Being a leader is an interesting and challenging responsibility, but leading a cross-departmental team where influencing an already busy group of folks kicks it up a notch. For the last couple of months I’ve been leading an intranet implementation team for a global enterprise. I work with folks from several department from more than one location and report to a multi-national executive committee. The task is large and the timeline is condensed for the initial launch in the matter of months. Some of the lessons I’m learning (or relearning) are transferable to many different team leadership situations:
Listen. A great lesson for many of life’s situations, but listening is a key in leadership. Hearing the expectations of upper management, the concerns and ideas of the team and getting feedback from the company or organization in general is invaluable. Building surveys and interviews into the process will give some beefy information.
Communicate. It is up to the team leader to take initiative to communicate often, thoroughly, timely and succinctly. To keep the team engaged and encouraged, consistent communication from you breathes life into the process and helps to keep the team objectives front burner.
Plan. Planning is huge and encompassing for team leadership. Developing and continually revising issues, tasks, milestones, team meetings and reporting mechanisms is critical.
Report. Invest time into report creation. Monthly reports are a summary of the process and are a good accountability structure. I leverage the time to tie-up loose ends and advance objectives in the process of report creation. Keeping the next report in mind with every task helps in staying the course when issues arise that would become a side eddy for the teams efforts.
Illustrate. Nothing like pretty pictures to tell a story. Illustrations, graphs, charts, wireframes all help to paint the picture that both the team and leadership need to see.
Work hard. Team leadership requires a level of committment and industry that is not for the faint at heart. More responsibility than authority, more service than honor, but it can be a fascinating process to see something concrete develop through the course of the project.
Be diplomatic. Issues such as the development timeline, objectives, structure and features are often negotiable with a bit of diplomacy. The reporting structure provides a means to address key issues along with ad hoc meetings with key stakeholders.
Make no assumptions. Everyone has the best intentions in a team meeting. Follow-up and building-in accountability structures will help folks stay on task.
Research. Know your subject well as you will now be seen as an expert. The more you know the better communicator you will be.
Share the load. It’s called a team for a reason. Engaging all the team members in the process is critical for it’s success.
There are undoubtably many more takeaways I’ll gain from this experience. Hopefully, I can keep these points in mind as the project moves forward. There are so many good lessons to learn from leadership. Any thoughts come to your mind? I’m always in the market for good pointers.
This morning I dropped into Starbucks for a non-fat GRTL (Green Tea Latte). Vicariously I’m learning what one Barista called Starbonics, the tribal language of Starbucks. Tribal languages abound in every organization. To communicate effectively within any group it is important to pick-up their language. The development of a tribal language is a natural and critical element that builds cohesion between members. In some cases it facilitates higher thinking, in others more efficient processes, such as the case at Starbucks.
Some folks say, "I’m not good at learning languages." Often their experience with formal study of a foreign language resulted in a frustrating and intimidating experience. Truth is everyone learns multiple languages throughout their life. Here are just a few of the languages I speak:
Geek Speak: Seen the bumper sticker "There’s no place like 127.0.0.1"? The default IP (Internet Protocol) address for every machine is 127.0.0.1 which is the home address.
Design Terminology: Publishing text in a graphic from Photoshop is often kludgy (kludge meaning something is crude or inelegant). Text is more pristine when exported from a vector format such as .eps.
Texan: Hi ya’ll.
The list goes on. Other languages I "speak": web developer, Engineering, Christianese, Higher-Ed, Austinisms, Marketing, business… and of course various standard spoken languages such as English, Spanish, Turkish and bits of Hebraic, Arabic, and Italian.
Think about all the life experience one gains over decades. With each job, each place you lived, each area of study, the first thing to pick-up is the language, the coding system for communication. Learning the right terminology is critical for success. How many tribal languages do you know? How many do you use from day-to-day? What tricks have you found in your station in life to pick-up new terminology?
My mind is an idea generator. Just about every day I wake-up with a new one. Some of them are not more than passing thoughts, some are glimpses of a growing concept and some are a collective of several ideas. Being the verbal processor that I am, I readily share my ideas with others. Fortuanetly for me, I’m married to a wonderful wife that listens to me and has the wisdom to know the difference between passing thoughts and serious intentions. She’s an amazing gift to me. In the work place I bring in new ideas to supervisors and peers. I have learned to expect an immediate negative reaction. It’s no fault of theirs, just a typical response. Most people don’t like change and are uncomfortable with new ideas. So, I make it an old idea by bringing it up in different ways.
Idea generation is like planting a garden. In the picture above I planted and cultivated the rose bush and the salvia in the background. The beautiful primrose however were planted by the birds. While the primrose are wild they are not completely unplanned. The thin vertical rod is a bird feeder which brings birds, who drop seeds, which produces flowers. How wonderful to reap the benefit of good sowing.
There is a process in my mind I follow for advancing a good idea. While it can vary, here are the basic elements:
An idea is born. I wake-up with an idea or come across something that triggers a thought.
The idea brews and sometimes even lays dormant.
Sub ideas or connection points are made that strengthen the idea. This is important as these become the selling points or counter points to skepticism.
I challenge the idea and poke holes in it myself. This strengthens it by shoring-up the weaknesses.
I float the idea past one or more people.
I get positive and negative feedback.
I mull over the idea and find more connection points.
I repeat step 4, 5, 6 and 7 multiple times until the positives far outweigh the negative. The more significant the idea, the more lengthy the process.
I develop a concrete plan for implementation and re-assert the idea. The idea is no longer a new one per say and is more readily received.
I present the idea now as a plan with action points. In the work place setting, use of PowerPoint or a formal document may be beneficial. At this point, I’m more assertive and confident in the idea. I go for it and am ready for negative feedback. If I’ve done my homework I should have an answer for most detractors.
So go for it, sow good ideas. There’s an age old law, the law of sowing and reaping. "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap." Galatians 6:7. This one verse, this one concept can change a persons life. Much like a garden, what you sow reaps a result. If you sow good ideas, you will reap a good return. Like the clothing guy says, "I guarantee it."
This weekend I began the intensive ritual of Spring gardening. Beyond the cutting, trimming, fertilizing, watering, and weed pulling, there is the delightful process of transplanting seedlings that have spontaneously sprung-up over the course of the year. I also dug-up and transplanted some flowers that are virtually roots with seemingly dead stems. They are now relocated, to the yet disbelief of my nine-year old, and will bloom into beautiful lantanas in just a short while.
I was thinking today how thought, true thinking, is much like gardening. While our technical constructs may seem rigid, the development of new ideas and flourishing of endeavors is quite organic. Sometimes one idea is an off-shoot of another gaining a life of its own. Other times ideas may seem dead on the surface but can be given new life with the right environment and nutrients.
Web marketing is, at its core, an organic process. Who would have thought just a few years ago that the strategy for effective marketing would become as broad as it is today. B2B companies are waking-up to the reality that business today means:
Managing their online identity on places like wikipedia
Link building on sites and directories
Daily updating their online paid advertising
Producing weekly if not daily news and blog feeds
Daily analysis of web traffic reports
Responding to customers who demand instant response
Taking a proactive stance with search engines
Constantly updating their site
Posting media to YouTube, Flickr
Managing a barrage of spam and malicous activity while at the same time,
Continuing to dodge the black list bullets to reach customers
Do more with less resources as the competition goes global
Now, more than ever before, effective marketing, successful businesses require organic thinking individuals. Thoughtful technologists, marketers, sales and management people who respond quickly to new mediums for promotion will be leaders in the emerging economy.
New site http://bloggst.com/ has some real potential for a thought sparking site. I nominate it as the thought spark site of the month. Lars-Christian is a young man w/ vision to promote ideas and build a site through shared ideas for blogging. Check out the site and register. You’ll be glad you did and probably learn much in the process. I really enjoy getting in on the ground floor with new sites and watch them develop. This will be one for sure to watch.
