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Creating an Inclusive Culture and Ways to Generate Innovation within Your Team.

By Patrick Boyd posted 10-16-2017 11:31

  

If we think of the people who work with us as “subordinates”, we are doing it wrong.  In the age of knowledge workers, people are specialists with amazing skills and if we lock ourselves into a task-assignment model, we will never help them achieve their potential and our teams certainly won’t be all they can be.

If someone has a skill or has part of a skill that could be developed more, think about having them lead a project involving that.  Over-defining roles will only lead to silos and attitudes of “It’s not my job”.  Flexibility and fluidity are key to responsive proactive teams, especially for smaller organizations where people wear multiple hats.

At a previous firm, we had a phrase.  Live the values.  If you aren’t consistent or hold yourself to a lessor/different standard than your team, they won’t trust you.

All of the ideas below may not work for you, but they are things I think that can be used to be successful. 

Say “Thanks”

I thank people constantly.  I write it in every e-mail, especially if I am asking for something.  I include it along with “please” when assigning a task.  Directives might get things done but if you are genuine and sincere in your language, your team will see that and respond in kind.  It’s also one of the little things that inspires loyalty in my opinion.

Treats

I randomly show up with treats: donuts, candy, and ice cream (I know, I know – the calories, the carbs).  Not all the time but especially after a rough week or a hectic time of the year.  Small appreciations go a long way, especially if/when you can’t do as much at compensation time as you would like.

Monthly lunches

We often can’t get away for lunch because we are helping with other meetings or handling support issues.  Once a month, we try and do a pot luck.  I happen to like to cook, so I will do a slow cooker main dish the night before and everyone brings something and we eat in our space.  It’s a great way for everyone to stop for a minute and chat plus food always brings people together.

Drinks

My team is on both coasts and everyone has different shifts but whenever possible, I try and take people for drinks.  It’s a great way to get stuff out that may be harder to talk about in the office.

You might notice a theme here.  The more social you can be with your team, the easier it is to get flexibility and show people that you are accessible and approachable.  You don’t have to be best friends and in many cases, you shouldn’t but breaking down barriers to clear and effective communication goes a long way to resolving issues.

New Information

Keeping everyone up to date is critical but also challenging in environments where formal training may not always be an option, either because of budget constraints or because people can’t be offline for the required amount of time.  We do a few things to try and keep things relevant, subscribe to relevant trades and auto-forward online newsletters to expose people to constant ideas.  We buy certification and other books on the platforms we are running and make them available for borrowing.  For deeper skills cross-training, when there is some knowledge I really want to spread across the team, I ask the strongest person to show someone else the steps or how it works and also ask our trainer to observe and document so we can institutionalize the knowledge for everyone.

Read everything

I read as much as I can every day and circulate anything related to our field I think is relevant, interesting or just cool.  CIO, Slashgear, etc and also law.com and Abovethelaw.  Blogs, Reddit.  And of course ILTA!  

Talk to everyone

We call it drive by management.  Literally get up from your desk and walk around your office.  If people are available, ask them how things are going.  Do they have any tech issues?  I will often find these less formal conversations provide insight on issues that might be simple to improve on but that never bubbled to the level of a formal ticket or come up in standing meetings but have huge returns in goodwill when you successfully resolve them.

Additionally we all constantly talk to peers at other (and former) firms and we all circulate ideas that we hear about or that might solve a problem we are addressing. 

New tools

I’m always willing to let team members download and try new tools that might provide better solutions or reduce effort or cost.  Encouraging people to bring things to the table also gets them buy in and makes the function one that everyone owns.

Outcomes

I try to never focus on how someone does something and when there isn’t urgency, how quickly they complete it.  I like to describe the end state (or better yet, have everyone involved describe it) and then brainstorm how we might get there.  Then I step back and only follow up for status updates.  Letting people own their process frees up me from being a micro-manager and makes them a true knowledge worker and not a drone following a script.   Which leads me to…

Mistakes

Everyone will make mistakes.  Never ever punish people for mistakes.  It’s counter-productive.  The old adage that people learn more from their mistakes than their successes rings true to me.  I promise you if someone makes a mistake and everyone knows it was a mistake, they will remember it and not repeat it.  Especially if it’s a big one.

To be clear, I’m not saying that you never have to correct people or provide feedback.  But focus on the behavior you want to change and don’t beat up the person for the mistake.  You will reinforce trust.  If someone gets yelled at every time they make a mistake, it may or may not change the behavior but I promise people will find ways to not tell you about what happened.

Final Thoughts

People generally like their jobs and want to be there.  If you give them ways to be creative and in control of their own work, the organization will benefit and you will be a happy leader with a team you can rely on.


#Leadership
#ProfessionalDevelopment
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