communication
• be open to showing them your true colours and letting them know you.

Understanding who your team members are

This is about establishing their ‘baseline’ – discovering their main characteristics and finding the essence of who your team members are. Teams are increasingly diverse, gathered together from different backgrounds, cultures and age groups. Delivering results is highly correlated to motivation and the drivers of a 39-year-old man who is married with two children will be quite different from those of a 25-year-old woman with no children. Invest adequate time in gathering data. Using the questions and processes described in Chapters 3 and 4 can also be useful here, enabling you to understand them as individuals. Complement these with the following question, which will help you to create a list of further questions so you can answer this one:

• What do I want to know about this person that will enable me to understand, guide and get the best out of him or her?

Once the basics of an understanding and relationship have been established, a leader may decide to go one step further and enquire about the team member’s personal life. Only do this if it is culturally acceptable (avoid doing so in some Asian or Indian cultures) and, as a leader, you feel comfortable doing this. Being aware and respectful of values and boundaries will guide you appropriately here.

How you go about asking these questions is a personal choice, rooted in your brand, leadership style and comfort zone. This should be built on the findings of your own self-awareness journey.

Some leaders prefer the safety of a formal one-on-one discussion in an office, where they will first present the list of questions to the team member and then engage them in a discussion about each, one after the other. At the other end of the spectrum, you may choose a less structured approach, talking over coffee and sticking to a general informal conversation where you can touch on the list of questions mentioned above but as part of general social interaction. You may also consider using Myers-Briggs type indicator (MBTI) profiling and 360-degree assessments with your team to get additional insights into how they perceive themselves.

Interacting with and observing your team members

Ongoing observation helps you to draw conclusions about individuals’ inherent abilities – technically, intellectually and emotionally – based on practical examples.

Here are some things to be aware of as you interact and observe:

• Who takes a backseat approach? Who listens first but then, when the time is right, comes up with a statement that makes everyone pause?
• Who is the first to talk in a group discussion? This could reveal either courage (if the opinions are well thought through and the person regularly challenges the status quo) or insecurity (if the person opens the debate, but rapidly changes to align with others’ opinions).
• Who, most of the time, is willing to challenge or debate a solution? This is a sign of an innovative and risk-taking individual.
• Who comes up with practical examples? This is indicative of an action-orientated person.
• Who readily admits to not understanding what you mean? This is a sign of self-confidence and thoroughness.
• Who will systematically elevate the discussion and talk about the big picture? This marks out the conceptual thinker from the strategic thinker.
• Who dives straight away into the details? This is another sign of an action-orientated person.
• Who changes their mind if the group changes? This may indicate conformism.

Observing your team provides clues as to how to motivate or influence its members. It can be very helpful to work out strategies as a result for the best team mix of people for any specific project. (For more on this, see Chapter 11.)

When possible, complement observations with working one-on-one with a team member. Try positioning yourself more as a peer than as a leader in order to create a different dynamic with your team member. Although this may feel slightly uncomfortable, it can help you to build a more democratic and collaborative leadership style.

Creating a routine to share and connect with your team members

Time is an important element in teambuilding. Multiplying interactions increases the chances of you being able to get inside the heads of team members and develop stronger ties.

Time should be invested in the full range of situations – formal and informal, virtual and face-to-face, one-on-one and group – addressing both operational issues and more personal ones.

Being genuine in your interactions with team members is what matters most for fostering team spirit. Keeping a log of all the information gathered about them will help with setting objectives and knowing what will aid their motivation. These actions will be instrumental in you transforming one-on-one relationships into team relationship and, also establishing your relationship with the team as an entity.

Showing your true colours to establish a certain level of reciprocity

Leadership is also about being comfortable with exposing weaknesses or fears. Good leaders make their team an inherent part of their leadership development.

It can be counter-intuitive for leaders to show vulnerability as they may fear this will be perceived as a departure from their authority and absolute wisdom. However, as shown by Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones in their book Why Should Anyone be Led by You? (Harvard Business School Press, 2006), it is important to appear human. It makes leaders much more approachable. Ultimately, it helps to establish trust.

‘My brother-in-law is a philosophy teacher and, for some unknown reason, he always wears the oddest shoes, these old walking shoes – big, heavy, completely ruined – went out of fashion about 20 years ago, and I once asked him, ‘Why on earth are you still wearing those shoes?’ He smiled softly and answered, “Because the pupils always have something to make fun of me about”. Regardless of your ambitions and perfection, make sure you know and show some of your weakness, to make yourself human, an imperfect being, and allow team members and other people to relate to you.’

Interview with Clara Gaymard,
President and CEO of General Electric France

However, it is important for leaders to be selective in what they show as their weaknesses. It is best not to expose anything that could be perceived as a fatal flaw in your leadership qualities. For example, if you were a finance director, it would be better not to reveal that you know nothing about discounted cash flow or US GAAPs. It may be safer to choose a tangential weakness instead – such as, being impatient – or one others will consider a strength – such as being persistent or driven – or think in terms of the big picture – pushing your team members to develop the ability to both use their strategic thinking to communicate with you and be able to get into the details if needed.

Beyond creating trust and solidarity, communicating a weakness also builds a collaborative atmosphere. It allows team members to feel not only needed but also able to contribute to the leader’s development. This should be complemented by communicating the importance of team feedback, so you grow to become the best you can be. Relying on others and highlighting interdependencies are also important elements in building rapport.

In a nutshell, the first step towards building rapport involves taking genuine interest in others, observing your team members and sharing and being open about yourself.

Gaining trust and respect and creating an inclusive environment

As mentioned in the previous chapter, values do matter when it comes to your credibility. They matter even more when you are building and leading a team. Trust, inclusiveness and respect are intertwined; they build on and feed from each other. With trust comes respect, with inclusiveness comes trust and respect, and with respect come results. As a team leader, building this virtuous circle is critical.

According to Stephen R. Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, trust is a rare commodity in our current environment and appears significantly less prevalent than a generation ago. In an article in Leadership Now, Covey states that only 49 per cent of employees trust senior management and only 28 per cent believe CEOs are credible sources of information.

How can anyone lead a team, if they can’t foster trust and respect? As Warren Bennis put it, ‘Leadership without mutual trust is a contradiction in terms.’

There are six basic principles to be observed if you are to establish the team you want and for it to yield the results you want or need:

• reciprocity
• transparency and support
• communication and consistency
• value difference
• empowerment
• righting wrongs.

Reciprocity

You want them to trust you. Start by trusting them.

• Gain and grow trust by setting objectives in line with what you need and want and what they need and want.
• Build on their trust by being open and non-judgmental and sticking to your word.
• Make them as accountable for results as you are.
• Move from ‘I’ and ‘them’ to thinking in terms of ‘we’. Now think about your personal actions and decisions as ‘we’. What does this imply for the team?

Reciprocity creates a loyal and interdependent environment where all succeed or fail as a team.

Transparency and support

Say what you do, do what you say. Be open and transparent about your objectives, expectations, what makes you tick – even your emotional state, if you think it is important in order for your team members to understand your behaviours. For example, if you have had a pretty tough day and you know you could have a strong negative reaction to events, be ready to share this with your team if one of them comes to you with bad news or notification of a crisis. Showing your emotions will make them comfortable about doing the same.

Be there for them and support them, once objectives and accountability have been established. For instance, if an external party puts them on the spot in a meeting, step in and protect them, but make sure you address the issue less formally afterwards, too. Ask them to be there for you as well and stress the importance of their feedback for your journey.

Creating trust and team spirit implies supporting each other and presenting a united face to the rest of the organisation. Having this makes it possible to gain loyalty, too. As a leader you have an impact on your team. Set the tone and make them want to emulate your behaviours.

Communication and consistency

Talk straight, stick to your word, keep your commitments, be reliable. In other words, live and breathe your leadership brand in terms of how you relate to and interact with your team (see Chapter 5) and be consistent in how you demonstrate your behaviours.

Value difference

It has been established that inclusiveness is, more and more, an important way to accelerate progress up the ladder. Valuing difference is the first step towards inclusiveness. Purposefully build a team with members who are different from you and, if at all possible, different from each other. The team dynamics created as a result will produce enough disruptive opinions and tensions for you to steer towards and demonstrate inclusiveness.

In order to maximise the benefits of a diverse team, establish the following operating principles:

• listen to all, engage with all, never disregard any input
• treat everyone the same way – with respect and care – and be aware of micro-inequities
• do not judge, listen first; attempt to understand their behaviours, building on what you have learned about them.

Be aware of your own personal biases, likes and dislikes. Naturally, you will have more chemistry with some of your team members than with others, but pay attention to your behaviour as it could have an impact on others in the team. Specifically, be aware of how your behaviour can unintentionally trigger fear.

Empowerment

A team needs space. In her book, Judy Brown³ has a poem called ‘Fire’ that is particularly appropriate:

‘What makes fires burn is space between the logs, a breathing space. Too much of a good thing, too many logs packed in too tight can douse the flames.’

Team members can indeed feel suffocated when they are supervised too closely. Equally destructive is a leadership style that floats on the surface of things and is not grounded in a real understanding of the issues.

Achieving the right balance between empowerment and supervision is possible:

• let them learn and let them deliver once the objectives are clear
• occasionally delve into some of their issues in detail, to provide the right level of challenge and support.

The very fact that your team knows you can and will go deeply into things will help your credibility and create respect.

The last point to be mindful of – to complete the journey from trust to inclusiveness to respect – is that you need to right any wrongs.

Righting wrongs

As a leader, never be afraid to recognise when you are wrong or say you are genuinely sorry. You will gain respect, on a personal level, and increase loyalty.

Finally Figure 7.2⁴ summarises the building blocks of, and journey to achieving, trust, inclusiveness and, ultimately, respect.

Trust, inclusiveness and respect should not be confused with softness. Being intelligently trustful, inclusive and respectful means that you are also conveying a strong level of expectation and sense of accountability. Delivery is the name of the game and the purpose of the team’s existence.

Trust, inclusiveness and respect will contribute to fostering a safe environment in which all collaborate, contribute and yield better results.

Stretching your team members to deliver and helping them gain credibility is an important part of building rapport and motivating them.

A safe environment is one in which people feel able to show their true colours, one in which they feel valued and respected.

All of the above information is particularly useful for new leaders. Indeed, implementing it in the first 90 days of your tenure is an elegant way to create impact, establish your personal brand and build momentum towards achieving delivery.

It will also allow you to quickly grasp the overall mix of strengths and weaknesses in your team and give you an opportunity to reflect on any changes that might need to be made.

Maintaining the relationship

Establishing the rituals of regularly communicating and engaging with your team will enable you to keep your finger on the pulse of your team members’ motivations, desires and needs. It will also allow for proactive corrective actions to be taken if needs be. For instance, it can allow you to sense the dissatisfaction of some at a crucial moment for the business or prevent the loss of your star performer.

There are various ways in which you can do this.

Weekly or bi-weekly one-on-ones

The purpose of these meetings is to tackle operational issues and track the development and performance of the team members.

Most of the time, these meetings will be virtual or over the phone. However, consider using Skype or video conferencing so you can create a connection by means of facial expressions and body language. Give your full and undivided attention during these meetings, shutting down your e-mail, phone and any other devices.

For face-to-face meetings, avoid checking the time and control your body language. Taking notes is a good way to stay in the moment.

Informal chats

These can be very powerful and telling. Regular calls to team members, when there are no pressing issues to discuss, to check in with them about what is going on, will make them feel valued as people.

Informal chats are useful when you sense that something is not right, as a result of previous interactions or feedback from others in the same office or region, for example. Connecting at the human level is critical to building loyalty. At times, a friendly and unexpected phone call is all it takes to reassure, motivate or simply avoid losing a team member. A chat may make someone feel special and glad to be part of your team.

Face-to-face meetings

These remain the best way to truly connect with others.

It is advisable to meet face-to-face two to three times a year with direct reports – individually and as a team. This helps break down distance and create a fair environment. Factor in proper periods of time for both business and quality time with team members (over dinner or a long lunch, for example). Engage them with social or cultural topics to show that you are genuinely interested in them.

You can record all your data as shown in Table 7.1 and add it to your team member’s file.

Table 7.1 Example format to record data from meetings

Date	Team member’s name
Topic 1	Problems and discussion
Topic 2	xxxxx
Topic 3	xxxx
Summary of last time	xxxxx
Actions to be taken	Xxxx by xxxx
Follow-up needed?
Help needed?

Motivation and setting objectives – getting the best out of your team

Being able to get the best out of your people and run a team that achieves a high standard of performance should be the goal and pride of any leader. In order to take your team’s performance to the next level, two elements need to be considered. First, how to motivate your team by involving them in setting goals for the organisation, ensuring that these goals also address some of their most important needs and desires. Second, by crafting a reward and recognition system that is genuine, and addresses not only the ‘what to do’ but also the ‘what to be’.

Before diving into the heart of the first of these, it is important to understand the documents used to monitor individual performance in any organisation.

In most companies there are two distinct sets of documents used to drive motivation and set objectives. They will be put together on a yearly basis and reviewed once or twice during the year. Though the names given to those will of course vary from company to company, they usually include the following:

• Individual development plan (IDP) This states an individual employee’s strengths and weaknesses. It describes their personal career goals, for both the short and long term. Ultimately, it helps with crafting training programmes and potential learning experiences to enable employees to work on their weaknesses and achieve their goals. This is not part of the measurement of their performance.
• Goals and objectives (G&Os) This document addresses what the employees need to deliver in order to contribute to the company’s goals. Their performance is based on how they have done in terms of delivering these identified goals, which they have committed to.

Examples of both these documents can be found in Appendix 1.

In most cases, these two documents are never looked at in conjunction with each other or in a compare and contrast fashion. Neither do they tend to address or factor in interdependencies or team elements. On the contrary, companies usually link team performance to company goals and promotions to individual achievements by looking solely at the goals and objectives (G&Os) document.

Leaders focus first on what is needed by the organisation and then cascade this down to their team members. This then becomes the basis for any evaluations of their performance. What may result is an averagely or even poorly motivated workforce and sometimes the sacrifice of quality work for quantity of work.

The truth? Organisations actually have limited powers to motivate employees. As human beings, most individuals are driven by intrinsic rewards, such as challenging work and the opportunity to grow. These needs are usually addressed in the individual development plan (IDP).

To build a strongly motivated team performing at the highest level, you need to enable your team members to activate their own internal motivation and deliver on the company’s goals, thus aligning G&Os and IDPs while recognising interdependencies.

The following three elements need to be addressed:

• Setting a compelling vision for the organisation to deliver on This enhances the feeling of belonging. The notion of co-creation is an important part of this process.
• Crafting rewarding objectives for each individual This secures their motivation and activates their own drivers. It should also address the interdependencies to further strengthen team spirit.
• Reflecting on a feedback process and genuine reward and recognition.

Understanding and harnessing the virtues of co-creation

One of a leader’s duties is to define a vision and set a strategy for the organisation or a particular business unit or the team they are in charge of (vision and strategy are analysed in Chapters 9 and 10). Regardless of your position in the organisation, whether you are the CEO of a company or lower down, you will always have the delicate task of bringing your team on the journey to achieving these with you. This is where co-creation can help.

Co-creation is one way to use the results of all the work you have put into establishing your one-on-one relationships and truly become the leader of your team. It is the way to create buy in and increase loyalty. It also serves to concentrate and direct efforts towards achieving a common goal. In other words, it will enable you to achieve an important part of your leadership role – aligning resources.

In the co-creation process, you may use the insights you have gained about your individual team members and their strengths and what motivates them to create positive tension and discussion.

The ideal setting for this exercise is in a one- to two-day, face-to-face meeting with all your direct reports. This allows for proper discussion, sharing and agreement.

To co-create, the following are needed:

• sharing of information by the leader with the group
• questioning and reflecting – this might be in an iterative way together with sharing of the information
• agreement and making decisions from the leader and the group
• personal commitment – mostly from the individual team members

Sharing information

The team leader is in the driving seat and communicates to the team the vision, goals and objectives that have been agreed on at a higher level, including the rationales for them. These may include the following benefits:

• creating a sense of purpose – by setting the context and painting the global picture, team members will feel that they are taking part in something that matters
• creating a sense of belonging – by being transparent and asking everyone to think together, team members feel valued and energised
• creating a sense of fairness – everyone feels on an equal footing in contributing to the solution.

Questioning and reflecting

The leader then takes a back seat and lets the chemistry of the team play out. Some of the following questions may be used as ice-breakers or prompts:

• What does it mean for us as a team?
• Is there anything else we feel strongly about or that needs to be considered?
• What would success look like for us?

These questions:

• reinforce the need to comply, as a part of a bigger group
• recognise the specifics of the group features, needs and so on – to allow for specific pain points or important topics
• translate words into tangible results to be delivered
• allow for measurement to take place.

Leaders will always have a personal vision to factor in and their role is also to steer the discussion towards related goals. It is important to remain open and inclusive. All inputs can result in determining goals or objectives that will yield better results than the original ones. This is therefore an important phase of the process that leaders need to facilitate and steer by:

• throwing controversial comments or ideas into the discussion
• challenging ideas – using the 5 Whys technique to fully explore the cause and effect relationships, as developed by Toyota and an important part of the Six Sigma methodology by General Electric (see Chapter 6) – or introducing some constraints
• fostering a culture of not interrupting and respect – an important part of creating trust
• factoring in formal moments to go around the room asking for every one’s personal views on the discussion – this allows for the less extrovert to get an opportunity to enrich the conversation.

It is important to allow enough time for this to happen. Some of the techniques and tools described in Chapters 9 and 10, such as the entrepreneurial game and the Merlin exercise can be used in these sessions to help achieve this.

Agreement and making decisions

The leader takes back control. When everyone has been heard and the appropriate amount of discussion and reflection has taken place, the leader should:

• summarise what has been said
• acknowledge all sides of people’s arguments
• exercise his or her leadership role and make a decision.

This approach achieves a good balance between democratic engagement (the leader is inclusive and respectful) and vertical, hierarchical decision making (the leader is the figure of authority). It also creates a strong sense of motivation and accountability.

Personal commitment

This is the critical and final element. In his book, Conscious Business: How to build value through values, Fred Kofman (Sounds True, 2006) states ‘a culture of impeccability in commitments fosters a sense of achievement, dignity and self-worth in its members’.

Setting objectives does not mean much without securing commitment to achieving them. Such commitment comes from clarity and understanding, which are what the first three steps in the co-creation process are designed to achieve. It also results from ensuring that what is agreed aligns with people’s values.

Language is important in this process – use words such as ‘personally’, ‘engage’, ‘commit’, ‘accountable’. You could consider mirroring some of the language used in the oath a new president makes in taking office, as it crystallises the leader’s accountability and responsibility when representing values and commitment. Expressing commitment in front of others also gives some solemnity to the exercise and can be a powerful way to create a positive sort of discomfort.

Once the objectives have been set, ask for team members to state their personal commitment to act to deliver the co-created agenda.

For the most efficient outcome to co-creation and goals and objectives, two simple rules are helpful:

• Keep it simple – avoid complexity. Set a reasonable number of straightforward targets for the team as this creates a culture of execution.
• Ensure that the targets are clearly defined and focus on what needs to be achieved, not how it should be achieved. This should be left to the team members to work on so that they can bring their own ideas and personality to the task. This is part of the empowerment and trust process.

Figure 7.3 summarises a co-creation process.

Aligning individual and organisational goals

Building rapport is the first step in motivating people. It shows a will to connect at the personal level and a commitment to investing time in them.

Setting team objectives in the process of co-creation is the second step – albeit an important one. Co-creation is a powerful way to recognise the intrinsic value of each and every one of your subordinates. Additionally, it builds positive team dynamics and contributes to creating a trusting and safe environment.

To truly motivate team members to deliver for you, merge the following:

• the insights gathered about your team members – their motivations, needs and dreams
• the co-created goals to develop these individuals’ objectives. Figure 7.4 summarises the process.

In doing this, leaders demonstrate that they are taking into account individuals’ needs and wants. This gives team members a sense of empowerment and control over their own destiny and yet, at the same time, the company’s goals are also being worked towards. Essentially, this meshes individual and organisational needs.

To ensure that this is the outcome leaders should invest the necessary time in setting adequate objectives with individual team members. Consider doing the following:

• Take the time to hold two comprehensive sessions of one or one and half hours per direct report – this is the foundation of a winning delivery strategy.
• It is recommended that you do not schedule these at the end of a busy day or week as you will need to be in a listening and problem solving mode. From a personal branding perspective, poor scheduling can send the wrong signal about your priorities – that the team and people are the last thing on your agenda.
• Holding all the sessions in the same week can present you with the global picture, enabling you to then draw up an action plan having a clear vision of how everyone in the team can contribute.

For a fully comprehensive, individual, co-creation goal-setting exercise, follow these three steps:

• Preparation work Individual needs are reviewed and the leader creates a mental picture of what might be beneficial for both employees and the organisation.
• Hold two meetings In the first, the team member expresses his or her views and needs while the leader listens and decides on areas of agreement. In the second, the team member and leader compare thoughts and settle on co-created objectives.
• The handshake This happens at the end of the session – the moment when the terms of the contract between the leader and the team member are crystallised, including what each will deliver. The right balance needs to be struck between what the team member needs and what the company or the leader needs. What is agreed has to be compelling.

The above can be complemented by also systematically ensuring that team members enjoy job enrichment. In his Harvard Business Review article ‘One more time: How do you motivate your employees’, Frederick Herzberg (January 2003) presents job enrichment as a sophisticated way of factoring employees’ desires and needs into the crafting of meaningful goals and objectives. He states that if you:

• empower individuals by removing controls, you will increase their accountability
• stretch people constantly, you will increase their sense of belonging and self-worth – for example, by giving them responsibility for a complete process or unit of work, letting them take on new or more difficult tasks or encouraging them to become a subject matter expert for the group
• communicate and share information directly with individuals, not their managers first, you will enhance their motivation and sense of achievement.

Herzberg also states that it is desirable for leaders to be self-confident and master their fear of not being needed. Leaders need to embrace what they are really there to do – develop people.

While engaging with your employees, make sure that you also address the ways in which you will be working – that is, how you will interact with them. Keep the concept of job enrichment in mind and express your commitment to them as well. Over the course of the year, or when you are reflecting on your own behaviour, ensure that you are delivering on or behaving in a way that complies with this commitment.

This creates a virtuous circle and enhances the company’s performance, too.

Although it is not an intuitive or common practice, crafting team and individual objectives by means of the co-creation process is a highly efficient way to ensure that there is alignment of goals and motivation, as the objectives come out of dialogue and respect. This helps to generate a greater sense of commitment and accountability as a result of the feeling of community and shared success generated.

Figure 7.5 summarises these new ways to create high-performance teams, meshing all the critical dimensions – the company’s objectives, leader’s vision, individual members’ needs and team interdependencies.

Giving feedback and recognising and rewarding performance

Motivating a team is an on-going process and one of the key parts of what a leader does. It is achieved by being constantly aware of the levels of motivation of your team, providing regular feedback and developing mechanisms to reward and recognise people’s efforts.

Taking the pulse of your team’s motivation

The rhythm of communication presented in the section ‘Maintaining the relationship’, earlier in this chapter, gives three practical and effective ways to keep your finger on the pulse of your team. For instance, make one of your weekly or bi-weekly meetings with them, about them. This is beneficial for your personal brand and increases trust and respect. More generally, setting up a quarterly meeting to discuss each team member’s motivation, needs and progress is highly recommended.

Providing regular feedback

Giving feedback is not easy – leaders need to show empathy, yet also be able, at times, to convey difficult messages. Feedback can be given via a mix of structured sessions and ad hoc.

In a formal feedback process, the purpose is to reassess goals and objectives, the individual development plan or a co-created hybrid document resulting from the goal-setting exercise described in the previous section. It helps to measure progress and potentially recalibrate behaviours. Refer again to the exercise above, ‘How to handle co-creation of personal objectives with team members’. The same principles may be applied here, as well as factoring in the following:

• include an external stakeholder’s feedback for a balanced view of their performance
• gather specific facts – feedback is only useful if it is precise and tangible (especially negative feedback) and is not based on impressions or hearsay (this is why observing your team members in situ and taking notes is useful)
• providing positive feedback as much as areas for improvement will support positive reinforcement, as described in Chapter 3
• take the opportunity to also elicit feedback about yourself via these sessions, as this will reinforce the reciprocity of the process and help to establish the value of the interdependencies of success (leaders and teams).

Complement formal feedback sessions with regular on-the-spot feedback. This might involve debriefing team members on their performance after a meeting or a presentation. It helps them relate their behaviours to real-life events.

Feedback plays an important part in any individual’s motivation, showing that you care about their growth and development. Negative feedback, if delivered in a constructive way, is also beneficial. Leaders are role models for the individual’s development.

When uncertain as to which approach to take or behaviours to demonstrate, holding up a mirror to yourself and thinking about the following might help:

• How would you like to receive negative/positive feedback?
• How would you have reacted to how the feedback was given?

Giving negative feedback is definitely something that most leaders or managers dread and, at times, shy away from. Some will argue that there is a strong correlation between tolerance of conflict and the ability to give negative feedback. Others correlate the sense of accountability (or lack of) in any corporate culture with the ability to give negative feedback and handle consequence management.

There is no doubt, giving negative feedback is difficult. As a leader, you need to find the right balance between getting your message across and preserving your employees’ motivation.

It can trigger and/or resonate with your own insecurities. It can even send you into a spiral of self-doubt – the ‘Is this person really that bad or is it me?’ moment. Also, it can have an emotional impact on you, facing and handling others’ reactions – especially if the person is in denial.

The following techniques have proved particularly helpful when it comes to giving negative feedback – even more so in the extreme cases of firing someone or making them redundant.

¹ John Kotter (1990) ‘What leaders really do’, Harvard Business Review.

² Daniel Coleman (2006) Emotional Intelligence, Bantam, with Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee (2002) Primal Leadership: Realizing the power of emotional intelligence, Harvard Business School Press.

³ Judy Brown (2006) A Leader’s Guide to Reflective Practice, Trafford Publishing.

⁴ Based on Howard Jackson’s respect model.

⁵ It goes without saying that you would not use a title such as ‘Firing meeting’ or ‘Redundancy meeting’ but something more subtle: ‘Feedback’ or ‘Career discussion’ would be good.