In Great Company

by Louis Carter

  The first role is the Challenger. Challengers question an existing thought or idea. They may say things like, “What brings you to that conclusion? I ask because I don’t see it that way. I see it this way.”

  The next role is the Supporter. Typically, Supporters agree, lend their credibility, and thus give the idea more staying power. They also provide a “vote” for a person’s idea.

  The third role is the Mirror. The Mirrors restate what they think they have heard until the individual stating the idea agrees with the Mirrors’ interpretation. The Mirrors are essential because they bring the idea into clarity for the rest of the group.

  The last role is the Mover. The Movers take the thinking of the group to the next practical level—it is where execution occurs.

  Imagine a group with not enough or too many people in any one of these roles. Sound frustrating or familiar?

  Maintain Focus

  There’s a reason that not every group can abide by an equal airtime policy: because it can easily yield unintended consequences and lead to rambling diatribes or off-topic remarks that eat up time. (It’s no wonder people are cynical about collaboration.)

  The key to keeping collaboration on track is making sure everyone is aligned around a common objective. With that, it is easier to assign roles and create accountability for maintaining focus during the exchange of ideas. This is made easier through any number of collaboration tools that help people remain on track when they are communicating in person or through an online platform or social network.

  2. Mindful Listening

  Mindful listening is inextricably linked to equal airtime. In fact, some might argue that listening is even more critical than speaking when it comes to enjoying the benefits of collaboration and sparking an emotional connection.

  I saw this dynamic play out with executives at KeyBank as part of their merger with First Niagara Group in 2015. At the time, KeyBank’s chief talent officer, Brian Fishel, who was charged with leading the integration process, was fully cognizant that mergers fail to meet their goals a full 83 percent of the time—and he was determined to beat the odds.21

  Unlike so many other mergers I’ve seen, Fishel was heavily focused on using effective listening to bridge the cultures of the two companies. As part of that, he developed a robust game plan that included onboarding and training sessions, bringing leaders from both organizations together to listen to each other’s concerns and talk through their practices and values. Through these sessions, executives on both sides learned that they shared many of the same foundational elements or “enterprise DNA”—which, research suggests, is rarely the case in merger-acquisitions. These core elements, including organizational norms, highlighted strong similarities and created a genuine bond between the leaders at both banks. These listening and learning sessions were well attended and ultimately paved the way for the success of the merger.

  Research corroborates the notion that effective listening improves collaboration. For instance, one study from 2018 paired student public speakers with either attentive, respectful listeners or distracted, disengaged listeners.22 The researchers found that the speakers who were paired with attentive listeners were “less anxious, more self-aware, and reported higher clarity about their attitudes on the topics” compared to those paired with distracted listeners.23 The researchers also found that “speakers who conversed with a good listener reported attitudes that were more complex and less extreme—in other words, not one-sided.”24

  Just as effective listening strengthens the bond between speaker and listener, listening is likewise a key to collaborative efforts with these prescriptive strategies as pillars for success.

  Be Fully Present

  When I coach executives about how to be mindful listeners, I often begin with their eyes, not their ears. Getting started with effective listening actually starts with training your gaze on the speaker, assuming the speaker is within sight. In other words, put your phone down and focus.

  Other elemental items to put into practice for effective listening? Remain mindful. Paying attention, focusing on what the person is saying, and keeping an open mind are not things that most of us do automatically. Finally, pause to make sure you know the other person is finished talking before you speak up or respond. The bottom line is that effective listening requires conscious effort.

  Take a Listening Tour

  When KeyBank’s Brian Fishel brought people together to listen following the merger with First Niagara, he was on to something powerful. Top leaders and employees gained key insights based on what they heard. Other leaders have benefited by making similar moves. In his first year as Canada’s prime minister, for instance, Justin Trudeau took a listening tour, meeting everyday people in restaurants, hockey rinks, and town halls across the country.

  Similarly, when David Abney joined UPS as its CEO in 2014, one of the first things he did was go on a worldwide listening tour to hear what UPS employees had to say.25 As these cases show, listening tours by leaders and executives are especially effective during times of transition: following a merger, change in leadership, or a strategy shift. This is arguably when leaders can best benefit from hearing a broad range of ideas. In addition, the act of listening gives employees a chance to be heard at a time when anxiety levels are especially high.

  Yet, a listening tour is only effective if it is a genuine effort. Leaders need to really listen, consider the content, and make decisions that reflect what they have heard.

  Defer Judgment

  We all come to collaborations with our own agendas, experiences, and preconceived notions. But effective listening requires us to set these items aside. We need to listen to understand what the other person is saying, as opposed to using our energy to formulate our rebuttal.

  The secret to deferring judgment is twofold. First, reflect on the content of what the other person is saying. Don’t listen to decide. Listen to understand the speaker’s message and perspective. Second, and perhaps less known, is to reflect on your own feelings and reactions as they occur. You can neutralize your trigger-based responses by understanding what is driving your emotions and setting them aside with the intention of mindful listening.

  Engage with Empathy

  In my work coaching executives and teams, I have found that empathy is a core ingredient of effective listening. Although empathy can be practiced through conscious effort, it should begin by having an authentic interest in what the other person has to say.

  Why bother adding empathy to your mode of listening? Empathetic listeners achieve a deeper understanding of what the speaker is saying, thereby making collaboration easier. But there is another important perk: empathy creates emotional connectedness. Almost by definition, empathetic listening helps you identify with the speaker, which creates an emotional bond based on shared understanding.

  3. Free Flow of Information

  In most organizations, knowledge is a currency that either drives collaboration forward and enriches it or stops it in its tracks. Knowledge sharing and open communication are tremendous drivers of value in collaborative endeavors.

  At Atlassian, for example, “openness” is a core value that keeps people connected to the company. Their mantra is “open company, no bullshit,” and they express it like this in their internal conversations and recruiting materials: “Openness is root level for us. Information is open internally by default, and sharing is a first principle. And we understand that speaking your mind requires equal parts brains (what to say), thoughtfulness (when to say it), and caring (how it’s said).”26

  In a blog by Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes, he said that on high-performing teams, “information flows freely and team members have access to the resources they need to get work done. These teams work ‘open.’” He went on to write that openness defines the most impactful teams along three dimensions: “Open ways of working, open ways of thinking, and open ways of being.”27 As part of that, Atlassian shares financial data openly with employees and encour
ages them to respectfully challenge the status quo.28

  This open ethos seems to be working for Atlassian. Total revenue at the highly collaborative company was $174.3 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017, up 37 percent from $127.6 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.29

  Yet, not all companies have mastered this open dynamic, and often knowledge is hoarded for personal prestige or political gain. Creating the right incentives and structure can go a long way to encouraging everyone to contribute and share knowledge and ideas openly.

  These are the best practices I have seen firsthand as part of my work with organizations to create a culture of openness and emotional connection.

  Incentivize Information Sharing

  The secrets to success are creating ground rules that incentivize knowledge sharing instead of knowledge hoarding and building a culture where open communication is expected and valued. Nonmonetary incentives include things like respect, recognition, and leadership. Respect, for one, is an organic incentive for knowledge sharing. Yet, for respect to truly bear fruit as an incentive, the organizational culture must also actively model a corresponding intolerance for knowledge hoarding. If keeping knowledge to oneself is adequately deterred, then the choice to share it becomes almost automatic.

  Recognition, as well, can be a naturally occurring incentive for knowledge sharing that takes many shapes. Organizations can recognize sharing (of ideas or information) informally, by giving people a shout-out for their efforts, or formally with a letter of recognition from a member of the leadership team. One organization I know has a “recognition toolkit,” whereby employees add new ideas for ways to recognize each other. Regardless of how you choose to do it, building recognition around knowledge sharing can serve as a strong incentive.

  Finally, a position of leadership within the group is perhaps the most powerful nonfinancial incentive for knowledge sharing. Although power dynamics need to maintain an equilibrium that benefits the whole group, rotating leadership based on ideas and insights can be one part of encouraging members to share their knowledge.

  Work Across Functions

  Eliminating silos and working across functions encourages knowledge sharing for a few reasons. First, cross-functional teams are made up of individuals with varying types of expertise. This elimination of overlap leads to less competition, making it easier for people to swap diverse perspectives. Next, breaking down silos creates a norm where resources—including information—need to be shared as a matter of course in order for the team to perform. Finally, leaders of teams or cross-functional units are typically expected to incentivize members to share knowledge.

  Even so, many experts would argue that breaking down traditional departmental silos and reorganizing across functions can create a new type of silo—where new barriers are built between competing teams. To avoid this effect, make sure each team has a clear and distinct objective. The other, and perhaps greatest, way to eliminate the silo effect is to build a culture that values collaboration and the open sharing of information.

  Focus on the Magic Middle

  When we focus on collaboration, we tend to zero in on perfecting dynamics among team members. Yet, the bottleneck in information sharing often occurs in middle management, where knowledge is more likely to be held or hoarded.

  With a collaborative team approach, middle managers may feel their authority being threatened, as power is evenly distributed across the organization with individuals making decisions for themselves. More than anything else, this presents a training opportunity. Middle managers who are accustomed to managing information can learn to shift their focus to effectively distributing information and eliminating friction in the knowledge network.

  Extend the Openness to the Outside

  Many companies that value transparency have found that the upside of openness extends beyond their corporate walls. Public companies have requirements to provide public information about financial performance and business practices, but today customers expect far greater transparency and constant communication about everything from corporate values to everyday business.

  Although companies should set their own ground rules about how (and how much) information is shared publicly online and through social channels, the most collaborative firms share information and solicit feedback in return from customers and stakeholders. Companies like Zappos, for example, tap into their connections to customers, and the information that flows back to the company is utilized to make decisions about product development. This collaborative approach, which includes customers and suppliers, adds a rich dimension to openness and transparency, and it sends a signal to employees about the importance of sharing knowledge for the purpose of collaboration.

  4. Mix of Structure and Flexibility

  Collaboration’s sweet spot exists at the intersection of structure and flexibility. My research for In Great Company reveals that we need to organize individuals to succeed by having guardrails in place, but we also need to allow enough free rein to leverage creative instincts and agility. I mentioned Atlassian, where teams operate in the flow with relative freedom and fluidity, equipped with the guidelines in the company’s Team Playbook. The playbook, which contains many levels of resources, from checklists and videos to team health diagnostics, offers ideas for keeping teams balanced, making difficult decisions, and containing conflicts before they erupt.30 The playbook works for Atlassian because it offers collaborators the right mix of structure and flexibility. The playbook has become so popular that in 2016 Atlassian made it publicly available online and urged other companies to use it to improve their own collaborative efforts.

  Another, much larger organization that has focused on how to structure for collaboration is General Motors. Michael Arena, chief talent officer at GM, told me about their work tapping into employee networks by leveraging the power of connectivity and relationships.31 The point is to “identify innovators within the organization and position them to connect with others and do their best work together.” This nuanced approach looks beyond a typical hierarchical structure to create a superstructure based on “social capital.”

  “We can hire really bright people, but if we can’t get them positioned effectively, in such a way where they can have an impact, they’re useless,” Arena said. “Then it’s just un-seized potential sitting on the margins of the organization.”32

  Both GM and Atlassian are creating structures that have flexibility embedded in them, allowing people to adapt to change, respond to opportunities faster, and connect and collaborate more effectively. This syncs up with several of the five dimensions of emotional connectedness, but it nests most neatly within collaboration because it corroborates several important prescriptions, as follows.

  Combine Freedom and Focus

  Spotify and ING organize according to the Agile development model of “Squads, Tribes, and Chapters.” W.L. Gore, maker of Gor-tex fabric, blends culture with structure to organize as a “latticework of strong interconnected talents woven together like a tapestry.”33

  Digital enterprises like Airbnb and Zappos have experimented with the idea of Holocracy, which eliminates traditional leaders and empowers decision-making at the individual level. While it’s clear that these particular organizing structures are not for every company, collaboration works best when the structure allows the combination of freedom and focus mentioned above. Just as collaboration should add flexibility to an organization, any structure today should deliver the agility to keep businesses competitive and engage employees.

  Use the Power of People

  Studies show that “the burden of collaboration in organizations is unevenly distributed,” with “20 to 35 percent of value-added collaborations coming from only 3 to 5 percent of employees.”34 This tells us that we need to identify the most talented collaborators among us and support and reward them accordingly. This is exactly what Michael Arena is exploring within GM. Based on in-depth research by Rob Cross and Wayne Baker35 on the topic of “
mapping energy in social networks,” Arena is identifying Energizers— individuals who can spark progress on projects, evangelize ideas, and attract others to join the cause.

  “We’re identifying them, partnering with them, and incorporating them in the design process,” Arena said.

  This practice of mapping and tapping into the social network inside large complex organizations allows organizations like GM to support not only the Energizers who diffuse energy across their network but also several other important network archetypes vital to the collaboration. Active and deliberate, knowing who your most powerful collaborators are enables you to recognize their work and pave the way for others to join and support them.

  Build Accountability into Collaboration

  Empowering collaborators and relying on networks of interactions does not mean that people are not held accountable for results. In teams, transparent goals and accountability expectations should be baked right into the structure. Team leaders and members need to hold each other accountable.

  The other key element in accountability is feedback. Part of the promise of collaboration is the ability of teams to place small bets, experiment, and course correct based on what they learn.

  5. Conflict Resolution

  Fueled by diverse thinking and varied perspectives, collaboration creates emotional connectedness when differences can be leveraged to create connections, as opposed to sowing divisiveness and discord.