The seventh rule: Create a learning culture

THE HUMAN SIDE When you focus on the human side of your work, what are the most important issues for you? A recent study by an international consulting company cites as most important "improving teamwork between supervisors and subordinates" and "improving skills regarding the performance management of subordinates." But why do we keep coming back to these issues? Stacks of books and articles offer advice on how to improve teamwork and how to manage and motivate. The answer, I believe, is that the advice is usually limited to improving relationships between individuals when these issues call for developing the organizational culture in which these relationships take place. This is the culture of a learning organization. There are six rules that I believe a supervisor can follow to improve teamwork with subordinates. But their full effectiveness depends on the seventh rule of building a learning organization. This is something individual supervisors cannot do by themselves. Here are the rules. 1. Describe the purpose of the work you and the team are doing. What are you trying to achieve? Who are your potential customers and how will you create value for them? When people are clear about the purpose of their work, they are better able to understand their manager's concerns. When they are not clear about purpose, they don't feel part of a team. Furthermore, they won't think about innovative ways to achieve purposes they don't understand. 2. Clarify roles and responsibilities. Let people know who the team members are and how their roles relate to one another. When roles are unclear, people don't feel empowered to take responsibility. Or if the role is unclear, people may bump into each other's territory, causing unnecessary conflicts that undermine teamwork. If a second baseman and a shortstop don't understand each other's role and responsibilities, that baseball team can't execute double plays. Make sure the role fits the person. If people lack the needed competence, they won't be able to perform. If the role isn't challenging, they won't be motivated. In technology organizations, it's a good bet that subordinates know more about their jobs than their managers do. Your managerial role is to clarify goals and facilitate teamwork by following these rules. 3. Make sure managers and subordinates understand each other's personality. You may be motivated in different ways. It makes a big difference if one person is a loyal productive obsessive who pushes for perfection according to inner standards while the other is a productive marketing personality, interested in what will sell and with a self-image as a free agent, always seeking better opportunities, either inside or outside your organization. You can find these types, as well as descriptions of visionary narcissists and the caring erotic in my book The Productive Narcissist (see p. 62, this issue). This book includes a questionnaire to discover your own personality type and its significance for relationships at work. The more you understand each other, the better able you will be to communicate and to avoid conflicts. 4. Communicate and facilitate communication. You can never communicate too much when it is a question of how work is progressing, what are the problems encountered, and what is needed from each person. The best teams have the most open communication and don't avoid creative conflict. A few years ago, I interviewed technology managers in Europe, Asia and the United States. I found the German team was most effective because managers allowed constructive debate based on facts and transparent logic. However, once a decision was made, they fully supported it. In contrast, members of the American team avoided conflict. Some went along, even if they were not convinced about a project's logic, and others got themselves transferred from projects they believed would fail. To avoid this happening, managers have to seek the views of team members, even if they may not like what they hear. …