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Teamwork

Build Up or Blow Up

by Ron Potter October 11, 2018

Edify or Power

Edify: Build, Construct. Install, Teach, Instruct; Improve.

Power: Greek = Dynamikos – Strength, Control, Mastery, Lordship, Dominion

This word Edify is almost always associated with relationships.

Marriage
Friendship
Acquaintance
Colleagues
Team Mates

When it comes to relationships, you should always be in the “Building Up” mode.

Another closely associated word is power. However, the root word for power is Dynamikos. This is the root word for dynamite. It’s tremendously powerful, but it’s designed to blow up, explode, and tear down.

Edify: build up.

Power: Tear down or blow up.

What’s going on in your team?

Often, while teams are in the room together there seems to be great camaraderie. But what happens outside the room? Do team members begin complaining about colleagues? Do they express doubt about motives or direction of action? Are they concerned members are not aligned with the team goals?

What do you do in that case? Do you continue to blow things up? Or, do you edify?

“No, you’re wrong. That person listened, participated, shared, was vulnerable, was open. They performed very honorably.”

Now that language,

Begins to edify the other person.
Starts changing the attitude within the corporation about that other person.

Agree to Disagree

At one company I was working with the CEO and leadership team down through the VP, Director and manager levels. I began to see what I would describe as an all-out war between two groups of people. It was being very disruptive, very costly, and there seemed to be no effort on either team’s part to reconcile the difference and come to an agreement that was going to advance the needs of the company.

As I began looking for the root of that division, it led upward. Right up to the executive team. It became clear that two members of the executive team totally disagreed on the approach to an issue. As I talked to each of them individually and confidentially, they explained their disagreement with the words “We have simply agreed to disagree.” On the surface, that seems very honorable.

“We’re not going to get into conflict, we’re not going to fight with each other. We know that we have a disagreement on this. We’re just going to calmly and politely agree to disagree.”

The cost of Power versus Edification

The cost of that disagreement would be almost impossible to calculate. It was costing that company a tremendous amount of money, creativity, human health, and focus.

The top team cannot agree to disagree! If you’re a part of the executive team, you’re there to reach agreement. Not just reach agreement on the simple stuff. Reach agreement on the things that are very difficult, that create huge dilemmas. You may have absolutely opposite beliefs and assumptions but it’s still your job to reach that agreement so that the corporation can move forward effectively.

Did those two leaders edify each other? No. They simply said to their organization:

So-and-so doesn’t agree. They think this is the wrong way to go. We’re not going to agree with that. We’re going to do our own thing.

United teams must reach an agreement of difficult issues with edification.

We do have some very different opinions here, but everyone has been honorable, direct, and vulnerable in where they are on this. Despite those different opinions, we have reached an agreement. Everyone is behind this and everyone is contributing their part.

Now we’re getting somewhere. Now we just eliminated huge frictional cost within the organization, simply because we used edification versus power.

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Teamwork is Hard

by Ron Potter October 4, 2018

I’ve shared in the past that the name of my company, Team Leadership Culture, is in that order for a reason. I firmly believe that building great teams is the key to success for any enterprise. I’ve never really had anyone disagree with me on that issue.

Yes, there have been the hard-driving bosses (notice I didn’t refer to them as leaders) who tell me that “The difference between success and failure it’s about getting people to do what they’re told to do.” There’s really nothing I can say or do in those circumstances. I usually just wait and then help pick up the pieces. Believe me, great teams make the difference.

So why is it so hard and requires a continual process to build great teams?

One of the main reasons is that:

It takes everyone to make teams work and be great—build teamwork
It only takes one person to cause team failure—breakdown teamwork

The tricky part is that it’s not always the same person at any given point in time.

Sometimes the team will enter a high-risk situation. One that will require a decision when there are still a lot of moving parts or there is still a great deal of ambiguity. It might be the most risk-averse team member that causes the delay that brings about failure.

Sometimes it happens in times of great success when one person feels they didn’t get enough credit for the success or their contributions were not appreciated. This can create a smoldering resentment that will cause failure in the near future.

Successful teams are constantly “sharpening the saw.” You might recognize that statement as number seven of Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His point is that even though you build in the other 6 habits, you need to constantly sharpen the saw. You need to constantly review your effectiveness then learn, grow, and get better. Teams need to do the same.

Truth

Teams need to speak the truth to each other. This attribute falls away quickly by the error of omission. Not saying something when something needs saying.

Respect

Teams need to hold each other in high regard. This disappears almost instantly when someone feels slighted or under-appreciated.

Elegance

Teams need to constantly work the friction out of the systems. As soon as the lack of clarity or ambiguity creeps into the system, friction is created.

Commitment

Teams need to reach unity and reinforce commitment. Without either you haven’t really accomplished team!

Teamwork is hard, but teams are the most important aspect of success. Work hard and constantly on building team.

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I Wouldn’t Have

by Ron Potter September 20, 2018

“I wouldn’t have done it that way!” These are very easy words to express but what do they really mean? Most people who use these words, or some such sentiment, will tell you:

They’re only trying to help
They’re helping the person learn
They want the other person to see things from a different perspective.

Those are all great reasons, but, do the words “I wouldn’t have done it that way” express those positive intentions? I don’t think so.

To me those words:

Assign blame
Shift accountability
Feed the ego and superiority attitudes

Using these words could also be considered a cheap shot or a cowardly statement.

Lots of factors need to be considered when decisions are made. When a person is not present and engaged in the decision-making process they:

Don’t know the circumstances
Aren’t aware of the dilemma’s the decision maker faced
Are looking at the decision from the perspective of hindsight

The more impactful decisions are very difficult to make. If you weren’t there as part of the decision-making process, don’t second guess.
What if your intention is to truly help? Help the person think through their decision-making process. Help them learn. Don’t second guess.

You may want to try things like:

What has changed since the decision was made?
Were there other perspectives that might have been useful at the time?
Was input received from relevant sources?
Was there pressure to make any decision at the time?

The answer to these and other questions may lead to a better decision-making process in the future. Or, the conclusion may be that the best decision was made at the time. Use these learning efforts to reinforce the decision maker. Support them. Help them grow.

Don’t second guess. It’s not useful.

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Blog Culture

Rocky: Steps Vs. Success

by Ron Potter September 6, 2018

If you’ve ever seen the old movie Rocky you probably remember him climbing the steps of the Art Museum in Philadelphia to finish with a very powerful victory stance. It’s a very moving scene with very powerful music. What we remember is the success.

But, did you know that Rocky climbed 72 steps after running 30.6 miles?

Heidi Grant Halvorson in her book Nine Things Successful People Do Differently says, “Don’t visualize success, visualize the steps you will take in order to make success happen.”

Let me come at this issue from two different sides. One side is what I call “Dave the Dreamer” and the other side is called “It’s easy for you.”

Dave the Dreamer

I have a friend, I’ll call him Dave the Dreamer. Dave is one of the most advanced technical minds that I know. When Dave is talking about technical issues, I feel like I’m barely hanging on by my fingernails. I sort of grasp the concepts, but I don’t really understand the details (which he spends a great deal of time talking about).

Dave really is a friend and I do enjoy being around him and listening to these incredible stories. But Dave is a dreamer. He always assumes that the next big thing is going to happen to him. He visualizes the success.

With each new story and concept, I think (and say to him), “Dave, that’s fantastic. Go for it. Create it. Get it into the world. And Dave is sure it’s going to happen because he knows the “right people” and the concept just can’t fail. Dave visualizes the success.

The next time I talk with Dave, it’s all about the next new thing. What happened to the last idea I ask.

Oh, it ran into a snag.
We couldn’t come up with the funding.
Someone didn’t follow through on their promise.
This idea is so much bigger and better

Dave never visualized the steps that it was going to take to get there. He only visualized the success.

Success is fun. Steps are hard. Success is at the end of a straight line. Steps are long and winding roads. Success exists in your mind. Steps are real, hard and filled with setbacks.

It’s easy for you

I also see the other side of this story. Those who have visualized the steps. They faced each step and each setback. They overcame difficult issues, failed, got up and tried again. When they experience success, the crowd looks at them and often says.

It was easy for you.
You were smarter.
You had a better opportunity.
You were in the right place at the right time.

This reflects the crowd’s belief in visualizing success rather than visualizing the steps. Visualize the steps. They’re difficult. They are not stable. They’ll shift with time and circumstances. They’re long and arduous. But keep going. The success that others only visualize is much more enjoyable after you’ve climbed the steps.

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Blog Caring in Action Trust Me

Caring in Action: Challenge

by Ron Potter August 13, 2018

Caring becomes real to another person only when some action occurs. I believe that communication, confrontation, and challenge are three of the best ways a leader puts “feet” to true caring.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve unpacked each of these aspects of caring and will conclude this week with challenge.

Challenge

An often overlooked aspect of compassion is the desire to help a person grow. Compassion includes challenging others to attain high-quality results on projects that stretch them. People need challenge in their lives, and leaders need to help their employees see the value of it not only for their own well-being but for the well-being of the organization as well.

This concept often reminds me of a story my co-writer Wayne would tell. Some years ago, he was asked to tackle an impossible task. He assumed leadership for a company division that had underperformed for several years. He inherited a group of salespeople whose only motivation was retirement. In addition, the division was overstocked with wrong inventory, and customer complaints were stacked high.

He rolled up my sleeves and began working to pull the department together. The first goal was the sales team. Together they worked out some new incentive programs and some additional benefits if sales quotas were met. Then they turned our attention to the customers, and, one by one, they solved their problems, creating a renewed commitment to service within the division. Next came sales and marketing strategies. With the team’s help, they launched a new marketing campaign that began to increase sales. They aggressively sold off the old inventory and partnered with a supplier to provide them with fresh stock from his facility. They were on a roll!

In three months sales and profits were up, and the crew (all but one stayed with the program) was happy and productive.

One day Wayne’s boss put his arm around his shoulders and asked him if he was aware that he had accomplished what many thought was impossible. His boss asked him what he had learned from the experience and told Wayne, “I’m sorry for all the extra work the last few months. I hope you understand—I did this to help you grow into a better manager.”

This man challenged Wayne to be better. His desire was to help him grow by throwing him into the middle of an almost impossible situation. Sure, the company prospered, but his goal also included Wayne’s personal growth and development.

How have you been challenged to grow? How might you challenge those who report to you to grow?

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Blog Culture

Restoration or Revenge

by Ron Potter August 9, 2018

Team Unity is the most powerful productivity booster that can be applied.

There are several “multipliers” to team productivity. One is trust. Another is respect. And you need both in place to build unity. But unity is the greatest productivity booster of all.

Whenever people are involved there will always be conflict and friction. It’s just the nature of things. How we respond to the conflict and friction will determine the value of the team.

Revenge is a power play. When you take a tit-for-tat approach to conflict and friction it’s because you want to maintain power over the other person. Teams are not built on power, they’re built on unity.

Unity requires reconciliation. Reconciliation requires giving up power and control. This doesn’t mean you need to give up your beliefs and assumptions or cave into another person’s need for power and control but it does take humility. The original definition of humility meant tremendous power under complete control. Being under control means self-control, not controlling others. Restoration helps build trust.

Restoration means reaching out to others. Listening to their point of view. Not arguing or countering every point they make but attempting to understand their background, experiences, beliefs, and assumptions that are leading to their position. Steven Covey addressed this approach in his 7 Habits of Highly Successful People when he said, “Seek to understand first before being understood.” Few people seem to have the patience to fully understand the other person before expressing their point of view but when it does happen, it is very powerful.

However, there are occasions that despite the effort to understand and reconcile, the other person may not be willing to reconcile. In these cases, there is an ancient process that says bring one or two others with you to help reconcile. That doesn’t mean that you bring one or two supporters to overcome your “opponent.” It does mean to bring one or two others to help assure that the process is facilitated well and that both sides are completely understood.

If after making the effort with a good facilitator or two, reconciliation still seems to allude you, this is an issue that needs to come to the team. Letting it fester in the background or simply agreeing to disagree will never bring the trust and unity needed to build a great team. Great teams reach unity and commitment. Without unity and commitment, the full power of the team will never be realized.

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Blog Trust Me

Energizing the Team with Vision

by Ron Potter June 25, 2018

People are hungry to be led and will gravitate toward leaders who have a clearly communicated vision. Knowing “why we do these things around here” helps put management’s expectations for individuals and teams into a meaningful context.

What a well-communicated vision can do

Authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner found that “when leaders effectively communicate a vision—whether it’s to one person, a small group, or a large organization—that vision has very potent effects. We’ve found that when leaders clearly articulate their vision for the organization, constituents report significantly higher levels of the following:

Job satisfaction
Motivation
Commitment
Loyalty
Esprit de corps
Clarity about the organization’s values
Pride in the organization
Organizational productivity

Clearly, teaching others about the vision produces powerful results.”

Implementing your communicated vision

In order to implement a communicated vision, leaders need to encourage clear buy-in from the people. This requires moving beyond communication to collaboration. The goal is to develop a supportive environment and bring along other people with differing talents and abilities. It also means that when the followers truly understand the vision, the leader needs to step aside and let them do the work to “produce” the vision. The leader needs to give them the authority and responsibility to do the work necessary in order to bring his or her vision to fruition.

I witnessed a meeting recently in which the leader brought together a crossfunctional group to brainstorm some marketing campaign ideas for the company. People from different departments assembled and were led through a planned exercise on corporate marketing focus for the following year. The best idea came from a person far removed from the marketing department. She quite innocently blurted out just the right direction and even suggested a great theme for the entire campaign.

If the leaders of this organization had simply called together the “marketing types,” they would have missed a tremendous idea. Or if the leader had done the work alone and not opened it up to input from others, he might not have secured the necessary buy-in from the staff to implement the project. Studies show that when people understand the values and are part of the vision and decision-making process, they can better handle conflicting demands of work and higher levels of stress.

People want the best in themselves called out. They will rally around a communicated vision and work hard to support it. The vision also establishes a foundation of shared commitment and focus if and when times get rough.

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Blog Trust Me

Team Time Management

by Ron Potter June 18, 2018

While consulting with one of a client organization on leadership matters, I kept hearing from the high-level executive team that they were all averaging more than eighty hours a week. During the training with this group, the topic of the heavy work schedule kept surfacing.

I decided to put what we were doing on pause and take a closer look. Some questions needed answering: First, how could these executives keep up this schedule without destroying themselves, their families, and their teams? Second, with such demands on their time, how would they be able to change ingrained habits and actually start doing this “leadership thing” that they knew was important, but they never seemed able to focus on long enough to accomplish? Would our recommendations, if followed, now cause them to have to work ninety hours per week?

To get hard data on how these executives were allocating their time resources, we decided to use the Stephen Covey view of time management found in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey’s Time Management Matrix shows four categories of activities:

I asked the team to spend two weeks tracking their time and scrupulously recording what they were doing during these 80-hour marathons. I tallied the results and created a page on a flip chart for each person, cataloging that 8 of their 80 hours went to task A, 6 hours went to task B, and so on. All 160 hours were accounted for in this way.

Time Management Matrix from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

The group assembled to hear the results. I wish there was a videotape of the assorted jaw-dropping responses I observed as I first revealed individual patterns and then moved on through a discussion process for the entire group. It was interesting and a bit entertaining when one person would identify an item as Quadrant III (urgent, but not important) and someone else would say, “Time out! If you don’t do that task for me, I can’t get my work done (Quadrant I)!” It took a great deal of negotiation to reach a team consensus on which activities belonged in which quadrants. However, through those negotiations, we discovered just exactly what each person needed.

In many cases one person or team was generating an entire report that took a great deal of time, while the person who needed the data might use only a single crucial piece of data from the entire report. Once we determined that the one piece of data could be generated easily and, in many cases, could be retrieved on demand by the recipient from a database, a gigantic amount of busywork was eliminated.

After completing the negotiations over quadrant assignments, we added up all the hours and determined that about 20 percent of the hours fell in Quadrants I and II (the categories that really matter if you want to focus the team), while 80 percent fell in the less important Quadrant III.

You can imagine the stunned silence that settled like a black cloud in the room. Finally one executive said, “You mean we accomplished all of our important work in sixteen hours and the other sixty-four hours each week were spent on busywork?” The answer was yes. More silence followed.

How had this bright, talented, and obviously hard working “band” gotten so out of tune, so unbalanced? For one thing, they had never sat down together for this kind of discussion and negotiation. The positive result was that they eliminated a tremendous amount of busywork right on the spot. As a team, they came to grips with the focus-destroying enemy called “the tyranny of the urgent.”

If I stopped by your place of business and did the same exercise, what might the results be? Have you and your team identified the important versus the urgent? Do you spend your time and energy on the important?

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Are you just a Big Splash?

by Ron Potter June 14, 2018

As an engineer, I learned about laminar flow. Let’s take the example of water for a minute. A lot of engineering science goes into what’s called laminar flow, which means aligning all the molecules of water in the same direction. We know from our science work in high school that water is made up of H2O, two hydrogens, and one oxygen molecule. When the engineers start filtering and aligning and pushing each one of these molecules in precisely the same direction, that’s known as laminar flow. Water in laminar flow is incredibly powerful. It can cut through solid steel. If it doesn’t quite achieve laminar flow, all it does is splash off the surface because there’s no alignment of the molecules. Is your team able to cut through the toughest issues or does it just splash and get everyone wet?

Once again I recently heard a CEO say,

Well, that’s not true, but that’s their perception.”

Implied in that statement is that he, and maybe he alone, knows the truth. Those other poor, well-meaning souls only have their perception. Unfortunately, many people believe their perception is the truth. Every day, more brain research is showing us that what we see and hear is processed through multiple brain centers dealing with memories, beliefs, emotions, and others before the image, or the audio file is stored in our memory. That means from the time we observe something through sight or sound, it’s completely processed in our brain based on who we are before the memory is stored in our brain.

Unfortunately, we think of our memory as if it were a computer hard drive. It’s a poor analogy. With a hard drive, we can go back several years later and retrieve the data that was placed on the hard drive, and it’s exactly the same data that was initially stored. But when we retrieve data from our brain, it has been constantly modified before placing in memory. We have further learned that even after a memory has been placed in our brain, it is continually being modified with every new experience from the moment it was initially stored. We don’t have reality in our brain. We only have our perception, and even that is being continually modified.

When we get into high levels of trust and respect for our teammates, we begin to realize that we each have valid perceptions, and our jobs as members of the leadership team are to form our collective reality from the multiple perceptions. We do this, so we can align and move forward together. We have different perspectives. But, we need to build a valid ‘reality’ of our perceptions so that we can move forward together. Without it, we will continue to move in different directions, diluting, diffusing our energy and trust, and creating nothing more than a big splash. When we line up all the “molecules” of our perceptions we begin to generate some real power.

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Blog Culture

ABC or DEF. Which Grade do you receive?

by Ron Potter June 7, 2018

Based on our grades from school most of us are going to think that ABC is probably the place we want to be. However, that does not apply to this set of circumstances. In this case, I define ABC as Always Blaming and Complaining.

ABC.

What do you hear from the ABC crowd? Blaming.

blaming others
blaming circumstances
blaming family situations
blaming traffic situations.

Plenty of blame to go around. They never seem to hold themselves unaccountable.

Along with blaming, complaining is a very close relative. Complaining about the circumstances that they seem to have no control over.

One of my favorite adages through the years is something called The Serenity Prayer.

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

With the complainers, everything seems to fall into the “I cannot change” category but there is no serenity. There is a lack of courage to identify and change the things that are possible to change.

In many cases, they seem to want to accomplish great things or tackle some new entrepreneurial endeavor. But the first thing out of their mouth is complaining about why that’s not going to happen.

Government regulations are going to keep them from succeeding
Nobody will listen to them
Investors won’t invest in them

Always blaming and complaining is not where you want to be.

DEF.

DEF stands for Dependable, Effective, and Friendly.

Being dependable means doing the things that you have committed to do. It has as much to do with integrity as it does anything else.

When you commit to something
When you agree to something
When you say you will do something

Do it!

Can people depend on you? People figure that out quickly. If they can’t depend on you:

They’ll stop turning to you
You’ll do less and less work over the time (becoming expendable)
Those who are dependable get more and more assigned to them because they can be counted on.
Over time, this causes great disruption within organizations.

Are you effective? We all tackle our work, both individually and in teams, but how effective are you?

All kinds of issues can come into play here. One is perfectionism.

Do you have to have everything absolutely perfect? Does everything have to be perfect before you release it? Perfectionism usually gets to a self-esteem issue and really doesn’t do the organization any good. Do the work that you need to do. Figure out what’s important. Stay focused on those key important issues and be effective at what you accomplish.

Friendly. This may sound a little out of place here, but one interesting experiment I run with teams is titled The Perception Exercise.

I share one list of characteristics with half the team and another list with the other half. Once they’ve each observed their list, and understood it, I start asking them about the characteristics of this individual.

Are they dependable?
Are they effective?
Are they honest?
Are they trustworthy?
Will they be successful in life?
Do you want them on your team?

And one half of the team typically scores that individual much lower than the other half. The interesting difference is that the lists are identical in terms of characteristics, except for one word.

One list contains the word warm. “This tends to be a warm individual.”

The other list contains the word cold. “This tends to be a cold individual.”

Those two words, whether we perceive the person to be warm or cold, friendly or not, shapes our whole view of their performance, contribution and future success. We even decide if we want them as part of our team or not. Psychologists tell us that we will make a warm or cold judgment in the first 15 seconds of meeting a person.

Sometimes it’s very difficult to figure out where we are ourselves, and we need to get some feedback on this. But quite honestly, I believe that if you are very thoughtful, intentful and honest with yourself, you can decide whether you fall more on the ABC side or the DEF side. Keep in mind that if you fall on the ABC, always blaming and complaining, you may be attempting to avoid some immediate pain, but in the long term, none of that will lead to success or happiness in your life. However, if you’re one of those people who fall on the DEF side of the scale, dependable, effective, friendly, we can predict with good accuracy much more long-term happiness and success and productivity in your life.

Give yourself a grade, see where you come out on this one.

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Blog Culture

The Machines won’t stand a chance!

by Ron Potter May 31, 2018

Earlier this year I reviewed the book Only Humans Nee Apply. The question raised by the book is:

How do we as humans survive in this incredible technology, robotic age that we’re now entering?

One way to look at history is through the “ages” that have been identified.

The Agricultural Age
The Industrial Age
The Information Age
The Technology Age

The Agriculture Age and Industrial Age are well documented and understood. One important thing to remember is the workers at the center of those ages were essentially the upper-middle class of the day.

The landowner or industry owners were the wealthy of that era, but the agricultural and industrial workers were the upper middle class of the day.

The steam engine brought an end to the industrial age when factory workers began making more money. The industrial age ended in September 2007 when the United Auto Workers wages dropped from $60/hour to $20/hour. Industrial workers could no longer make upper-middle class wages.

But when did the information age end? By some measures, it ended 50 years ago. We just haven’t noticed yet.

The Next Age

The next age has gone by different identifies. The Conceptional Age. The Creative Age.

What we know for sure is that we’re entering a new phase where the technology is finally hitting its stride and doing many things that the information or knowledge workers used to do. Several of our major colleges today employ sports writing “robots”. Plug in the stats from the game and the computer writes the sports story.

In his book, Only Humans Need to Apply, Tom Davenport talks about the different ways humans will survive and thrive in this machine age.

You can become a machine maintenance person, a technician. Machines will always need maintenance and repair.
You can use the machine to augment what you do. My first example of this was using spreadsheets. Spreadsheets began to augment what I did as an engineer. The problem with allowing machines to augment what you do is they quickly get smart enough to take over what you do.

Davenport says our best chance is to augment what the machines can do. How do we begin to use that technology and apply our creativeness? The one aspect that machines haven’t mastered is being creative (so far). How do we begin to apply creativity in ways that machines would never think doing? This is how humans will survive in the technology age.

Augmenting Teams

But, I believe our greatest augmentation opportunities lie in teams, not technology. We need to think about our teams in a similar way. How do we augment each other? If we don’t, we’re not gaining the incredible power of teams. We’re just a group of individuals working together. But in the same way, we think about augmenting machines, we can augment what each other do. By doing so we’re creating a team that can go far beyond even what the best individual on the team can do.

This idea of augmenting each other means we’re required to know each other not as human doings, not as what we do or how we do it but as human beings.

Who are we?
How do we think?
What are our beliefs and assumptions?
What are the values that we hold?
How are we going to face difficulties together?

This is where growth happens when we’re faced with difficult situations. Teams that learn to augment each other, that function better as a team than as a group of individuals. These are the teams that will be extremely successful in the future. In fact, my belief is that if teams fully augment each other as human beings, the machines won’t have a chance.

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Blog Culture

What’s your Therefore there for?

by Ron Potter May 3, 2018

The word therefore has only been used in its current form for around 200 years. It’s a relatively new word in our language.

In the original old English, it meant: for that or by reason of that. Or it could be understood to mean “in consequence of that.”

The question is “What is that?”

We all too often give our reason for something without ever explaining what that reason is based upon.

By reason of that

In consequence of that

One of the practices I find myself talking to corporate teams about is conducting good dialogue. Good dialogue begins with clearly stating the “that” which your argument or conclusions are based upon.

Peter Senge wrote the book The 5^th Discipline in 1990. In my experience with corporate clients, it was one of the most impactful books written at the time. Every client I worked with during the late 90’s and early 2000’s was anxious to show me what they were doing with systems thinking (the point of Senge’s book) and re-engineering projects to rethink how they were approaching their work. The book itself was over 400 pages long and my personal notes of highlights were nearly 40 pages. That means I highlighted nearly 10% of all the words written. It was impactful thinking!

One of the basic mental models in the book was Triple Loop Learning. It is most often attributed to Chris Argyris who was a colleague of Senge. In this model, they helped us understand that until we get at the beliefs and assumptions that drive our reasoning we will never actually learn or will always fall short of accomplishing major change efforts. Beliefs and assumptions will always overrule systems, policies, procedures, and processes.

Teams that get good at starting with beliefs and assumptions of each team member find renewed understanding and respect for each other and make great strides accomplishing great things beyond what one individual could accomplish.

In my experience, if you were to watch high performing teams from behind a soundproof glass, you would think they were at each other’s throats. They seem to be aggressively going at each other and getting in each other’s face. But, if you removed the glass and began to hear the discussions, you would be aware that they want to understand each other so deeply that they are aggressively going after the beliefs, assumptions, backgrounds, experiences that support everyone’s starting points when dealing with a difficult issue. By understanding beliefs and assumptions, the team is better at solving problems and reaching a committed solution they all will back and support.

So, what is your therefore there for? If you can’t share what you believe without condemnation, ridicule or repercussions your “therefore” conclusions, suggestions or directions will never be understood or respected. Build great teams that can openly share Beliefs and Assumptions so that “therefore” is understood and respected.

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