Team Conflict

3 Ways You Are Unintentionally Stalling Collaboration In Your Company

Team Collaboration at Its Best, and Worst

Are you unintentionally stalling collaboration, in your team or your company?

Collaboration is a word that leaders use often. They know that when their team collaborates, everyone wins. As leaders they look good, their team members are happy and content, and their C-suite, well, they are thrilled with any and all tangible results!

The definition of collaboration as found in the Oxford dictionary defines it as ‘working with someone to produce or create something’. Reason follows that teams who produce results are winning teams.

What happens though, when leaders unintentionally stall or ruin the collaboration in their own team? What happens when they create a mess of their own doing? Often, nothing! Nothing happens. Sometimes the blame isn’t easily found and even when it is, it’s not easily attached to any one thing or person.

If your team is struggling to collaborate, may we suggest you look inward first. Look to see if you might be the cause of stalled or even ruined team collaboration.

3 Ways You Are Unintentionally Stalling Collaboration In Your Company

When your team fails, do you also? Many believe this is the case.

Here are 3 ways you might be (unintentionally) ruining team collaboration.

1 Undermining the team

If you are not present in a meeting, why should your team be?

If you micromanage, why should your team come forward with ideas?

If you don’t communicate clearly and often, why should your team know how to communicate with you?

Team collaboration starts with you. The leader:

sets the tone and behavior for meetings
reads the room and creates space for ideas and input
communicates with the team and encourages two-way communication

Are you guilty of undermining the team?

Now that you know, can you ask yourself to do better?

2 Not listening with intent

Listening is a skill. As a leader, you need to listen with intent.

The intent of listening does not lie in the response, but the understanding of what is being said.

When anyone chooses to listen with intent, the result is hugely beneficial. Team collaboration, team morale, and team cohesiveness start to solidify and ultimately these become standard practice.

To quote Ernest Hemingway (Across the River and Into the Trees)

“When people talk, listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say.

Most people never listen. Nor do they observe.

You should be able to go into a room and when you come out know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling.”

Try that for practice.

3 Not remaining neutral

Conflict arises whether you expect it or not. It is human nature. Conflict arises when there are multiple people in a shared setting for an extended period, aka in a team setting.

Yes. Teams experience conflict. As a team lead, you are wise to expect (and welcome) conflict.

Conflict can come from:

Unclear team roles
Internal power struggles
Insufficient training
Differing ideals
Challenges with communication
Poor work environment
Harassment and bullying

and many other contributing factors.

In How To Navigate Team Conflict and Stand Steadfast in the Storm we learn that standing in the storm is about staying with conflict and difference instead of avoiding it. Because conflict is inevitable the leader in you needs to recognize that different points of view generates conflict. But did you know conflict can provide clarity, discernment, deeper understanding, and energy? For those reasons, we encourage the gift of opposition.

Three tips to help you stand in the storm include:

Cultivate self-awareness and management to stay in the situation
Learn to press “Pause”
Deepen your understanding of Group Dynamics

Exploring Tip #3, we find that models and frameworks are helpful for understanding group dynamics and for making sense of what we’re experiencing in the room.

Structural dynamics is a theory of face-to-face communications developed by David Kantor.

It provides a way to name the structure of communication as it’s taking place in the moment.

These are called

Move
Follow
Oppose
Bystand

Learn more about structural dynamics here.

The Agile Team Facilitation Stance

If you think you’re unintentionally stalling collaboration in your company, in your teams, this is a great time to learn more about the Agile Team Facilitation Stance.

I recommend you start here.

Then read my book ‘Art and Science of Facilitation’ and learn how to lead effective collaboration with Agile teams!

Speaking Truth to Power: How to Talk to Your Boss in a Way That Works

A common question among managers and agile coaches learning the skills of coaching others is, “How do I coach up”? In other words, “how do I coach my boss to be a better boss and tell them that I think they are the problem?”

There are two common reasons this question arises: the first is that there has been a specific interaction that has left someone feeling deflated or demoralized. Perhaps they were not heard and understood, or they didn’t like the way they were spoken to. The second reason is that they feel unsupported in their work, or maybe feel like they are being told to lead change while their boss’s behavior keeps rewarding old patterns instead.

This second scenario is part of a bigger issue—and one where it seems like the boss is the “problem.” Instead of creating change, it feels like you’re just slogging through the mud and getting your foot stuck with each step.

But chances are, what’s going on is not something that can be solved as simply as the concept of “coaching up.” In fact, there’s no such thing as “coaching up.” If what you’re actually looking for is the opportunity to give feedback about a specific incident, this is a feedback conversation. But when you’re addressing a bigger, systemic issue, it’s time for something more. Instead of trying to “coach up” or give feedback, try inviting your boss to a Thinking Together Conversation.

Speaking Truth to Power: How to Talk to Your Boss in a Way That Works

The Dark Side of Feedback

What’s missing most from feedback conversations in organizations today is the notion of inquiry. So many of us come into a conversation locked and loaded with our own perspective and the desire to just put our idea out on the table and have it heard. We expect the other person to make sense of what we’ve said and then take the action we desire.

While direct and candid feedback has a place and purpose, the common one-way delivery of one person’s experience can be unbalanced. It assumes that one person has the complete picture, that one person’s ideas are more “right” than the other’s, and that spending time asking someone else for their perspective or input is a waste of time.

This quick, get-in-and-get-out feedback style is what I call “driveby feedback.” It’s not really a conversation at all—it’s a one-way “download.”

No one wants to be told that they’re “doing it wrong,” and if you start from a place of assuming you know what the problem is—and only focus on telling your boss what they are doing wrong and what they need to do more of—it’s a monologic approach that makes you right and them wrong. You’ve invited them into a debate and set them up to either defend the actions they’ve taken or worse yet, just check out within the first few seconds of your conversation.

A Thinking Together Conversation: Speaking Truth!

So, what’s a Thinking Together Conversation and why does it matter? You’re thinking together with your boss in a way that can create real change.

Thinking Together Conversations require

all parties to come to the conversation with genuine curiosity
the assumption that solving the current problem or dilemma cannot be done by just one person
a broader, shared understanding of what’s happening

In a Thinking Together Conversation we

bring questions instead of solutions
invite others into a dialogue instead of a monologue
support the purpose of learning together to craft a better solution
engage in inquiry
engage in a real, meaningful conversation that can shift something important to the dynamic

3 Steps to a Thinking Together Conversation with your Leader: Speaking Truth

Here are some action steps you can take to invite a Thinking Together Conversation:

Step 1: Be clear about your intention.

Why do you want to have this conversation? How do you want to show up in it?

If your answer to either of these questions comes from a place of wanting to reprimand, punish, or blame your boss, then do some work on your own thinking before asking to have a conversation. Coming from that place will not serve anyone, and it definitely does not promote curiosity.

If, however, you’re coming from a place of genuine curiosity and seeking to understand—with a belief that there is more than one side to what’s going on—you’ll be in a much better position to start a real conversation. If you are willing to engage in a way that’s open to hearing different perspectives, both you and your boss will likely learn new information. From there, you will be far more likely to be able to create a new solution together.

Step 2: Create an invitation.

Invite your boss into a conversation for learning and exploration.

Behind every dilemma are multiple truths and perspectives about what’s creating the current situation. So make it inviting for you and your boss to want to come to the table.

Imagine that you’d received the results of a 12-month engagement survey suggesting that your boss’ lack of engagement was impeding progress. You could give driveby feedback that would get you nowhere, or you could create an invitation:

“We just got the survey results back. I would love to have a conversation with you about it and get your thoughts.”
“I notice that the engagement survey shows a ‘lack of engagement by senior management’ as the greatest barrier to our performance. I’m curious what you make of that?”

Understand that when managers are invited to a conversation, they are often expected to solve a problem or have some solution immediately. Instead of replicating that dynamic, try inviting them to a conversation for learning and understanding. Together, you might co-create a solution.

Step 3: Be prepared to offer your observations.

This can be one of the most challenging aspects of a Thinking Together Conversation. It requires you to both be curious about your boss’s experience and perspective and candid about your own observations. David Kantor calls this the speech act of Bystand—a morally neutral observation about what’s happening. To pull it off, you need to be prepared to share what you notice. Pulling from the scenario described above, here’s an example of how you might offer a morally neutral observation about what you see happening while remaining curious about what’s happening for your boss:

“Would it be helpful if I shared what I’ve observed? You asked that we schedule more collaborative planning meetings and include you. We now have these meetings booked every two weeks. However, you have attended 2 of 12 meetings in the past 6 months, and it’s left the team feeling confused and unmotivated. What’s happening on your end that’s pulling you away from these meetings?

Thinking Together Conversations move us away from looking for someone to blame and hold us accountable to the kind of inquiry that supports meaningful dialogue. When we seek to understand multiple perspectives and learn more about what’s happening in the current situation, it’s much easier to discover a new solution that might not exist yet. It’s an effective way of speaking truth to power while creating space for real results.

Speaking Truth: How to Talk to Your Boss in a Way That Works

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How to Facilitate Agile Meetings That Help Your Team Thrive

➡️ Do your team meetings always go as planned?

➡️ Are you able to achieve the desired outcome?

➡️ Does your team leave meetings with a clear purpose and clarity in what needs to be done next?

If any of the answers are “no,” keep on reading. We have some tips and tools to help you!

In this article we lay the foundation for leading engaging and productive meetings with purpose, clarity and confidence so that you can support agility within your teams.

The Role of a Facilitator

As facilitators we convene and we host.

Our primary focus is to identify the desired outcomes and then create a space that fosters connection, authenticity, trust, in an environment of equal voice.

A unique characteristic of facilitation is that when it’s done well you hardly know it’s happening. Good facilitators make it look easy…like all you need to do is grab a marker and head to a flip chart or open up a Zoom line and people start collaborating.

In reality there is a lot going on for a facilitator. It takes formal training and practice! Just like playing the piano or flying a plane. Facilitation is a professional discipline that is both art and science.

Mistakes To Avoid When Facilitating Agile Meetings

Here are some common misconceptions and mistakes facilitators make when first starting out.

Believing that you can just do facilitation after having seen others make it look so easy.
Participating in the meeting rather than facilitating.
Cutting short the planning and design phase or not doing any planning at all.
Seeking “agreement” from the group on decision-making.
Believing that your role in the meeting is helping the group reach a decision that has already been made.

It takes time to learn how to properly facilitate meetings. It’s also important to practice the facilitation role throughout your journey by building competency!

How to Facilitate Agile Meetings Like a Pro!

It wasn’t until many years into my facilitation journey that I learned how to:

Really connect a group
Have greater awareness of my own beliefs about the group and understand what a profound impact my beliefs had on my ability to work with a group.
Let go of control; to turn it over to the group.
Really listen to what people needed or were trying to say.

These were profound shifts in my mindset that

…allowed me to move from simply instructing people to write on sticky notes that overlooks the real issue.

…to leading meetings that got to the heart of what is blocking the team and support their journey beyond continuing in their same patterns.

How to Facilitate Agile Meetings

Would you like to get started with leading engaging and productive meetings with purpose, clarity and confidence so that you can support agility within your teams? Here are 3 ways to do just that!

The mindset and practice of Being Neutral
The key steps of Planning and Designing
Decide how to decide

If you are ready for the full roadmap to facilitation, I highly recommend you read the book ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation’.

5 Resources to Get You Started as a Facilitator

In a recent article, we laid out five resources to help you get started, or to continue your education as a facilitator.

These resources include a book, toolkit, website, self-assessment and workshops!

No matter where you are on your facilitation journey, there is room to continue your learning journey to competency!

How to Reignite Your Team Meetings for Success

Previously, we wrote about ‘how to plan and prepare for your next team meeting’ where we outlined post-pandemic meeting formats, and how this shift has affected leadership team meetings and their outcome.

That article was followed by ‘How to Create Purposeful, Intentional Space for Effective Team Collaboration’ where Hybrid Meetings took the stage where we shared tips for team leads on how to encourage participation in their leadership team meeting! This article was written for those leaders who expressed difficulty getting team members to actively participate in a team meeting.

In this article, we will step into the final phase of learning more about leading team meetings which is ‘how to have true dialogue’.

Before you read on, let’s talk ‘GroundHog Day’ conversations first.

“Groundhog Day conversations are those conversations we are having, over and over without resolution.”

What patterns might this type of conversation be falling into? How can you change the nature of the conversation by bringing in a different vocal act?”

Let’s find out together!

Read the Room, Change the Outcome

There are four kinds of conversational action in all of our communication.

Every sentence or phrase we say can be coded into one of these four actions that David Kantor calls “speech acts”:

Move
Follow
Oppose
Bystand

To be in an effective and productive conversation, we need all four of these to be active and valued in the conversation. A high functioning team dialogues when all four of these are active and individuals are fluid in their ability to voice all of the actions.

When one or more of these are missing, teams can get stuck and end up in ineffective conversations that are not collaborative. The result is that Groundhog Moment.

Common Stuck Patterns to Looks for in Team Meetings

The task of a leader or facilitator is to help a team or group notice its own pattern of interaction using the four action propensities. The next step is to help them change the nature of their discourse, particularly when they get stuck in certain patterns.

Fields of Conversation That Groups Experience

The types of conversation that groups experience as they move towards more complex and effective patterns of conversation.

Ways to Prompt a Group Towards a Specific Action

Facilitators or leaders can pose questions to the group to help prompt a certain action.

Who agrees?
What do you appreciate about this?

MOVE

What would you add?
What else might be needed?

OPPOSE

Who sees it differently?
What’s at risk here?

BYSTAND

Where is the group at right now?
What are you noticing?
What is your experience right now?

How To Get Started Reading the Room

What are the actions you’re hearing
What’s the pattern that’s showing up?
What action is missing? How can you prompt the group for a new action?

What are the actions you’re hearing?

What’s the pattern that’s showing up?

What action is missing? How can you prompt the group for a new action?

Still Stuck? Check and Read These 4 Resources Next!

How to lead a meeting effectively

Leading effective team meetings are essential for achieving success in any organization and a huge part of being effective is overall meeting participation.

By using different leadership team meeting formats and models, such as the David Kantor 4 Player Model of Communication, leaders can reignite team meetings and create a more productive and engaged team environment and encourage active participation.

Having a clear meeting agenda and taking accurate meeting notes are also important for keeping everyone on the same page and ensuring that other team members are accountable for their contributions.

Remember to actively engage team members in the meeting, allowing everyone to share their thoughts and ideas.

Finally, set goals and follow-up on the action items discussed in the leadership meeting, making sure everyone is on the same page and ready for the next meeting. With these tips, your team meetings will become more productive and successful, and your conference room will be a space where ideas are shared, progress is made, and everyone feels empowered to contribute.