Leadership in Business – Symptom #3 – Conflict: The Management Team Keeps Clashing

 

You’ve sat in those meetings when everything starts to get heated. The fingers start pointing, everyone is blaming everyone else. As the CEO or leader of this group you’re thinking ‘Come on guys, aren’t we on the same team here?’

 

‘If this was a football team here, and we were in the middle of a game, the competition would have simply run around us all and just scored a goal!’

 

In fact, that’s exactly what IS happening. When there is constant conflict and clashing at the Management Team level, that’s when your eye is off the ball and your competitors are taking advantage of that.

 

So, what is really going on? Why is there so much conflict?

 

When trust breaks down between teams, when each team or division cannot rely on the other to deliver on what was Expected, what is Needed and what was Promised, teams go into a huddle and start working on their own agenda – the very people you are supposed to be working with become your internal competitors. It's dog eat dog now. 

 

When teams start working on their own plans in isolation of the rest of the business, you get silos, you get conflict, and you get poor performance. At the end of the day, the organisation is structured in such a way that each team or division specializes in some aspect that is critical to the success of that organization, and therefore all must work together for the whole thing to succeed.

 

The thing that pulls all the teams back together, that settles the conflict and clashing, is to get back to the game plan. What is the Common Ground here? What are we ALL working towards? Why are we ALL here?

When your Management Team gets clear about that, and can determine their role in achieving that, when they can begin to communicate clearly what they Expect, Need and can Promise each other to achieve that, that is when it all comes together and they all start working together, performing, and scoring goals way ahead of their real competitors.

Leadership in Business – Symptom #2 – Sad: It’s just not going the way I thought

 

I’ve been there. Literally on my knees, or sitting just like this picture, in complete despair. All the planning, the strategizing, the getting people on board, and then the whole thing just seems like it’s falling into a heap. You start to question yourself, your ability to lead. Your life seems to be collapsing in on itself. What do you do?

 

Personally, I pray! J Then I start to work through a series of questions. The thing is, if it’s all falling apart, then the trust that people have in you as a leader, and/or in your project, or business, is breaking down. Now let me state very clearly here – this is NOT a personal attack. There are things that are not stacking up and the ‘wall’ is breaking down (see The Simple Truth about Trust to visually see what I mean by the Wall).

 

So, here’s what I unpack and try to understand:

 

Expectations

What did they expect?

What did I expect?

Where did they come from?

Were they realistic?

 

 

Needs

What do they need?

What do I need?

Is this the best way to have that need met?

 

 

Promises

What did they promise?

What did I promise?

Have those promises been kept?

What needs to change?

 

One thing I can promise you is that this process will take your out of the despair and will help you see the whole situation objectively. Focusing on ‘the relationship’ between you and the people you are leading, rather than on any one individual, yourself included, is a healthy way to get to the bottom of what is going on.

 

The other thing I can promise you is that you will begin to see why things are the way they are. Once you understand that, you can get up off your knees, lift your head out of your hands, and start serving again, restoring trust in yourself and rebuilding trust between you and the people you lead.

Leadership in Business - Symptom #1 - Angry: Lack of delivery

 Area – Business

 

Category - Leadership

 Symptom #1 - Angry: Lack of delivery

 

Andrew Smythe, CEO of ‘A Company’, could feel the heat rising inside him. His fists were clenched, as was his jaw, as he listened to his executive team give him yet another round of excuses as to why the organisation was not hitting targets, had blown the budget for the 5^th month in a row, and now they were all blaming one another. Andrew thought ‘I don’t get paid enough to deal with this, seriously!’

The Head of Sales was blaming the Head of Marketing for poor leads. The Customer Service manager was flicking through the complaints and pointing the finger at both of them, and the CFO was running his fingers through his ever-thinning hair. Andrew had to front up at the next Shareholder meeting and explain what was going on – the problem was, he didn’t know what was going on himself!

This is a typical scenario in many organisations when a combination of things are happening.

Here are a few things to note:

1.    Anger – this is simply a warning sign that ‘the wall is crumbling’, in fact, in this case, Andrew is fearing the worst. Deep down he know that trust has broken down on multiple levels, although he won’t necessarily have made that connection. His trust in his senior team is shattering, they don’t trust each other, and he know that the shareholders are going to lose trust in him is he can’t pull this together.

So, our emotions are simply warning signs to tell us the level of risk our trust is at.

 

2.    Lack of delivery – despite having a great product, if everything else is not aligned throughout the organisation, the whole system can and will collapse. Often what happens is that Marketing will have a great campaign that draws customers in, Sales people are great at getting customers over the line, but the back office, customer service and the people responsible for delivering the product or service are often clueless as to what was promised. So, the customer experience does not match what was promised. Complaints rise, repeat sales drop, and that bottom line sags as quickly as the fingers come out and start pointing the blame.

Ensuring everyone in your organisation is aware of what has been promised to the end user, your customer, and ensuring that they can deliver on that promise is critical to your organisation – to its success, to its bottom line, and to the emotional state of your leaders, employees/ volunteers, customers and shareholders/funders.

The WARNING SIGNS - Stop treating the symptoms, and start treating the cause

A series of blogs and case studies to show how trust is the foundation on which all good businesses, homes and families, and communities stand

In a numbered ‘symptom #x’ approach, this series of writings/blogs/case studies will be focused on awareness raising and proving that trust is NOT the ‘soft’ skill that most leaders think it is, but absolutely delivers results – in business, in homes and families, in communities, in society.

 

The series will run along the same categories that entente explores in ‘The Truth about Trust in Business’, in our coaching programs, in the truth about trust certification training for coaches and consultants, and training for ‘Chief Trust Officers’.

 

You can download and read The Simple Truth about Trust here, which will give you the basic model for trust that I’ll be exploring in this series.

 

Let me know your thoughts, questions, and share with me your own experiences of these warning signs and symptoms as we travel through the many faceted world of trust.