I have been the head of an international private banking department for the past couple of years. Life has been challenging over the past 6 months. It seems like we have so many different work styles in the office and no one seems to be getting along or communicating with one another. Some of my team has been with the company for more than 20 years and we also have many recent additions straight form college. My hunch is that all the different backgrounds are contributing to the issues we are having in the office right now but I’m not sure what steps I should take to address this. What I do know is that our projects are behind schedule and revenue is being negatively impacted.
Filed under: Business Process Management, Team Management Tagged: | Team Management
As you have no doubt discovered, it usually doesn’t work when you use the same approach with everyone when you try to get them to do something! To be an effective manager, being able to recognize and understand the communication style of each member of your team, as well as your own, can make a huge difference in your over-all success and profitability.
According to psychological research, there are four primary styles (and many systems with many names for them). We have worked with many banks and financial institutions facing challenges similar to yours. To strengthen their internal communication effectiveness, we used two remarkably simple questionnaires and reports that quickly give you valuable and practical insights into how to communicate more successfully with your team.
What will you learn? In one report, you’ll get a better handle on how to identify and positively persuade the introverts, extraverts, task-focused and people-focused members of your team. In the second report, you’ll gain insights into what motivates your co-workers and how to use this information to help you (and them) achieve your company and department goals — with less stress, delay and more results.
For example, when you are dealing with a Dominant or Direct type personality, no matter what his/her actual position in the organization, avoid telling them what to do. Instead, give the individual a set of options or probabilities and let them choose the course of action. Otherwise, your odds of success are quite low.
To help you gain “control” and get the results you need with your team, we recommend a system that provides a set of online questionnaires for you and your staff to complete. The basic set usually takes only 15 minutes to complete, and you can receive an immediate report on each team member (and yourself) in just a few minutes.
Of course, learning to “read” people and translating that into a more productive, congenial work group isn’t usually an overnight experience! In addition to the personalized reports, we can provide a team building/ team communication program to guide and reinforce your efforts.
For me the key word here is “international”. Research shows that culture influences a persons style of communication (similar to the psychological research described by Anne) as well as many other factors, including how one deals with relationships, how one identifies themselves, how one relates to the outside world and what one perceive to be reality. It is important to realize that people from different cultures do view the world differently, not just on the surface level, but in a very deep and embedded way. In fact, ones culture can be seen as an overall paradigm or lense through which they see the world. This is particularly important in todays globalized world,where we have so many people from different countries and cultures working together like never before.
With this in mind, I would recommend you take several steps in addressing this issue. First, you must educate yourself on cultural differences and how they effect management issues. I would recommend you take a look at the research of Edward Hall, Geert Hofstede, and Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner. Then I would recommend you take a look at the concept of cultural intelligence, and how ones level of cultural intelligence can be enhanced, in order to better adapt to different cultural situations. Finally, I would suggest you learn more about your colleagues cultures, so that you can better understand their points of view and how it differs from your own. By knowing how your cultural lense differs from another, you will be able to not only identify differences, but also similarities that show how much we do have in common. This in turn can increase understanding, strengthen relationships and improve your ability to work together as a team.
What’s important to your A players? For A player, LeBron James, it was not money. Certainly, joining the Heat and giving up several million dollars indicate other reasons more important to LeBron. It was the promise of the TEAM, the value proposition Pat Riley skillfully presented to LeBron. Companies are no different than a sports team – you are the coaches of your team. Do you know what is important to your employees? Do you know what your team brings to the table, their strengths and weaknesses? More about this found here: http://www.hrmattersfl.com/2010/learning-leadership-lessons-via-lebron-james/