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Lately I have been proactively seeking feedback from colleagues for various Foundation projects, many of which involve messaging.

While not everyone is able to respond all of the time, the general feedback I have received has been tremendously helpful. As I see their suggestions improving quality, I thought to myself: “Why haven’t I asked them before?”

I think the answer goes back to something I believe – you can’t reach your best self, by yourself.  Ironically (or moronically), many of us try anyway. What’s that mean? When we don’t include others, we get in our own way, and perhaps settle for a good result and miss-out on the chance for a great one.

What can we do to get help, and stay out of our own way? Something I’m doing is looking for ever more specific ways to include others, while remaining focused on the few, specific things I do best.

In one example, when helping a client with strategy: I gave attribution to their approach to the operational part of strategy, and used it instead of mine, because I determined it’s what’s best for this specific project. 

The bottom line is that if we remain in our own bubbles, and presume we have all the answers, it ultimately holds us back. We don’t grow. We limit ourselves to just one perspective: ours. 

If you find yourself guilty of this, you aren’t alone! Seek candid feedback from friends and colleagues you trust; you’ll be glad you did.

The post You Can’t Reach Your Best Self, By Yourself | WT #38 appeared first on Authentic Leadership Foundation.

It helps you keep the conversation meaningful (focused on the other person). You ask the other person about their family or their friends you may know, what they do of interest in their work, what are their hobbies and if you have a business reason for talking to them, share your message.

FORM

• F = family, friends
• O = occupation
• R = recreation
• M = message

Deeper conversation can be created with this tool – ACE. I usually use this if I know the other person or after I’ve learned about them by asking the FORM questions first. You might show appreciation by thanking the other person for being a current member of the army reserves. Connections come from commonalities between two people and acknowledging them. For example, maybe your father was in the military. Finally, say something to raise the other person up, even if it is simply an energized – “make something happen today” encouragement…

ACE

• A = appreciation
• C = connect
• E = Elevate

The post How to Talk Collaboratively With Anyone | WT #30 appeared first on Authentic Leadership Foundation.

Have you ever been on a project team and felt the ground rules included some of these phrases?

• I’ll try being nicer if you’ll try being smarter.
• Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
• E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business.
• I’m not being rude. You’re just insignificant.

If you want to be truly collaborative, you must have Ground Rules and Rules of Engagement to help organize a team’s efforts to answer the call to collaborate and give it your best shot.

People often confuse the two terms and it’s important for a project team to define them and create a common collaborative language from the beginning.

Differentiating the Terms

Contrary to popular belief, Ground Rules are about managing yourself. Following ground rules is doing the things behaviorally that shouldn’t have to be said or written down. They are basic behaviors you can ask someone to start or stop doing once, and that’s all it should take.

Rules of Engagement are about managing your interactions with others.

Ground Rules is a basic idea, whereas Rules of Engagement is a step-up because it involves others and it takes work and accountability.

Context Matters

This week's focus will be on Ground Rules. I’m going to give examples of Ground Rules using two different scenarios – my family and a project team. Interesting enough, project teams tend to mirror families. So, in many ways, using the context of family can help project teams better understand the value of answering the call to collaborate.

Examples of Ground Rules

At our house, family ground rules at dinner time include each child helping out:  Molly pours drinks, Aidan sets the table, and Joseph clears the table.

In a project team, Ground Rules may include preparing for meetings, showing-up on-time and silencing your mobile device.

Here’s what it looks like in practice. . .

One of the project teams I’m working with wanted to become more collaborative but didn’t have a common collaboration implementation language. They were confusing Ground Rules with Rules of Engagement. They had a packed, two page, single-spaced, 8-point font document full of well-intentioned statements which they called “Rules of Engagement.”

In reality, these statements were actually Ground Rules for the most part. One example:

“The first response to a new idea should never be ‘no’ and avoid spending too much meeting time on one topic.”

So, we combed through the original document and pulled out the statements that were truly Ground Rules, per our definition. We gave a copy of this list of Ground Rules to everyone to talk about and read and we filed away the master copy in a drawer for safe keeping. Ground Rules are basic ideas, so after talking about them and writing them down once, we shouldn’t have to reference this master copy on too many occasions.

You have to start somewhere and identifying and defining Ground Rules is a great start. As you can see, Ground Rules help hold together a group of people like a family or a project team and help it function in a more collaborative manner to solve problems.

The call to collaborate in either scenario is irrevocable. You are compelled to answer it in all your interactions every day. Answer the call and give it your best shot!

The post The Call to Collaborate is Irrevocable | WT #28 appeared first on Authentic Leadership Foundation.

Here’s a helpful metaphor – according to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, ‘English as a second language is quickly becoming a professionalized industry. There was a time when simply being a native speaker was enough for a young backpacker to get a job teaching English in countries as far afield as Japan and Turkey.

The article goes on to say that state media China Daily estimates there were as many as 400 million English language learners on the mainland at the start of the decade, more than the population of the U.S., and with non-native English speakers across the globe seen as outnumbering native speakers, the teaching of English as a second language has evolved from a niche business into a fully-fledged, global phenomenon. Certified teachers are replacing backpackers in classrooms around the world.

Why? Fine-tuned English is now the global standard. No matter how well one might understand grammatical concepts on paper or grasp the origins of the language, the ability to speak correctly matters most. “What’s the point of learning English if nobody understands what you’re saying?” In the same vein, fine-tuned collaboration skills and behavior are expected now. Raw, collaborative talent is not enough.

What’s my point? – Just as fine-tuned English speaking skills are not instinctive, collaboration is not instinctive. What I mean is you can’t just ‘do it’ when your money, power or reputation is on the line. You have to fine-tune your collaborative skills and behavior to be better at being who you are in challenging situations.

On a global level, English is now seen as a skill needed by a competitive workforce or to be employable just like skillful use Microsoft Word or Excel.

Clients or members of a project team don’t buy your product. They buy how good you are at being who you are, especially when things aren’t going your way.

The post What Good is More Communication if You Can’t Do So Effectively? | WT #25 appeared first on Authentic Leadership Foundation.

A while back we bought a new Honda minivan that came with a “cool box” to keep items refrigerated when traveling. A year later, we noticed that we finally had the hang of intentionally using it during our trip to Canada from Texas. When we first started using the van, we would either forget to use the cool box or bring a traditional cooler — all out of an old habit.

The challenge is the same for many of us in creating new collaborative habits. Expecting collaborative behavior to “just happen” isn’t fair on those involved.  

It’s not unlike the time it takes to steer a giant ship, and we are more like giant ships than we may wish to admit. It takes time (a year or more) and you have to measure progress by capturing stories of how things used to be and how they are today in order to jog team members’ memories. You have to jog memories for team members to recognize progress.

Glacial movement of behavior change over a year or more is hard for people to remember. We have to anticipate this phenomena and measure to keep moving collaboration forward and sustain it.

The post Collaboration Doesn’t Happen Easily | WT #24 appeared first on Authentic Leadership Foundation.