- Decide how you’ll choose the book. We use consensus and “doodle poll” to sort our options, but you could also rotate month to month.

- Work together to space your meetings far enough apart that everyone will have time to read the book. We meet 6-8 weeks apart, depending on the time of year, what’s up and how thick the book is.

- Use virtual meeting technology. If you can see each other its bonus! We use a group call in Skype.

- Take turns initiating the call or let the one person with the virtual meeting access do it for the group. Keep your calls to a reasonable length – we meet for 1.5 hours in an evening.

- Use the meeting time to find out what really resonated for others and to talk about how what you’ve read is applicable to your shared interests or workplace.

- Make sure people feel safe to disagree with the group or have a unique perspective. That’s what good learning is about, but it can be hard – especially with workmates – to be a lone dissenting voice. Encourage people to share their own perspective and not worry about consensus.

- Consider writing a column or a book review – even collectively – for your company’s intranet site. Others can benefit from your discussion. If someone takes notes, this is easier.

Interested in what we’ve read? Here’s our list of GREAT books:
Immunity to Change – Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey; 
The Righteous Mind – Jonathan Haidt;
Self Compassion – Kristen Neff;
Listening to Bodies – Suzanne Zeman;
A Hidden Wholeness – Parker J. Palmer;
Daring Greatly – Brene Brown;
The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg;
Quiet – Susan Kain

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I hope the title of this had you pause for consideration. I’ve identified the verb Respect as a choice, not a feeling. This important distinction can help when you are faced with a common workplace concern: How do I work with someone I don’t respect?

Typically, we disrespect people because they have not met our expectations or because we are angry and fearful about some behaviour which seems to endanger us or the business. We might lose respect after a miscommunication which we assume is manipulative or dishonest in some way. At other times we have trouble respecting those who are promoted over us, or those who get the work that we feel we are best qualified for. And frankly, we disrespect people we don’t like!

 Here, some food for thought, if you are facing the dilemma of working with someone you don’t respect:

1. You can decide how to best to deal with the situation if you more accurately identify your feelings. Pay attention to what emotions arise when you work with this person. Here are some feelings we have when our needs are not being met:  angry, annoyed, disappointed, discouraged, frustrated, irritated, sad, impatient and uncomfortable.  If this person embarrasses you or disagrees with you publicly, you may be feeling humiliation or shame as well. These are some of the most powerful emotions we have, and they are very distressful in the workplace. Acknowledge the hurt or anger that you are holding, and seek kindness from others or by practicing self-compassion.
2. Spend more time with them. This is counter-intuitive if you don’t really like someone. But respect and trust are inter-related, and we trust those whom we know best. Trust is built on commonality and reliability, which are established over time. You may not have invested enough time in the relationship yet to establish trust. More exposure to this person, especially outside of regular meetings, could reveal something positive about them. Certainly people act different away from the immediate stress of the job. You can learn many facets of a person over coffee or travelling together to a meeting.
3. Participate in 360 degree assessments. This is a way for you to give constructive feedback anonymously. Many people and organizations take the reports seriously, and often people get information about themselves that they didn’t know. If you include comments, suggest a way that this person might gain your respect.
4. Watch how others react to them. It’s true that a person you disrespect may be respected by others. Get curious and pay attention to interactions at meetings and informally, to see how others respond to this person. You may learn a way of approaching them differently – and get better results. If there is someone you trust on your team, who seems unbothered by the person you struggle with, you can ask them what it is that they respect most about that person. You might be surprised to find that what bothers you (impatience, for example) could be reframed by someone else as “gets things done.”
5. Rise above current circumstances and practice seeing them as a whole person – a human being apart from their job. Separate “liking” from “respecting”. Choose to treat them with all the respect and dignity you would give any person at work. Don’t hold them captive to past negative incidents or their history. Forgiveness is important in the workplace, where memories seem to last forever.

Finally, if there is something truly criminal or toxic that they are part of, decide if you need to tell someone in authority, confront them, or leave the workplace. Do this person’s behaviours seem the cultural norms of the organization? Perhaps the very behaviours you abhor are integral to their work and what is rewarded. Look around to see if you can work for another leader who you respect. If you don’t see any candidates, you might be in the wrong workplace.

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Research tells us that people are more satisfied at work when they are able to do tasks or projects that are interesting and challenging. We know that not all work is inherently interesting, and also that once you have mastered a job it can become boring or less satisfying. In many cases, people don’t just expect interesting work.  Talented employees also want an opportunity to grow their skills, knowledge and abilities – to improve themselves while improving your bottom line.

Google answers this expectation by giving its employees 20 percent of their work time to work on whatever they want. Google is unique, and its business model includes employees staying at the leading edge of technology and hopefully inventing practical and creative products and services.  You may be wondering how you can provide employees with more development and stimulation, especially during times of economic restraint and high work volumes.

Give regular increments of self-development time.

It doesn’t have to be one day a week, but it could be a few hours or a morning a month.  Even small teams can rotate the privilege without overly impacting deliverables and customer service. If someone on the team is totally irreplaceable, that in itself is a risk that should be solved. I have seen Managers hold the front-desk so that a team member can take a course. The first time you implement your self-directed learning periods, ask each employee to research what’s available that would be both of interest to them, and also might be useful to the team/company. 

Promote no cost learning.

If you belong to an industry association, you will often have access to webinars, both scheduled and on-demand. Many webinars are low cost and provide materials to attendees, as well as a taped version.  TED videos are short introductions to fascinating ideas and books.  Many instructor-led videos are available on YouTube. For serious learning at a university or college level, try searching Massively Open Online Courses (see Academic Earth for a sample).  

Implement peer learning. 

Learning together is another way to build team spirit and shared mindset. Perhaps you can encourage mentoring partnerships to take advantage of the various experience levels in the team. Create a guideline that those who take a webinar or course then share their learning with the rest of the team.  The whole team can choose a book that is relevant to your work, and divvy up the chapters to be read. Each person creates a 4 slide summary of their assigned chapter. Put them all together and have a fun, interactive discussion where you speed-read  the entire book together in a lunch meeting, each person hosting a stimulating conversation about their chapter. When a group learns together they can experience synthesis and breakthrough insights.

Consider all work experience to be learning.  

The best learning happens on-the-job, but it’s not readily available as growth to people without a formal process, and the time, for reflection and capture.  Post- implementation reviews (PIRs) are a standard in many companies that use project management methodology. They consistent of a facilitated discussion where the project experience is reviewed and what worked, and what didn’t, is captured for ongoing improvement. Good reviews ask questions not only about the concrete deliverables, but also about the dynamics around communication and decision-making. As a leader/coach you can have a similar set of questions that you routinely ask your staff to reflect on. Change the tone of one of your one-on-one meetings each month to focus on learning and development. Questions like “What did you learn this month?” can replace status update questions.  A supportive and gentle coach can unpack even the most challenging situations, helping the players to look with curiousity, not shame, at what went wrong.

Just ask more questions.

Neuroscience and brain research is every where these days, with many new nuggets of advice for leaders. Ivey Business Journal published a great article called “Leading Minds instead of Managing Behaviour” (Jacobs, February 2011). The author explains how a manager, who asks questions about how a person is doing, actually opens up the brain for learning. Our traditional way of assessing performance and giving critical feedback, he says, causes people to persist in the behaviours being criticized. If you want your employees to grow and develop, engage them in more supportive coaching conversations. Use questions, not to grill or test, but to examine and explore alternatives.

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Could it be that today’s popular T.V. reality shows, where people are voted off the team,  are closer to our nature than we can admit? Some leaders are cynical about planning any group activity. Actually, there are times when team building is very effective and as a Team Coach I can say that working together to become a better team can be rewarding for individuals as well as the group. Wise leaders apply the right solution, because they know when not to intervene in this way.

Here are five examples of when team building won’t work:

There are under-performers

When one or two people on the team are not pulling their weight. Having a few non-performers on the team quickly drags down morale. But if the leader’s response is to pull the whole team off the job for a team building session it feels like a teacher who punishes the whole class because one kid is truant. Of course, if the under-performers are clever, the boss may not suspect they are the cause of low morale. The remedy is to keep lines of communication open and ask what’s up. If you discover a performance problem, solve it with good one-on-one coaching before you ever bring the team together for team building.

Tired Team

When the team is chronically over-worked.  Celebrations at the end of a seasonal rush or short-term project are always appreciated. But if the team is tired and has been over-worked for a long time, it’s smarter to solve the organizational problem than conduct team building. A session that does not address the systemic issues likely will degenerate into complaints about management and the inadequacy of resources. If honesty is too risky, the team may decide to grumble about trivial matters.

It’s something only you will enjoy.

When the activity will be enjoyed only by a few. Many well-meaning leaders are enthusiastic about engaging their team in something they personally love. If it’s horses, or sailing, or yoga, or photography, or bird-watching, avoid trouble by testing your idea for team building with the whole group or a representative planning group. If people are invited to participate in something they’d rather not, your team building will actually create rifts. Some people will participate solely to please you.

Trust has been broken.

When trust has been broken and communication is poor. I have coached many leaders who were surprised to discover they had inadvertently damaged the trust of their team. And no one was willing to come forward directly and tell them what they had done, because of the lack of trust. It began a cycle of mistrust and poor communication. Breaking the cycle involves taking accountability for the past, apologizing sincerely even for unintended impacts, and demonstrating new behaviours that create trust. If a leader inherits an untrusting team she must represent the organization in healing past hurts.  A sincere conversation is better than a fun team building event.

Rewards have been cut.

When individual rewards have been cut. There may be no money in the budget for increasing wages, but leaders can usually afford a dinner night out or a Christmas give-away. Be aware that such signs of generosity often backfire when presented to teams soon after another benefit has been removed or reduced. Baking special treats yourself or hosting the team around your pool, at your cost, is better than using more structured team building events as a way to appease for organizational changes.

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Consider the “pecking order”.

Herds have an established dominance hierarchy as part of their social order.  This means that some horses are more dominant than others, and there could be one or more natural leaders.   Teams also have one or more informal leaders. These are the people who influence how changes are accepted, or rejected, by the team.  Generally, these people have personal attributes of self-confidence, expertise and charisma – traits that draw people to them. Often, they don’t like to be crossed.  Leaders are wise to be aware of the power dynamics in their team, as they bring new members onside.

Start with a quarantine period.

New horses are first kept isolated from the herd. This gives them a chance to adjust to the change in scenery and get oriented.  I know that by the time the new hire arrives, both the manager and team are eager to off-load what they’ve been covering during the vacancy. Even so, it’s a good idea to “quarantine” the new team member for a week. Let them get set up in the new office and give them general reading and less urgent, routine work to do.  Ask your team members not to deluge them or draw them into the intricacies of the business just yet.  Have them bring their questions to you. An incubation period allows natural stress levels to even out, and with less anxiety they won’t make an honest, but costly, mistake.  They are also less likely to feel a need to “show off” if what you ask them to do is just “show up” and get acclimatized.  The rest of the team can observe the newcomer from a distance, and get used to having someone new in their space.

Join into the team slowly

Then, the new horse is put in a paddock with the most dominant herd member. Here, they are observed to see if they can interact in healthy ways. It may take days or weeks for harmony to emerge, but you don’t interfere unless there is a safety issue. Once the new member is comfortable, it’s time to partner them with someone on the team who has informal leadership. Perhaps there is a committee meeting they can attend together, perhaps a project they can deliver together.  Sit down with both to express your expectations for good outcomes, and your confidence that they will work well together. Speak and treat them as equal partners. This isn’t a test to see if the new-comer will submit. Just like horses, people demonstrate both dominant and submissive behaviours in daily interactions. It’s more of case of learning what the give-and-take will be like.

Avoid obvious collisions.

On the farm, changing the herd means you might have to put up some new fences, or take some down. Be aware of where confrontations between horses occur and act ahead of time to help manage them. You should plan ahead to prevent the newcomer from being inadvertently caught or pinned to a wall. Adding a new team member changes the dynamics of the group, even more so if there’s been a restructure or the job itself is new. Be available and accessible to chat with individuals and groups about unforeseen role conflicts. Make it okay to talk about the work and service delivery, but not okay to talk about people. Stop any kind of gossipy criticisms.  Proactively identify where sensitivities might occur, such as transferring work from one member to another. Focus everyone on sources of tension and facilitate the whole group through it without allowing anyone to make it personal.

Like people, horses are sensitive and social creatures, apt to act both rationally and surprisingly. Thanks go to Elise for the inspirational new way of thinking of teams, and to Dr. Sue Stuska, Ed.D for her knowledgeable writing on horses.

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What I know is not of use to anyone but me.

Maybe you think so and maybe you’ve even been told this. It’s a shame to presuppose the worthless value of your knowledge and experience without offering it to someone else. Think about the times when you’ve done something that you’ve felt was no big deal and someone else has shown interest or delight. If you are feeling bored or cynical at work, try showcasing your everyday experiences to someone with fresh eyes. Let your mentee take the lead and invite them to ask you questions. Just offer up what you know and what you’ve learned, and be open to how others can appreciate it anew. It is inspiring to watch someone else’s positive delight in something you have been taking for granted.

You need to be an expert to mentor

The funny thing about this myth is, often experts make the worst mentors! That’s because they think there is only one way (their right way) to do something. That’s not mentoring, it’s instructing and directing. Of course you might also be a teacher or official trainer – another good way to add value. Mentors bring value because of their workplace experience, as much as through technical expertise. As a mentor, you want to help the other person frame their thinking and consider the organizational impacts of their actions and decisions.  You want to ask open-ended learning questions. You want to boost confidence by pointing out to them how much they already know. The best mentors skirt the inevitable requests to “tell me how you did it” because they know that what worked for them isn’t necessarily going to work for others. Instead, they share strategies, tools and approaches that can be used, customized or discarded, by their mentee.

I don’t know how to be a mentor

Okay, that might not be a myth! Ironically, many people are already mentoring and don’t realize that is what they are doing. Like leadership, mentoring is something best learned by doing. You start by making the offer to someone who might benefit, or has shown an interest, at work. Maybe one of your colleagues or friends has a child in a college program, or who is just starting out in the workplace. You can sign up for a formal mentoring program in your company or through your professional association (HRPA has a mentoring program). You don’t have to commit to regular meetings to be a mentor. You can mentor someone by meeting with them ONCE. The key is to make it about them – not you. When you sit down with someone, give them your undivided attention and share your experience freely, you’ve mentored.

I hope that this short reminder on the value and ways of mentoring will inspire you to make a New Year’s Resolution to mentor someone. Do it once or create a mentoring partnership. Still don’t want to go it alone? Many companies are participating in programs like “Student on Board” where a university student sits on their Board or a committee to learn how governance groups work.  Many cities have a Junior Achievement program, where leaders sign up to be coaches to small student-run businesses. Check if your Marketing or PR department is looking for company spokespeople to speak to local groups about the industry or about leadership. No matter what you do for a living, you won’t have to look far to find a simple way to add meaning to your work.

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It starts with an awareness of what others need. Have you heard about the crisis of underemployment that Canadian graduates are facing? We have many young people earning degrees, and then languishing in jobs where they are under-utilized. (For a good look at this recent social phenomenon, and the factors that are creating it, read the article in October’s issue of The Walrus.)  Short of creating more entry-level and co-op jobs for post-secondary grads, what can you do? Here’s the simple way you, on your own, can make a difference. You can mentor someone. Mentoring is simply a commitment to spend regular time with someone who can benefit from what you know, and what you’ve done. It doesn’t require you to spend money, or go somewhere new. In fact, mentoring is as simple as sharing a coffee break with someone.

Let me bust some myths about Mentoring.

It has to be a formal mentoring commitment.

While some companies have instituted HR-driven mentoring programs, research shows that some of the best partnerships are formed informally. If you have coffee once a week with an employee who wants to learn from you – you’re already a mentor. Don’t think you have to join a program to mentor (although you CAN join a program; lots exist in your community.) Instead, think about making yourself accessible. If you look too busy and too important, no one will approach you to mentor. Start by noticing new employees, those whose career interests or path seems similar to yours, and more junior staff who are keen to learn. When someone asks you a question, instead of firing off an email response, offer to sit down with them and talk in-depth about the subject. Stop providing answers, and start providing context and intrinsic knowing from which your answers spring.

You have to be wise (a.k.a old) to be a mentor

The old-school model of mentoring was driven by professions where it took decades to become a Master, and apprentices were taught by the ancients (are you thinking of The Karate Kid?)  Actually, no matter your age or level, you have something worth sharing. It’s your unique perspective that a mentee will benefit from. Instead of being a lecturer-teacher, the best mentors are great listeners. They act as a sounding board. They ask curious questions, they challenge thinking, and they add perspective. Within an organizational setting, a mentor can shed light on the mysteries of the political dynamics. A mentor isn’t meant to be a guru, but a trusted colleague.

I’d waste my time being a mentor.

It’s easy to imagine that a mentoring partnership is work for the mentor, and gain for the mentee. Research finds that mentors benefit as much, or more, than the person they are mentoring. That’s because the best mentorships are relationships based on trust, which comes from face-to-face rich dialogue. You may start out thinking that you’ve nothing left to learn, and be pleasantly surprised. Mentoring more junior staff, or those in different departments, will often bring you important information long before you need it. If you let go of the guru position, and invite it, your mentee will challenge you to think differently and show you sides of the business or industry that you don’t have ready access to. This is gold for leaders, who make better decisions when they have multiple perspectives and something to counter-balance their bias. When you try to see the world through the eyes of your mentee, all kinds of things open up.

In an upcoming post I’ll share three more myths about mentoring. Tell me some of how you’ve experienced positive mentoring.

The post Re-energize Yourself by Being a Mentor appeared first on Epiphanyatwork.

Leadership, many would argue, is distinguished from management by its focus on initiating and implementing change. While researchers theoretically separate an emergent, organic approach and a planned approach to change, I’ve found that organizations benefit from a blended approach, taking into account the culture and readiness for the change. Your change interventions may be recommended by a project team (targeting processes) and your HR department (targeting people), but leading the change requires something special of you.

1. Decide early what won’t change. Sometimes in the excitement of a change, there is an urge to cut loose from everything that represents the status quo. While there is excitement and stimulation in breaking free, leaders need to discern what their organization is ready for. It’s true that change efforts find their beginning in creating tension and destabilization. But by anchoring the changes in something familiar, you make it psychologically safe to innovate and try something new. Many leaders take care to frame the changes in terms of how they support and align to long-held values. Talk about what is not being abandoned. If you are interested in supporting emergent changes, set the boundaries of the playing field to open up lots of possibilities for imaginative change. Your job here is to create the space from which the unpredictable can emerge.

2. Get in up to your elbows. All change requires actual intervention into the human dynamics of your organization, and at-arms-length, objective leadership will not work. Using working teams at the implementation level is quite common. If you’re a sponsor of the change, make time to attend working group meetings, and to have casual drop-in conversations with staff at all levels. Your organization is a complex and constantly adapting system, which doesn’t stand still during change planning and implementation. All leaders need to increase their networks and access to communication, or what shifts beneath you will go unnoticed before it’s too late.

3. Be positive about the unknown future. Once you have created a compelling reason for the change, be sure that others see your enthusiasm for the future. Sometimes you are able to describe a compelling vision, with concrete deliverables and milestones along the way. At other times, the future will be less clear. Focus then on higher-order core values, and a few simple rules that will guide behaviour and decisions when things get foggy. Whatever works best, your role is to encourage people that what they are losing today will be worth it tomorrow. Find the words that are an authentic expression of your hope.

4. Encourage participative processes. It’s easier to try new things and act differently when you’re not alone. Emphasize the interdependency of your work and increase opportunities to participate. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that “too many cooks ruin the soup”. Yes, you should clarify accountabilities for decisions, and once that is done ask the decision-makers to inform, consult and generally stay engaged in the system as they decide. Many changes have failed because the project team developed their solutions in isolation and then handed it over. You may think you are protecting people from the noise of the change, but you are actually robbing them of early engagement and increased ownership to its success.

5. Balance tension with support. Proponents of planned change say leaders should remove barriers so the change can march on. Emergent change advocates say that leaders should create more tension and escalate natural conflicts. I’d say do both. Learn to facilitate conversations that are tough and where dissension is predictable. Act as a “sense maker” when diversity threatens alignment, and ensure that no one is humiliated in the name of progress.

6. Ask for personal feedback. Research into decision-making has uncovered an array of biases that are almost impossible to avoid. These include inappropriate self-interest, relying on misleading experience and making judgments based on emotional tags. Leaders of change may think that times of uncertainty and crisis are when they need to stand strong and confident in their decisions. Find a trusted advisor that you can test your assumptions and perceptions with. HR partners are ideal coaches as they bring sensitivities to these areas.

Need help figuring out how you want to lead the change? Jill Malleck, Epiphany at Work and Meg Salter (megsalter.com) are experienced OD consultants and Integral Coaches™ ready to support you and your team to accelerate positive change. Send us a note.

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Teams are important, and yet many of us dread working in a group. The typical responses to strengthening a team – improving communication and seeking role clarity – are a good solid start, yet they are often inadequate for dealing with the inevitable conflicts and cultural dysfunctions. Leaders often find that even well-designed teambuilding sessions are not enough to shift the habits and character of the team on-the-job.

At the same time, many leaders who engage in personal coaching are able to make significant changes in their working lives. Integral Coaching™, the method in which I am trained, uses human development theory and real-life practices that allow us to work at multiple levels: Growing Up – advancing and maturing the skills and abilities already in place, and Waking Up – become more aware of oneself and making conscious choices about behaviour. With Integral Coaching, leaders demonstrate sustainable change in behaviours and results.

Yet, we shouldn’t give up on our quest to develop stronger teams. They are the DNA of most organizations. Our ability to work well in groups is critical in the complexity of our world. As Katzenbach and Smith say in their book The Wisdom of Teams, “Teams naturally integrate performance and learning…learning not only occurs in teams, but endures.”

Could the principles of coaching be applied successfully to a team? Yes, they can. I have found that by integrating group development theories and group experience into a human development-centred approach, teams can have the same success as individuals when being coached. In the past year I have seen the real progress teams can make when they are coached together; when they share the experience of growing up and waking up.

Why does Team Coaching work so well?
• When work teams learn together, the changes they make are more culturally sustainable. The team that is coached together supports and challenges one other to try new behaviours in the “real world”, not just during an experiential activity at an offsite. Peers help sustain commitment to the goal and provide support, so one isn’t ostracized for new behaviours.
• Personal accountability is enhanced with group accountability. The coaching topic is created together and each person is singularly accountable reaching the developmental objectives. The coaching results then become a shared work-product, something which everyone commits to. This provides a platform for teambuilding without disturbing the valid and normal attention given to our functional and operational agendas.
• Team coaching sessions provide a vehicle for what Chris Argyris calls “double loop learning”, with their focus on new behaviours, real-time inquiry and transparency and feedback amongst the team. The process itself builds the team’s capacity to work together, as well as each person’s skill in collective interactions.
• Coaching over a number of months gives the group a change to clearly see the myriad of ways they work together. There is awareness that the current reality is a starting point, not a problem to be fixed. Together the group is energized to move forward to a future that includes, and transcends, what they have today.
• Team coaching distinguishes between the awareness of what to do (cognition) and our ability to actually do it (embodiment). Brilliant leaders understand concepts quickly, but don’t assume actions will shift too. With the help of a coach, the team learns to be patient about their awkward, early attempts to change. Embodiment comes only after much practice and reflection, provided in-between meetings by coaching homework.
• Team Coaching gives leaders a concrete way to personally identify with the transformation they wish for their organizations. During the coaching program they are able to develop shared and consistent management practices that, in the long term, will institutionalize the desired cultural change.
A 2008 study by the Center for Creative Leadership showed that 46% of respondents thought their leadership teams could use team coaching to enable culture change. The researchers concluded, “Closing the gap is important because teams whose members focus on providing each other timely feedback, learning together and building upon their interdependent strengths typically show greater capacity to achieve organizational improvement than teams who do not follow these practices.”
Team Coaching, which requires a commitment from the group, a skilled Coach who can build a learning program for the group, and facilitated healthy conversations is a valid and powerful alternative to teambuilding.
For more about Integral Coaching for teams or individuals email malleck@golden.net

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I was reminded of this game recently by a client’s situation. The middle manager I coached really did feel frustratingly stuck in the middle. On the one hand, she had a team of professionals who were fatigued, unmotivated and disempowered. On the other, was the boss who’d hired her to breathe new life into the team? Within a few weeks she knew what she had to grab hold of. The boss, a dedicated professional who’d climbed the ranks, was constantly meddling in her team’s work. And, in an industry run on tight deadlines, he was notorious for making last minute changes.

What to do? She wouldn’t risk telling the boss to butt out – it really was obvious his aim was to improve quality and inspire people with his changes. Still, her staff would stay inertly frozen until she got this under control. After all, they reasoned, why try harder if it’s all going to be changed after all?

Leaders might make the mistake of playing monkey in the middle. In this scenario, the key is to avoid becoming the third party in a drama triangle. Already people are feeling victimized and vilified. If you become the hero, the victim and the villain roles are how the others will excuse their dysfunction.

Your best move is to step away from choosing sides, and take time to make visible the complex realities of the workplace. Become a bridge across – instead of a monkey in the middle.

Talk with your team in a way that acknowledges their frustration with last-minute changes, and get familiar with the real impact on workload and personal balance. It may frustrate them that hierarchy trumps, but remind them of a time the boss’s changes were professionally astute. Tell them you will be working on their behalf to ensure fewer interruptions. Ask them to talk more about the creative and solid thinking that powers their work so that you can firmly advocate “no change” with senior leaders. At the same time, be clear that a job requirement is that they be flexible and responsive, whether the change comes from the boss or from an important customer. You will not be able to stop all emergent change, and they need to be prepared to deal with it.

When you talk with your senior leader, be sensitive to possible causes of his disruptive behaviour. It could be a habit, born of disorganization and distraction. Maybe he’s not taking time to look at your team’s work until the 11th hour. Your solution is to schedule more formal “check ins” earlier in the process. In your one-on-one meetings, explain that you are committed to good planning so as to keep unnecessary stress and overtime out of the system. Discuss a mutually acceptable cutoff period for input. Be sure to draw attention to all the ways your team members demonstrate flexibility and responsiveness.

It may be that this leader feels obliged to add value by critiquing work, or offers opinions to prove he deserves top spot. Are there other avenues to showcase his brilliance? Perhaps you can schedule mentoring meetings with your staff.

Finally, learn to negotiate. The next time a last-minute request comes, stand up (in private) to challenge the wisdom of the change. Talk specifically about the negative staff impact and the risk vs. the perceived value of the change. Ask if it’s worth it. Strongly advocate for your staff’s work to stay unchanged, as a way to empower, engage and energize the team.

Over time, you will see that being a bridge-leader, instead of the monkey in the middle, will positively influence the workplace dynamics and politics.

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