Quandary-Mat: Improving Team Culture when Wider Culture is Same Ole Top-down
Dear Hunter,
I supervise a team of 12 people. I am working with the group to support and trust each other, listen to each other. I want a team where I don’t have to answer every question for people, don’t micromanage, and where nobody is afraid of getting in trouble for not being perfect. But my boss, and her bosses in senior leadership, don’t understand what I’m doing. They want things to happen fast. They want me to call the shots for my team and then push them to fall in line quickly.
What can I do? How do I keep my bosses happy and help myself and my team collaborate and grow in the way I want to see?
Signed, A Composite Character of Situations You Encounter in Your Work
Dear Composite Character,
You are correct, I see this situation regularly. There are specific things I do in working with senior executives to explain the changes we are making, to mitigate this confusion and to get people like you the space and time required to improve culture and collaboration. A basic message I use, that you can, too: “A learning and trustworthy culture requires space and time to circle back, as the team learns the best ways to do the work, and for smart decisions that stick.”
In the bosses’ defense during this sensitive time in your culture work, default workplace culture is what you are experiencing: the old top-down, command-and-control approach. The underlying assumption goes like this: If people just do what the boss says, how the boss says to do it, everything will turn out great.
You are dealing with two big differences:
A difference in fundamental mindset. You are creating a learning and improvement culture, instead of the old command-and-control compliance culture. Everybody in senior management should at least understand and agree with your learning culture approach in theory. It gets trickier when the rubber meets the road with the other big difference …
A different idea about what the team should do together and with their supervisor (you), day in and day out. Instead of the assumed one-right-way, let’s rush to implement and damn the details, you are creating processes that require time to design-plan-measure-iterate. In this type of teamwork, your job isn’t to push demands for immediate compliance (and deal with the confusion and clashes about details later or never), it is to tell people the purpose and goals and coach them in the right direction as they figure out the best ideas and the details. You expect, require, the team to be the experts.
What your boss needs is to feel comfortable that you are addressing the organization’s priorities and goals, without wasting time. Your boss needs to know you are in charge and that your team is committed to results.
Here are a few ways you can show your bosses that you and your team are on it, without putting yourself in the position of giving them a lecture about how your teamwork approach is better than theirs.
If the bosses are in a hurry and want things done yesterday, you could say something like, “I need a few days to get my team’s input before I make a decision. We want to get the details right the first time. I can do that by next week. Is that okay?”
If there are power dynamics and status concerns at play (for example, if your boss is worried about your department looking strong and fast in exec team meetings), explain how your collaborative work with your team doesn’t mean you aren’t in charge. Or how your team is leading work with other departments (if that’s the case). You could say, “I am directing my team to work with other departments to get input about their needs. I will make the decision myself after I see the results.”
As you learn and succeed in a new project or workflow change, show them your results and tell the story of how collaborative teamwork and a learning approach made the successes happen. For example, “Thank you for allowing two weeks for me to decide our new process steps. The extra team meetings to generate ideas and then to get feedback on those ideas led to a smart new way to do things, that team members understand because they came up with it.”
You will see and hear team members express satisfaction and individuals ownership of their work roles. Bosses always want to hear about those wins as well. Make the connection for them.
If your organization uses Lean Management or the health care Model for Improvement, use and refer to those frameworks and methodologies. This is that!
As you explain your teamwork approach and as it shows results, soon enough, you won’t have to continue to ask for permission to work this way. The bosses will know that this is how you lead your team. They will understand when you say you need to check with your team, or need another week to make a decision and implement it.
Who knows? You may see your boss start to use your approaches in their own work, like building in more time for input before making a decision.