Coping Better with Workplace Change

It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.

 --Charles Darwin

Change is constant in the workplace.

Change challenges you to let go of the past, especially the old comfortable ways you’ve settled into, and to accept new challenges and opportunities for success.

When the pace of change accelerates, is unexpected and seems unending- you are likely to falter from the stress associated with absorbing and adjusting to what it all means. 

Even when positive, change usually feels somewhat uncomfortable on some level and discomfort can create tension or resistance

Unless you are the one who is creating all of the change (because face it, we like the changes WE make) you need to learn to be aware of how change may cause you stress and how best to manage what happens to you in that stress behavior.

That is why we have written the Stress of Change report in imapMyTeam®

This report increases self-awareness about the way change may personally impact you.  It also offers an actionable tip to help you self-manage that stress better.

Managing yourself to better ‘survive’ workplace change – now that is a path that Darwin would have naturally selected [pun intended].

Fear your Strengths Part 2; Improve Your Versatility

Last week we examined how having a healthy “fear” of overusing your strengths is actually beneficial to overall improved performance. This week we have an exercise to help you think through the strengths associated with each of the four quadrants and how you may use this exercise as a tool to improve your response to a situation or person.

What does taking a different approach look like for you? 

If you don’t already know where your strengths lie:

1.      Login to imapMyTeam® and look at your Team Player Report. You’ll find your usual behaviors or ‘strengths’ in the area your Diamond symbol falls.

2.      Once you have the location of your diamond use the attached pdf of the imapMyTeam® Versatility Grid to help you get started with the exercise.

Each of the four quadrants of the Versatility Grid has adjectives that describe strengths we associate to that particular quadrant. Once you align the position of your diamond from the Team Player report to the same location in the Versatility grid you should easily recognize having most if not all of those strengths.  They are the ones you are prone to overuse.

Your blind spot is the diagonally opposite quadrant. That quadrant represents strengths you may need from time to time, but are perhaps the most difficult for you to develop and adopt.  

For example, if your strengths fall in the ‘Red’ area, the behaviors found in the ‘Blue’ quadrant will feel the most awkward or uncomfortable for you to employ. However there will be business and relationship situations where those strengths will be the best resolution.

Remember, Self-Awareness is the critical key to strength management. It requires willingness, discipline and practice to choose to adopt a less familiar approach in the best interest of the relationship or the project. The versatility grid is a way to determine what strengths you may need to ‘fear’ and what strengths you need to nurture and develop.

Don’t limit your success by only operating out of one ‘box.’ 

Become more versatile by learning to use strengths from all four quadrants. Doing so will make you more effective with a wider range of people in a wider range of circumstances.

Fear Your Strengths

 This weekend I came across a business book titled Fear Your Strengths, by Robert E. Kaplan and Robert B. Kaiser.

The title immediately reminded me of the old adage that a strength overused is a weakness; however ‘fear’ is a very strong word so I had to look inside the book.  As the title suggests - the book is in part a cautionary tale. Their findings are based on assessing thousands of people in executive, leadership and managerial positions and their research clearly says that there are negative implications if you over emphasize your strengths.

I agree with their assessment, and you should too.

Virtually anyone is susceptible to taking their strengths too far.  And, the more well-defined and developed the strength, the greater the risk that you could take that strength to extremes that would be counterproductive.

Self-Awareness:  the critical key to “strength management”

You can’t really have too much self-awareness. I think self-awareness ought to be elevated to a super-power.  For you to handle the challenges that business throws your way, you must be able to read the situation and respond adeptly. This requires knowing your default strengths, the behaviors that kick in without even thinking about them.  These are the ones that may unconsciously go into overdrive.  For example, if your strengths are to be very task-oriented, decisive and assertive, then you may be predisposed to respond too forcefully, too quickly.

Self-awareness allows you to respond mindfully to the business conditions before you, rather than out of habit or instinct.   Managing yourself requires a willingness and discipline.   Learn to be more selective about what situations call for which strength and then calibrate how much is enough.

Use your imapMyTeam® Team Player report to fully understand your strengths. Evaluate recent situations and determine if you have used that strength appropriately or overused it. 

Make it a priority to work to adjust or adapt around the strength you may lean on too much. If you’re having difficulty assessing this, ask a colleague. Chances are they have a pretty good idea of where you are overdoing it.

Embrace a healthy “fear” of your strengths and look for opportunities to enhance your effectiveness by moderating your strengths so they better fit the situation.  

 Lessons from the Ryder Cup

If you follow golf closely you likely watched the Ryder Cup last weekend. If you do not watch golf, stay with me anyway- because last week’s competition was ripe with lessons on leadership. Part of what makes the Ryder Cup a magnificent event is that a great captain can galvanize and energize his team so that every player would do anything for that captain to win. You probably feel the same way about great leaders that you have or currently work for.

What happens when the opposite is true? What happens when a leader’s well intentioned approach is disconnected to the needs of their team?  

Pairings in a Ryder Cup become a hot topic because the event transforms a highly individual sport into a cooperative effort. The captains of the U.S.A. and European squads must consider playing styles and personalities for their lineups. The captains become the center of attention.

However, other than the Ryder Cup and some other selected events, professional golfers enjoy a great deal of autonomy and largely decide themselves [or with their caddy] how to plan for and play the course over a tournament. They are not looking to a captain to make those decisions on their behalf. They simply play a round or tournament in less strokes than their competitors and they win, regardless of how they got to that outcome.

As I watched some of the post-match evaluation it was interesting to hear players report that the TeamUSA Captain, Tom Watson took a more hands-off leadership approach. Rather than discussing the possible pairings with his players or asking for their views, he allowed his vice captains to assign the pairings. Professional golfers are not used to being managed in a hierarchical way. Mr. Watson’s choice to distance himself from the players in his style of leadership probably seemed like the best approach to him at the time. However, it did not produce the results he was hoping for.

TeamUSAs leaders did not use a collaborative approach and did not solicit the opinions of the individual player’s thoughts on pairings.  One can speculate that the leadership style that was employed is counter to the culture that a professional golfer typically experiences and would expect.  Perhaps they needed imapMyTeam.

The tale of the 2014 Ryder Cup plays out in business regularly. Leaders change, the new leader brings a style that may be their own and plays to their strengths, but does not work in the culture and environment for the team. If that leader is unaware, unable or unwilling to adapt to the needs of the team, that team, despite all of its talent and all of its strategies, will likely fall short of its goals.

Adaptive leadership combined with team execution puts you in a position to win every time.

imapMyTeam® is designed to enable ‘willing’ leaders to adapt their behaviors to fully inspire and engage the talents of the team against the demands of the competition.