Ed Batista

Group Dynamics: Very Loud (and Very Quiet) People

A theme in my practice is the leader whose team includes a very talkative (or very reserved) member, whose participation deviates substantially from the group norm. Very talkative people may speak at great length, weigh in on every topic, or interrupt frequently, leaving others feeling frustrated or stifled. Very reserved people may participate rarely or not at all, leaving others feeling hesitant or anxious.

It's absolutely not the case that members' participation should be equivalent, but groups generally have a limited capacity to tolerate divergence from normative behavior before experiencing distress. In part this is because the existence of agreed-upon norms help all members calibrate and regulate their own participation, and when the range of behavior in a group becomes too broad, it can no longer be said that a "norm" even exists. [1]

And in many groups the potential to make a valuable contribution is evenly distributed--this may be the rationale for each member's inclusion in the group--but uneven patterns of participation undermine the group's effectiveness. This can be exacerbated by factors related to group tenure or social identity--for example, a long-term member may be much more vocal than new members, or a member who's a demographic minority may be much less vocal than the majority, especially if they're an "only" in some way. [2]

If you're a leader with an unusually loud (or unusually quiet) team member, what can you do? First, assess your tolerance (and that of the other group members) for communication styles that differ from your own. Bear in mind that the goal is a more effective group, not simply one that's more comfortable for the majority. [3] Having done that that, what further steps can you take? You always have the following tools at your disposal.

1:1 Dialogue

You can speak individually with the very talkative (or very reserved) person about their participation in the group. But note that this isn't just about "providing feedback." While you are in a position to help this person understand the impact of their participation on how they're perceived by others and on the group as a whole, it's essential to bear in mind that an individual's behavior in a group is in part a function of the group environment. The failure to recognize this is one of the most common dynamics in social psychology--it's so prevalent that it's called the "fundamental attribution error": Ascribing causality to an individual when causality actually lies with the situation. [4]

So it's essential to acknowledge the group environment and its potential impact on the individual's participation. (This can be a fruitful topic of discussion for the group as a whole--see below.) But a starting point can simply be learning more about what's going on with this person in other domains of work or life that might be affecting their participation in the group. This can lead into a discussion about what it's like for this person to be a member of the group, raising your awareness of their group experience.

While it's often safer to navigate such potentially fraught topics in a 1:1 setting, there are two pitfalls to be aware of here: First, if this person is prone to defensiveness, a discussion about the group dynamic can be a way to avoid acknowledging the impact of their personal behavior. Awareness of the fundamental attribution error should temper the assignment of causation or blame, but it doesn't absolve individuals of all responsibility.

Also, in your efforts to represent how others are perceiving this person's participation, you may (or may not) have direct input from other members of the group, and you may (or may not) have their permission to attribute their comments to them. Here you face some difficult choices: If you share input from other group members but preserve their anonymity, the person you're talking with may feel exposed and unsafe in the group. If you share input from other group members and reveal their identities, these other people may feel exposed and unsafe, or you may set off a round of follow-up conversations that they're not yet prepared to have. And if you don't share input from other group members, you may create the mistaken impression that you're the only one who's troubled by this person's participation.

The ultimate solution is build a group that's sufficiently robust to hold such conversations in real time with all members present--again, see below. But the reality is that some groups never achieve this ideal, and others reach it only in rare moments--an exceptionally meaningful exercise at an offsite, or a heartfelt conversation over dinner. So while you work your way toward that ideal, the interim solution is to offer feedback based primarily on your own observations, while being rigorous about the format and process to maximize the likelihood of a productive response. [5]

Structured Processes

This involves using various cues and procedures to ensure that every member of the group participates while no member predominates. It need not be complex or cumbersome--simply telling the group, "I want to hear from everyone on this issue" is a type of structured process. It can also be distinct from the group's ordinary discussion--for example, one of the reasons to conduct a "check-in" at the beginning of a group experience is to elicit equivalent participation from all members and thereby set a precedent for subsequent interactions. [6]

Structured processes can be used at any point in a group experience, although the initial cue alone may be insufficient, and you may have to take further steps to regulate participation levels as needed. Note that all such procedures come with a cost, which is why they should be employed judiciously:

• Using a timer to limit participation reins in people who tend to run long. A cost is that such people may feel unduly constrained. [7]
• Speaking in a predetermined order ensures that everyone participates. When meeting in-person, this can be as simple as "going around the table" (or the circle, as the case may be.) A cost is that people who are reluctant to participate may feel anxious as their turn approaches. An alternative can be participating "popcorn" style--you're free to speak up when you choose, but once you've spoken you have to wait until everyone has joined in before speaking again.
• Using an object (when in-person) or relying upon a facilitator to designate the speaker will minimize interruptions. A cost is that the discussion can feel stilted or excessively inhibited.
• Pausing and inviting everyone to take some written notes before resuming the discussion can help talkative members organize their thoughts while also spurring reserved members to speak up. Costs include the time consumed and the interruption to the previous flow of discussion.

The idea isn't to become dependent on structured processes, but, rather, to weave them into the group experience as needed. And despite their various costs, their benefits include not only more balanced participation, but also a sense of novelty. When such processes are well-facilitated (which takes practice), groups can welcome the change from their habitual patterns of interaction.

Direct Intervention

This involves taking action in the moment to reduce participation by a talkative member (and evoke participation from the rest of the group) or evoke participation by a reserved member (and reduce participation by the rest of the group). An advantage of this approach is that it focuses on the individual whose uneven participation is affecting the group, without requiring a structured process separate and distinct from the group's normal discussion. A potential disadvantage is that the individual may feel unfairly singled out and have a negative response to your intervention.

One solution is obtaining permission in advance from the individual under consideration, not only to avoid surprising them with your intervention, but also to ensure that they understand your motivation. It's essential that they feel supported by you as the leader rather than criticized, and an outcome of your 1:1 dialogue with them can be a shared strategy along these lines. A key is intervening subtly at first and escalating slowly to more direct measures.

With a very talkative member, you can...

• Ask the group for more input, hoping that others speak up.
• Ask explicitly to hear from other group members.
• Ask this individual to briefly pause to create space for others.
• Interrupt this individual, particularly if they've interrupted someone else or are talking over others.

With a very reserved member, you can:

• Ask the group for more input, hoping that this member speaks up.
• Ask explicitly to hear from this group member.
• Ask others to briefly pause to create space for this individual.

Such interventions are easy to describe in the abstract, but can be difficult to implement without creating a sense of awkwardness or embarrassment. And yet if you're never willing to accept the risk of stumbling, you'll never develop the skills necessary to intervene with grace and tact.

But even though as the leader you'll always have a special role to play in the development of the group environment, you need not bear this responsibility alone--nor will you succeed if you try. At some point it will be both desirable and necessary to invite all members to assess the group's culture and norms and offer suggestions for improvement.

Group Dialogue

We can think of this as a "meta-conversation": a group discussion about how the group holds discussions. This is far more difficult work than most people realize, which is one reason why so many exercises conducted with this goal in mind fall flat at best. There is a basic conceptual challenge--group dynamics are complex, and relatively few people get much useful training in understanding them.

But at a more fundamental level discussing a group's dynamics with the members of that group inevitably evokes a degree of self-consciousness and vulnerability, which often exacerbates the problematic behaviors that necessitated the discussion in the first place. It's a profoundly thorny dilemma--but one that's worth trying to untangle.

One of the greatest benefits of a group dialogue is its efficiency. While separate 1:1 conversations with group members are useful, as noted above, that process is not only time-consuming but also subject to various degrees of distortion because other group members aren't present to correct misunderstandings or inaccuracies regarding their behavior and intentions.

While specific topics to be addressed here include the optimal range of group participation, the impact on the group of non-normative behavior, and the impact of the group environment on non-normative individuals, it's useful to be aware of the general conditions necessary for any productive norm:

• A set of shared beliefs about how individuals should behave.
• Sufficient mutual esteem among members so that its withdrawal would be felt as a loss by any individual.
• A willingness by members to openly acknowledge a norm violation by a peer.
• A willingness by members to withhold esteem from a peer as a consequence of a norm violation. [8]

So note the value of taking the time to build meaningful relationships among the group members before jumping into a "norms discussion." As I've written before,

This is why relationship-building on a team is so important and why leaders who dismiss it as fluffy bullshit are missing a critical factor in the process of developing productive norms. It's not about "liking each other"--it's about the power of mutual esteem. [9]

Finally, be aware that no single discussion will permanently resolve such a complex set of issues. We call them group dynamics because we expect them to change, and the patterns of behavior that support (or inhibit) effective group performance today may do the opposite in the future. As David Bradford, one of my mentors, used to say, the most productive group norm is a commitment to regularly revisit the group's norms.

Footnotes

[1] For more on the definition and establishment of norms, see Rules Aren't Norms (On Better Meeting Hygiene).

[2] Research on the impact of group composition and diversity on performance is inconclusive--it's easy to find studies supporting almost any point you want to make on the subject. Two observations drawn from my experience are that 1) homogeneous teams experience less conflict but can be more prone to blind spots and "groupthink," and 2) heterogeneous teams can only make effective use of their diversity once they learn to manage conflict effectively (including, but not limited to, the topic under discussion here.)

[3] Work Style Differences

[4] This is the definition I learned in 1998 from Roberto Fernandez, my brilliant Organizational Behavior professor at Stanford. The initial work on the fundamental attribution error was done by Stanford psychologist Lee Ross: The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process (Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 1977).

[5] For more on effective feedback, see the following:

• How to Deliver Critical Feedback
• Feedback Is Not a Gift
• Make Feedback Normal. Not a Performance Review.

[6] Check in to LISTEN, Not Just to Speak

[7] When using a timer, it's preferable to avoid a harsh or abrupt tone--I've used the sound of this Tibetan bowl in many different settings over the years:

Download: Tibetan Bowl

[8] Rules Aren't Norms (On Better Meeting Hygiene)

[9] Ibid.

For Further Reading

Group Dynamics: The Leader's Toolkit

Group Dynamics: Norms and Emotion

Freud on Startup (Conditions for Group Effectiveness)

Huddle Up! (Building Group Cohesion)

Symptoms of Group Strength

Photo by Chris Christian.

The Rubber Band Effect

One of a leader's foremost responsibilities is predicting the likelihood of future events and planning accordingly. A leader's effectiveness at this task derives from a number of sources: time and space for strategic thinking, access to critical data, a knack for pattern-recognition--or the ability to hire others with the requisite skills and make use of their recommendations.

As a result, good leaders spend a material portion of their time envisioning the future--weeks, months, and even years ahead of the people around them. They peer over the horizon and get a sense of what it might be like to live there. This capability can be a tremendous asset--but only when it's coupled with the ability to influence others to adopt and act upon that same vision. In the absence of this capability, even the most far-seeing leader will suffer the fate of Cassandra in Greek myth: Blessed with the gift of prophecy, doomed to never be believed.

Imagine there's a rubber band connecting the leader with the people around them. When the leader travels forward in time to envision the future, the rubber band stretches. This produces a useful and necessary tension between the leader's vision and everyone else's current reality, which, under the right circumstances, can move people to adopt this vision of the future and begin to act accordingly. But if the leader runs too far ahead or pulls too hard in an effort to bring people along, the rubber band breaks. There's a rupture between the leader's vision of the future and everyone else's current reality, and the leader loses influence as a result.

If good leaders spend time living in the future, great leaders perfect the skill of inducing others to join them there. Sometimes this entails active efforts to shape and influence others' views--but it also requires the ability to abstain from taking action when necessary. Because the foresighted leader not only assesses the likelihood of future events, but also pays close attention to current trends and the extent to which they are sweeping other people along in their wake, with or without further action by the leader.

The great leader steps into the future just far enough to encourage the people around them to consider the possibility of this alternative reality, but not so far ahead that their vision is dismissed or ignored. The great leader allows the combined force of their vision of the future and the movement of current trends to bring people along without unnecessary force by the leader or undue stress on others. The rubber band stretches, but it does not break.

Is this always possible? No, of course not. Events rarely align so neatly. But it's something to strive for, and here's how this process shows up every day in my coaching practice: The leaders I work with are tasked with looking into a volatile and uncertain future and placing high-stakes bets on what they believe to be the likely outcomes. They will inevitably be compelled to make decisions with imperfect and incomplete data. And they must do this while leading teams that include a number of people who are manifesting various forms of anxiety: aggression, panic, paralysis, denial.

The metaphorical bands that bind the leaders in my practice to the people around them are fraying under the strain. They must not break. My clients must maintain sufficient tension to help move their organizations and their employees forward, without putting so much pressure on people and systems that the bands rupture. It is a delicate balance.

For Further Reading

Aggression, Panic, Paralysis and Denial

How to Cross Antarctica (On Surviving Chaos)

The Importance of Shared Narrative

Adapted from Leadership in Crisis (FDR and the Rubber Band Effect).

Photo by laogooli.

Talking About Promotions (with Very Ambitious People)

A theme in my practice is the leader with an ambitious employee who's anxious to be promoted, sometimes to the point of urgency. Most of these people share a set of common characteristics: very high expectations for their professional accomplishments, a nagging sense that they're "behind" in some way, and an idealized vision of the happiness (or relief) they'll experience when they achieve their goal.

But their talents and capabilities can differ substantially, of course. Some of them are already operating at an elite level, and their ambition is entirely justified. Others are just as obviously not at an elite level, and their ambition is sadly misguided. But most of them fall somewhere in the middle--they show substantial potential, but they haven't yet clearly demonstrated that they merit a bigger role, a new title, or increased compensation.

In my work with leaders facing this challenge, I encourage them to bear those common characteristics in mind while tailoring their approach to suit the employee's current and potential contributions. If you're in a similar situation, what might this look like?

Managing Expectations, Part 1

With an obvious elite performer, the leader's task is to manage their expectations--but not in the way you might think. Conventional expectation management entails counseling patience, but that's not what I mean here. If you have an elite performer who feels an urgent need for their talents to be recognized, then if you don't find a way to meet that need you'll soon be relieved of this problem, because they'll take their talents elsewhere.

And yet no matter what role, title or comp they're able to command--from you or from another employer--their sense of urgency and the feeling that they're "behind" will almost certainly diminish only for a brief period before it returns in full force. This is the predictable result of two powerful psychological forces: Hedonic adaptation ensures that we readily adapt to changes in our circumstances, which means that even our greatest aspirations, once fulfilled, are soon taken for granted. [1] And social comparison means that we have a deeply rooted predisposition to assess our progress in life by considering our status relative to others who we consider salient figures--and we tend to focus on those who we perceive as "ahead" in some way. [2]

You can't "turn off" these drives in your ambitious elite performer, nor would you want to--they serve a useful role for the species, even as they cause anguish for most of us as individuals at various times in our lives. But if you hope to retain them as a long-term colleague, you'll both be well served if you can help them understand these dynamics and how to deal with them. That doesn't mean encouraging your elite performer to settle for something less than they believe they deserve, but it does involve addressing and coming to terms with the anxiety and other emotions that underlie their ambitions. This requires you act as a mentor, not just a manager, and you can't simply impose that relationship on someone--you have to be invited in.

• The Trap of Competition
• Stop Trying to Be "Good Enough" By "Getting Better"
• Understanding the "Pie Chart" in The How of Happiness

Managing Expectations, Part 2

With an ambitious employee who's an adequate performer but obviously not elite, it's also necessary to manage their expectations, but with different goals in mind. Not only is this person not going to be promoted anytime soon, it's likely that they're going to be levelled or managed out. I make the assumption that there's an unbridgeable gap between your employee's ambitions and their current capabilities, but they're not a chronic under-performer who's failing to add value. (If that's the case, then you should be managing them out now.)

But if you'd prefer to retain them--and yet have no intention of promoting them--then you need to determine whether it will be possible to level them successfully when it becomes necessary. This is always a challenging managerial task, but here the difficulty will be compounded by your employee's unrealistic self-assessment. In this process both of you will need to make a contribution.

You'll have to provide data demonstrating a performance gap, an opportunity to learn from the incoming manager, clarity on your employee's new role, and--perhaps most importantly--sufficient grace to ensure that your employee feels respected throughout the process. Your employee will have to respond with non-defensiveness--which will be easier for them if you fulfill the responsibilities above. And both of you will need to trust each other, which requires investing in the relationship over time.

This will obviously take time and effort, and in any given case you may conclude that it's not worth the trouble. But note that the ability to successfully level an adequate employee who's not an elite performer is a tremendous managerial asset, and you won't learn how to do it if you never try.

• The Fine Art of Levelling
• Merciful Exits (On Under-Performing Executives)

From Potential to Excellence

Most of your ambitious employees will fall somewhere in between these two extremes--they haven't yet demonstrated consistent elite performance, but they show substantial potential, and the question is whether or not that potential will be fully realized. And one of the best tools at your disposal to influence that outcome is clear, direct feedback on the nature of their performance. One simple framework involves providing feedback in three distinct "buckets":

1. Here's where you're already delivering excellence.

This should be an easy bucket to fill, but many managers fail to make effective use of it. They worry that positive feedback will cause an ambitious employee to feel entitled to a promotion, so they withhold it--which only increases the employee's anxiety and agitation. Or the manager learned in some terrible training session that they should always offer "positive feedback" before delivering the real message--which only trains people to ignore their positive feedback. As a consequence many managers are simply ineffective at delivering meaningful positive feedback that truly has an impact. But it isn't rocket science--it just takes diligent effort and practice. [3]

2. Here's where you're making progress.

This is the bucket that most managers over-utilize. But true excellence (above) and clear under-performance (below) shouldn't be lumped together with other areas of responsibility where your employee is making progress but not there yet. This bucket is an opportunity to have a nuanced conversation with an ambitious employee and let them know that you can discern not only the effort they're making to improve, but also their still-insufficient results, and you want both halves of that message to register.

3. Here's where you're falling short.

This should also be an easy bucket to fill--your ambitious employee has clearly fallen short in some key areas, or you wouldn't be wondering whether or not to promote them. But here again many managers fail to offer meaningful critical feedback. They worry that direct feedback will be demotivating, or that their employee will respond defensively. While it's your responsibility to learn how to deliver critical feedback in a way that's less likely to evoke a defensive response, this is also a valuable opportunity to assess your employee's ability to hear criticism and take responsibility for setbacks, which is a significant indicator of future success.

• How to Deliver Critical Feedback
• Make Feedback Normal. Not a Performance Review.
• Why Some Executives Derail (and What You Can Do About it)

Finally, note that the timing of these conversations matter--your employee is likely to want to hold them more frequently, and as noted in the post linked above, I don't think leaders should wait for formal review cycles to provide developmental feedback. That said, in some cases it makes sense to defer discussions about promotions until there's enough data to justify further consideration. I once had a CEO client whose sales leader tried to renegotiate his comp every single quarter. This proved untenable.

Footnotes

[1] For more on hedonic adaptation, see the following:

• Lottery Winners and Accident Victims: Is Happiness Relative? (Philip Brickman, Dan Coates and Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1978)
• The How of Happiness, pages 48-51 (Sonja Lyubomirsky, 2007)

[2] For more on social comparison, see the following:

• Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, pages 33-34 (Matthew Lieberman, 2013)
• The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't, What Shouldn't Make You Happy, but Does, pages 131-132 (Sonja Lyubomirsky, 2014)

[3] Conscious Competence in Practice

Photo by Sam Beebe.

Whether or Not to Fix a Broken Relationship

A theme in my practice is the leader who's struggling to repair a damaged working relationship with an employee. In most cases we start with the assumption that a better relationship is possible and that even a long-running conflict can be resolved. This usually entails the following steps in some form:

• Having both parties engage in an ongoing dialogue about the relationship.
• Identifying the behaviors and ways of working that each party finds problematic.
• Discovering how the other party is interpreting those behaviors.
• Understanding the intentions motivating those behaviors.
• Providing--and soliciting--more frequent feedback.
• Being prepared for regular setbacks.

This obviously involves a great deal of time and energy, and I'm not suggesting that leaders should always follow these steps or that they should try to fix every broken relationship. As I've noted before, one of the most common mistakes made by my clients is waiting too long "when making the difficult decision to fire someone. There were good reasons for the delay--there always are--but in hindsight they generally wish they’d acted sooner, and often all parties would have benefited." [1]

Further, if sustained underperformance by the employee is a contributing factor, then leaving them in their role may not be a kindness but a form of cruelty. As management thinker Peter Drucker once noted, "I have never seen anyone in a job for which he was inadequate who was not slowly being destroyed by the pressure and the strains, and who did not secretly pray for deliverance." [2]

But in many cases there are legitimate reasons for a leader to make a good-faith attempt, and I find that my clients typically want to try. And yet even then this work can prove exceedingly difficult, leaving the leader wondering at some point whether additional effort is warranted--and sometimes it isn't. If you're a leader facing this situation, here are some issues to consider and questions to ask yourself:

Intentions

We often assume that other people are more aware of our intentions than they really are. Or we believe that expressing our intentions once is sufficient, failing to appreciate that most messages are retained only after they've been repeated multiple times. [3]

• Is your employee aware that fixing this relationship has been a priority for you? Do they realize that you've been actively engaged in these efforts?
• If not, you need to be more explicit about what you're trying to accomplish.

Emotions

We also assume that other people are more aware of our emotions than they really are. We think what we're feeling is obvious, and yet the other person has no idea. This matters because a necessary step in the process will be an expression of vulnerability on your part as the person occupying the higher status role. [4] Why? Because vulnerability is the key to empathy, and empathy is the key to conflict resolution, but people don't naturally "empathize up" with leaders. [5]

To be clear, this does not mean that you should accept more than your share of responsibility, or fail to hold your employee accountable for their share, or seek to placate them by appearing weak. (Weakness isn't vulnerability, nor is vulnerability weakness. [6]) A starting point may simply be acknowledging that you care about this relationship and want it to to succeed. Whatever form it takes, it will almost certainly make you feel uncomfortable.

• Is your employee aware of the range of emotions you've experienced in this process? Do they realize that you've felt some vulnerability and discomfort?
• If not, you need to challenge yourself to communicate in a way that's more outwardly expressive and consistent with your inner state.

Trust

When there's sufficient awareness and understanding of your stated intentions and reported emotions, another barrier can be a credibility gap. Your employee may believe in your good intentions but be skeptical of your determination to follow through on commitments. They may lack faith in the sincerity of your disclosures. Or, even more troubling, they may distrust the legitimacy of the entire process.

• Does your employee believe that you mean what you say? Do they believe that you say what you mean? Do they believe that you've been sincere in your efforts to repair the relationship?
• If not, you need to scrupulously examine your behavior to ensure that it aligns with your intentions and emotions, and then redouble your efforts to build trust. [7]

Ability

A final factor to consider is your employee's ability to reciprocate your efforts and serve as an active counterpart in the process. The factors above all have an impact here, of course--in their absence, your employee may be able but unwilling to play their part. But in some cases people are open in principle to improving a relationship and yet lack the ability to make the necessary changes. This is often related to difficulty with emotion regulation [8] or a reluctance to take responsibility for one's own actions. [9] And while emotion regulation and a willingness to take responsibility are learnable skills, that process inevitably takes time.

• Does your employee have the capacity to manage their emotions, forgive you for your shortcomings (real and imagined), acknowledge their own contributions to the problem, and actively work with you to repair the relationship?
• If not, you need to determine if that's going to change in the time you have available.

With shared awareness and understanding of your intentions and emotions, as well as requisite degrees of trust and ability, you may conclude that continued efforts to fix this relationship are warranted. But as I advise my clients, be mindful of the consumption of your most precious resource--your attention--and the expected return on that investment. [10]

Footnotes

[1] Don't Wait

[2] The Effective Executive, page 89 (Peter Drucker, 1966). Quoted in Merciful Exits (On Under-Performing Executives).

[3] For example, see Replication and Analysis of Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve (Jaap Murre and Joeri Dros, PLOS One, 2015).

[4] Resolving a Protracted Conflict

[5] The Difficulty of Empathizing Up

[6] "The perception that vulnerability is weakness is the most widely accepted myth about vulnerability and the most dangerous... To feel is to be vulnerable. To believe vulnerability is weakness is to belief that feeling is weakness... Our rejection of vulnerability often stems from associating it with dark emotions like fear, shame, grief, sadness, and disappointment--emotions that we don't want to discuss, even when they profoundly affect the way we live, love, work, and even lead. What most of us fail to understand and what took me a decade of research to learn is that vulnerability is also the cradle of the emotions we crave. Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, accountability, and authenticity... I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure." (Brené Brown, Daring Greatly, pages 33-34, 2015)

[7] For more on trust, see the following:

• Safety, Trust, Intimacy
• Two Sides of Trust
• Understanding the Trust Equation (Charles Green)

[8] The Tyranny of Feelings

[9] The Trium Group on Responsibility

[10] Growth, Profitability and Return on Attention

For Further Reading

Better Working Relationships

Work Style Differences

Racing Up the Ladder of Inference

Intent vs. Impact (When Communication Goes Awry)

Make Feedback Normal. Not a Performance Review.

Photo by Henry M. Diaz.

Group Dynamics: The Leader's Toolkit

One of the most significant themes in my practice is the leader whose team of direct reports are experiencing difficulties working together. Most of my clients are CEOs, and they face this challenge with their company's senior leadership team, but it's a dilemma that can occur at every level of an organization. And while the leader isn't solely responsible for their team's culture, they typically have the greatest ability to influence it--for better and for worse.

By highlighting the tools at the leader's disposal, I'm not suggesting that the other members have no role to play in the process--they absolutely do, and an effective leader will make team culture a shared responsibility. But the leader's position often affords them a number of advantages that make it easier for them to initiate action and to invite others to follow their example. So if you're a leader in this situation, what can you do? What tools are available to you?

The list below is by no means exhaustive, but it's a starting point for considering your options. Don't think of them as a series of steps that must be taken in sequence or as a set of mutually exclusive alternatives. You'll probably need to intervene in several ways to make a meaningful difference in your team's culture--but don't try to do everything at once, and don't try to do it alone. If you fail to actively involve your team in the process, you might exact their compliance, but you won't win their commitment, and the latter is necessary for lasting and sustainable change.

1. Logistics

This encompasses all the factors related to the cadence, timing, setting, and purpose of your team's interactions. Some factors will be more difficult to change, of course, but others may be relatively easy. That said, this is where it's particularly important to involve your team in the process. If you simply enact changes by fiat, you won't necessarily reap the expected benefits, not only because your colleagues may not share your assumptions about how to improve team culture, but also because logistical changes can make a sub-optimal team perform worse if they're made in isolation without considering the other factors below. 

So give some thought to whether you should be meeting more (or less) frequently, for longer (or shorter) periods, with more (or fewer) in-person (or virtual) events, and with more (or less) emphasis on tactical issues (or relationship-building). But discuss these issues with your team so you can surface any resistance. This doesn't mean that proposed changes must be put to a vote, or that anyone resisting change has a veto. But resistance is data, and it can usually tell you something valuable about the nature of your team's concerns.

Assuming you do encounter resistance (and you probably will, if people are willing to be candid), frame any proposals as experiments. Formulate the hypothesis you're seeking to test, set a timeline, and assess the costs and benefits at the end of that period.

What can you do?

• Assess your use of in-person, virtual and hybrid work.
• Communicate via the most effective channels, not just the most convenient.
• Begin meetings with a check-in.

2. One-on-Ones

I assume you're already holding regular one-on-ones with the members of your team--and if you're not, I think you should be. One-on-ones not only provide a venue for you and each employee to discuss your respective responsibilities and working relationship, but they also offer a safe setting in which you can address issues related to your respective contributions to team culture and your mutual behavior in team interactions--with one caveat.

The key is normalizing feedback, which entails not only providing feedback to your employee on their behavior, but also eliciting feedback from them about your own. One purpose of obtaining feedback is to compensate for your inevitable blind spots as a leader, but another is to model a non-defensive response, even (and especially) when the feedback stings. This is why it's not enough to ask for feedback--employees will often assume it's a pro forma request, and you don't really want to hear what they have to say.

But here's the caveat: In many cases a one-on-one discussion with an employee about team issues will threaten to become a discussion about another employee. The employee you're meeting with may want to provide context for their behavior, but they may also be seeking to shirk responsibility by blaming the other person, which is really just a means of managing distress. This is one reason why normalizing feedback is so important--when we get feedback on a regular basis, it's less stressful. In any event, keep the focus on yourself and the employee you're meeting with--if you need to address a conflict between employees, bring them together for a separate discussion.

What can you do?

• Make feedback normal.
• Get better at delivering (and receiving) critical feedback.
• Manage conflicts between team members in a separate setting.

3. Group Facilitation

We often think of a "facilitator" as an external figure who temporarily joins a group in order to play a special role, and in some situations an outside facilitator can be a highly valuable addition to your team. But facilitation is merely a mode of operating that can be adopted by any member of a group at any time, and the most effective teams cultivate the ability to facilitate themselves (which doesn't preclude the use of an outside facilitator when necessary.)

Facilitation begins with an emphasis on process, as opposed to content. This is one reason why outside facilitators can be useful--they have specialized process expertise, and they're not personally invested in the outcome of any issues under consideration by the team. There's nothing preventing you and your colleagues from adopting a similar stance, but you need to step back from the what--What's on the agenda? What are my goals? What outcomes do I prefer?--and consider the how--How are we operating as a group? How do we approach problem-solving? How will we make necessary decisions?

Here's where you have a unique responsibility as leader. Team members typically defer to the leader's preferences when it comes to group processes--and in the absence of a commitment to facilitation on your part it's unlikely that anyone else will intervene to propose it. This doesn't mean that you should become the team's de facto facilitator on an ongoing basis, but you will likely have to take the first step.

What can you do?

• Assess your collective approach to problem-solving.
• Determine how you will make a decision in advance.
• Clarify who's facilitating a given discussion--and what facilitation practices can be implemented by any member.

4. Group Observation

Groups don't normally operate with a heightened awareness of their culture, primarily because most group members are focused on their individual experience in the group, not the group as a whole. It's also mentally taxing to actively participate in a group while simultaneously observing the group dynamic. Further, it takes care and skill to translate those observations into actionable language that won't provoke a defensive response.

For these reasons groups often rely on an outside facilitator to observe, assess and comment upon their culture, and, as I note above, there are circumstances when external facilitation is useful. But relying solely on an outside facilitator to do this work is a missed opportunity in several ways. First, outside facilitators can't always be present--if they could, they'd be group members. Also, the presence of an outside facilitator inevitably changes the group dynamic. And when a group relies exclusively on an outside facilitator to do this work, the group members fail to develop their own capabilities.

So while I endorse the use of outside facilitators, I also encourage you to consider how your team could begin to observe itself and to make those observations explicit. This is work that you will almost certainly have to initiate--it's very rare for a group member to share such observations without an invitation from the leader. Note some key challenges you'll face in the process: You aren't merely an observer of this group--you're also the person most responsible for its existing culture, and you undoubtedly have blind spots. And any observations coming from you as the leader will probably trigger some defensiveness--this is to be expected.

What can you do?

• Assess your team's levels of safety, trust and intimacy.
• Consider your existing team norms and revise as needed.
• More specifically, assess your norms related to emotion expression and regulation.

5. Group Composition

This refers to the definition and membership of your team. Who qualifies, and who doesn't? Are the right people involved? Is anyone present who doesn't add value? Is anyone missing who might add value? In an ideal world, everyone who reports to you is a member of the team, and every member of the team reports to you--but organizational life isn't always so neat and tidy.

A challenge that my clients occasionally face is that one of their direct reports doesn't have much to contribute to certain team discussions, or, conversely, someone who does have something to contribute is a skip-level employee who doesn't report directly to my client. At times this has to be addressed in an ad hoc manner by convening a subset of direct reports for a specific purpose, or by inviting a skip-level employee to sit in on a team meeting. But these provisional solutions come with a cost--not only the added logistical burden of calling a special meeting or creating a special group, but also disruptions in continuity and a diminished sense of mutual trust and group identity.

A related but distinct problem is when one of my client's direct reports fails to keep pace with the company's growth or complexity. They're not a toxic or dysfunctional employee, but they're no longer contributing at the same level as their peers. In many cases this occurs when my client has begun to attract and retain more capable talent, and the performance of earlier-stage employees suffers by comparison. Some members of the latter group will accelerate their growth and development in response, but not all will make the leap, leading to gaps in the team's effectiveness as a whole.

What can you do?

• Restructure your org chart to reconstitute your team.
• Level employees who remain assets to the company.
• Exit employees who are under-performing.

For Further Reading

1. Logistics

• Four Buckets (On Co-Located Work)
• The Communication Funnel
• Check-In to LISTEN, Not Just to Speak

2. One-on-Ones

• Make Feedback Normal
• How to Deliver Critical Feedback
• When Executives Clash

3. Group Facilitation

• Hammering Eggs (Leadership and Problem-Solving)
• Leadership, Decision-Making and Emotion Management
• Role Clarity and Role Confusion

4. Group Observation

• Safety, Trust, Intimacy
• Rules Aren't Norms (On Better Meeting Hygiene)
• Group Dynamics: Norms and Emotion

5. Group Composition

• The Judicious Imposition of Structure
• The Fine Art of Levelling
• Merciful Exits (On Under-Performing Executives)

Related Topics

• How Leaders Create Safety (and Danger)
• Safety Is a Resource, Not a Destination
• How We Connect (and Why We Might Not)
• Freud on Startups (Conditions for Group Effectiveness)
• Startups as Human Systems
• Symptoms of Group Strength

Photo by Dude8mm via Flickr.