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COLLABORATE: MAKING IT HAPPEN

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

—Isaac Newton

Stop, Collaborate, and Listen. Think about some of the great visuals of teamwork that adorn walls and offices. There’s the TEAMWORK poster with the reverent rowing team—“Together we achieve more.” Or the poster of the diverse team members all putting their hands together before they “break” and lift their hands in the air exuberantly. Then there is the flying V poster representing how the geese in the front create “uplift” for those behind them, and the geese at the back honk to encourage the ones in the front to keep up the pace. Finally, you can’t forget about the colony of bees touting that each and every bee has a very specific role and job to do.

Put aside some of these typical metaphors for a moment and really think about teamwork and what it means. A strong team is powerful. Moving. Resilient. Seemingly unstoppable. A great team has that energy, that spark—you can feel it when you’re there—almost like static. The individuals on the team know each other’s strengths, feed off of each other’s ideas, and they challenge, push, and support each other. They’re never satisfied with the first answer or the easiest answer. They love hurdles, obstacles, and curveballs because that is when they really get to perform, reach, stretch, stretch, stretch—and prevail. An achievement or team accomplishment is savored, but not for long, because the fun is in the sprint, the journey to the top.

You can build that. But it takes work and discipline.

Even today’s prominent business leaders admit the most difficult part of their job is building and leading a team. Take the late Steve Jobs, for instance. Jobs obviously made extraordinary contributions at Apple, but he spoke openly about his struggles in “the people part” of his role as CEO. Jobs learned from mistakes, and his analogy for what builds strong teams was spot on: “My model for business is the Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. And that’s how I see business. You know great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.”¹

This is what your generation is all about. It’s all about teamwork and working together. From all of our interviews with millennial managers, the idea of collaboration and teamwork stood out brightly. It’s about connecting. Millennials side with Helen Keller on this one, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” Instead of issuing orders, you love to ask for everyone’s opinion and consider all ideas. Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook says, “I go around the room and ask people, ‘What do you think?’”² This is the millennial manager. You want to hear every voice and every perspective because everyone deserves to have a say.

Now many tips for building a great team and fostering an environment of collaboration can be found throughout this book. Everything CONNECTs. Part of collaborating is communicating expectations, delivering feedback, getting to know your people, and adjusting your style. If you’re putting these lessons into practice from the other chapters, you’re likely fostering a collaborative spirit.

We won’t bore you with too many of the how’s since collaboration is ingrained in your work style, but I will cover some of the intricacies of maintaining a collaborative but action-oriented team from having the right people in the right roles to running a productive meeting.

MATCHING THE PERSON WITH THE RESPONSIBILITY

Do you have the right people in the right roles? Jim Collins spoke to this idea in Good to Great when he said the Level 5 leader gets the “right people on the bus.”³ Do your people have the skills to do the job, or can they learn the skills?

At Leo Burnett, when I was in charge of recruiting and hiring, this was a big focus for me. I looked for matches between the job and the person, and I didn’t try to put a square peg in a round hole. I know what you’re thinking, “Brad, believe me, I would love to have more control over the hiring and firing. However, that is not the case.” Nonetheless, you can still build a strong team by putting people in the right roles.

Play to people’s strengths. A great book by Marcus Buckingham, First Break All the Rules, talks about focusing on strengths instead of always trying to improve weaknesses.⁴ Focus on what you’re good at! Just think about how programmed we are to improve our weaknesses. If you look at personal business goals, they often revolve around weaknesses. A good writer has a goal “to become a better presenter” and a great team player sets a goal “to be more of a leader on the team.” Has the writer ever thought to set a goal to become an even better, an even more amazing writer? That’s her strength and passion. Why shouldn’t she hone it instead of focusing on improving a weakness that she’s not very excited about? Why can’t the team player simply focus on being a better team player? Help your team members foster their strengths.

Ashley Nuese of Avatar HR Solutions said, “I like to find out what my employees are good at and then give them more of that.” Now, I know that you can’t do this all the time. Sometimes, Digby the creative, big thinker is going to have to do the research or data entry. You also want well-rounded team members who can pitch in when needed, but where you can, match your people’s strengths with the job responsibility and encourage them to bring their strengths and style to all of their tasks. Trying to force-fit people to positions or responsibilities is a blow to team dynamic. Everyone feels it. Just consider this example.

From time to time, we answer questions submitted to an HR advice column, basically a Dear Abby for the workplace. A reader submitted a question along the lines of:

One of our managers is an introvert by nature, and I’m supposed to find training that will change him into an outgoing and jovial extrovert. Do you think we will see results from this training?

—It’s Doomed, HR generalist, Baton Rouge, LA

“It’s Doomed” is right. It is doomed to fail if they really want to transform an introvert into a gregarious extrovert. My questions are, “Why do you think this person should be an extrovert? What goals do you think are achieved through extroversion? For example, do you want the person to be more engaging? Do you want him to show more confidence?” Let’s look at the underlying goals and see how they can be reached without trying to change the fundamental nature of the person.

If you really need an extroverted person in the role, then you probably need to put an extrovert in that role—but challenge yourself. What are your goals, and can they be achieved by an introverted person? Do you want the manager to build strong relationships, connect with people, and engage with team members? Both extroverts and introverts can do that—they just have different ways of going about it. To build a strong foundation for a collaborative team, match a person’s strengths with the job responsibilities while being open to the different ways they achieve the end goal.

COLLABORATING TO TAKE ACTION: JUST DO IT

One thing we heard from older generations is that millennials spend too much time in the “collaboration zone.” You want to hear from everyone, and you want to solve problems together, but you must know when to move from information gathering to the decision-making stage. I think there are a couple things coming into play here that make it difficult for millennial managers.

First, there is a little trepidation in making the wrong decision, and second, you don’t want to offend or upset someone by the decision you make. Do you know that feeling when you’re sitting around the table, everyone has shared their ideas, you’ve gone around and around, and there almost is this collective sigh of “Soooo...”? SO, what’s the decision? What are we going to do? As a millennial manager, you might be tempted to say, “Well, it sounds like we all need to think a little more on this one. Let’ marinate on it and decide next time.” Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take time to think through decisions, but pushing off decisions can become an epidemic. Dan Jessup, Head of People Strategy, Groupon, has a sound recipe for making collaboration a success, “Start with diplomacy, add humility, finish with decisiveness and context. Bake for 30 minutes.”

There are collaborative decisions, but sometimes, you need to call the shot—“finish with decisiveness.” You are the manager. Have a perspective. Make a choice. If you feel that your team is getting hung up on the idea-generation stage, set a timer for 15 minutes. Give your team (and yourself!) 15 minutes to discuss the issue. Then, at the end of the time, make a decision. If it’s a bigger discussion and everyone needs time to mull, set a timeline. “Let’s all think about this tonight, and then tomorrow, we will set the timer for twenty to thirty minutes and come to a decision after that.” At that point, maybe you have consensus, and maybe you call the shot.

Just Say It. Just Do It

Just commit. Just go for it. I have already talked about making mistakes and expecting some failures. Not everything is going to go just as planned, and maybe you won’t make the best decision. Sometimes, you just have to jump and take the plunge. Make a decision and own it. Commit. This is what your managers want more of from millennial managers. They love the collaboration, but they want to ensure the decision making and decision implementing is close at hand. Remember that there are few decisions that you will make that will cause your company to crumble.

To Collaborate, You Don’t Have to Accommodate

You don’t have to say “yes,” agree, or go along with everything in the name of “going with the flow” or being a “flexible” and collaborative leader. If you have a lot to get done by the end of the day, you can let Jack know that you could use some help when he asks if he can leave early for a softball game. If Mia asks if she needs to customize the proposal or if she can just send the standard version, you can tell her that she needs to customize it even though that will take up a lot of her time. No one likes to be that person, but when you need to draw the line, you should.

Bradley Aldrich, millennial manager and Of Counsel, Wolfe Law Group, says that he is constantly evolving as a manager: “At first, my management style was hesitant to weak and nonexistent. I had never had to tell anyone what to do, and I was nervous about stepping on toes. As I have moved along, I’ve become a little more firm—but still pretty casual on the spectrum. I make a conscious effort to have good relationships, but now, I’m more comfortable giving clear directions and setting expectations.”

There’s a profound difference between being unreasonable and being a leader who wants to get the best from the team. After talking with millennial managers, I concluded that part of this hesitation about decision making is affected by a desire to be liked. There is a real fear of being seen as the authority figure or the bad guy. You collaborate and try to reach consensus because you want everyone on your team to be pleased by the decision. Gregory Tall of Robert Morris University asserts, “Some of your best decisions will be unpopular ones. Have the courage to communicate candidly and the confidence to follow your instinct.” Sometimes, millennial managers back down to uphold their value of flexibility, to please others, or to prevent conflict. You don’t have to accommodate to collaborate. Make a decision and stand by it—even if the going gets tough.

The truth is conflict isn’t all bad. Conflict can be beneficial and build stronger teams. In general though, millennials tend to back down if they feel tension or if they think someone doesn’t like their decision. You have to realize that it’s not that they’re against you; they just may be against your opinion. That’s okay. It’s not personal. My wife and I disagree from time to time, but we know that we’re both on the same team and that we both have the same end goals. Work together and collaborate, but don’t feel like you always have to accommodate and dodge conflict. Remember, you’re the manager.

MANAGER OR BFF? DRAWING THE LINE

There is a fine line between being a manager and being a friend. For millennial managers who want to foster relationships, help individuals grow, and collaborate, this can be a hard line to draw, especially if they’re managing others around their age. People are realizing that they often spend more time with the people they work with than their own families! Now wouldn’t that make the days more enjoyable and work more do-able, if you enjoyed the people that you were with eight or more hours a day? These people do not have to be your best friends or the individuals you would choose to hang out with on a Saturday night. You can respect, value, and enjoy the people on your team without being “Best Friends Forever.”

In our interviews, we found that this is one of the biggest challenges for millennial managers. You want your people to know that you care for them, but you also want to be able to hold them accountable and give them constructive criticism. When was the last time you told your friend three ways that they could be a better friend? When was the last time you worked through a development plan to get your friends to where they need to be? Friendship training, maybe?

The fact is friends are equals, and you probably accept each other just the way you are. The end goal is to just be friends. At work, the standard is different. Work has to be accomplished, there are quite a few end goals, and you’re challenging each other to be the best you can be. Millennial manager Conor Gee admits that it’s more difficult when you’re around the same age as the people you manage. When speaking of his millennial employee, Conor said, “It was great. We got along really well at work, so it was like ‘Does this extend outside of work?’ and if so, what does that look like? The more you become their friend, the harder it is to be their manager. It doesn’t mean you can’t do both, but in certain situations it needs to be clearly defined.”

Do your employees really need another friend? Who knows. Could they benefit more from having a mentor and manager that challenges them? Definitely. Don’t forget Mrs. Stanley!

Vince Lombardi captured this fine line when he said, “The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert.” You have to keep that level of authority or influence with your direct reports. If you’re partying with them on most weekends, it’s hard to command respect at the Monday meeting. If you’re always making comments on a direct report’s Facebook page and posting pictures of the two of you, it’s harder to say you’re not playing favorites when you give her the next cool project. If you eat lunch with one of your employees every single day, you may have a tough time telling her the comments she made at the meeting were inappropriate.

This is an area that can be tricky for many millennials. I don’t want you to walk away from this section thinking you have to be a cold, distant autocratic taskmaster with your team just because you’re the boss. I simply am saying there needs to be a line. The best way to think about it is that there’s a difference between “being friendly” and “being friends” with your team. Here’s a pocket guide:

Friendly: Attending some group happy hours with your team

Friends: Staying out ‘til 2:00 AM after the happy hour grinding it out at the club

Friendly: Having a drink or two and chatting with your team at the holiday party

Friends: Getting so drunk you end up crashing on your direct report’s couch

Friendly: Engaging in an occasional game of Words With Friends with a direct report

Friends: Spending two hours a day in your direct report’s office playing Scrabble

Friendly: Hanging out with your direct report at the water cooler

Friends: Making out with your direct report at the water cooler

Watch the gray areas, and draw a line. Having strong relationships with your team is critical to group success. Where the “friends” thing becomes an issue is when the relationship gets taken advantage of. If your direct report and friend shows up late and hungover one day and says, “C’mon boss, cut me some slack, you saw how much we had to drink last night,” then it’s an issue. If you have trouble giving a team member constructive feedback because she’s your friend and you’re worried about how that will affect your friendship, then it’s an issue.

If you don’t maintain influence, then you will struggle to do everything you have learned in this book. Would you tell your friend that she is not ready for a promotion? Would you lay out expectations, set goals, and deliver feedback with your direct report who is your friend? We’re not saying it can’t or doesn’t happen, but being a friend and manager can be tough territory.

MANAGING THE COLLABORATION ZONE: TEAM MEETINGS

Meetings, meetings, meetings. The official collaboration zone, and now you’re in charge of them. You may hate running team meetings and you may love it, but the truth is that a lot rests in your hands as the leader of these massive time-takers. Meetings can move you forward, or they can be a colossal waste of time. Let’s talk about how to avoid the latter.

First, you want to meet with your team on a routine basis. Depending on the size of your team, maybe that’s once a week or once a month. If you have a smaller team, maybe you meet a couple times a week. Meetings can be highly collaborative and productive—if you run them efficiently. As a millennial, I am betting that you enjoy your team meetings. It’s a perfect time to build relationships, get to know your people, and have some fun. You can also see how this could be a recipe for disaster if not managed well.

The first tip I have for running good meetings doesn’t sound too engaging, but you can still incorporate fun in the realms of “maintaining order and control.” If your meetings get too far off track, then your team sees your meetings as a joke, and participants will have a reason to skip out on the next one, show up late, or play “Words With Friends” the entire time. Chetan Borkhetaria, Global Learning Consultant at Lenovo, enjoys a lot of team meetings and offers, “Collaboration goes well with a clear sense of purpose and ownership. What’s really important is identifying roles and responsibilities, and you must constantly clarify these. For example, sometimes we don’t have a note taker, but you must identify this person. CO—LABOR—ATION. Work together.”

To keep everyone on track and focused, have an agenda that includes a start time and an END time. This prevents that killer thirty-minute turned two-hour meeting that snuffs out creativity and productivity. It sounds so simple, but most meetings don’t have agendas. How do you know if you’re accomplishing what you need to accomplish? How do you know if you’re being effective? How do you keep all of those two-minute updates from turning into thirty-minute updates? Have an agenda and stick to it. One of our clients, TPN, takes this point seriously. The company is guided by Six Sigma principles around meeting efficiency—specifically, enforce on-time start and stop and allot three-minute and two-minute reports to keep things moving along. Most people would round up and make it a nice, five-minute report, but TPN knows that the team appreciates this efficiency.

Share Responsibilities

Who says you need to be talking the entire time?—even if that’s your favorite part. Assign different responsibilities to team members, so they feel like it’s their meeting and it creates buy-in for your team. If you have a part or you know you might be called upon, you’re much more likely to pay attention. Furthermore, this is a great way to recognize and develop your people through responsibility and visibility. Your team members can hone their organizational, strategic, and presentation skills by having a tangible part in the meeting.

Keep on Keeping on

Please, keep things moving. There’s Tangent Tamara, Derailer Devra, Questioning Quentin, and Jokester Jeremy. Maybe you get off topic, but it’s your job to not let this spiral out of control. You can use your agenda as a way out, and you can fall back on our next tip.

Table Discussions

Your team may launch into some really interesting and important agenda items, but they’re not exactly timely or relevant. You can discuss the topic with an individual off line or you can put it on the agenda for the next meeting. I know this may be hard to do in the spirit of lively discussion and team building. As you build more trust and get to know your team, you will gain more intuition on when it’s more productive to table discussions or let them go.

Allot Time for Feedback and Questions

How many times have you walked out of a meeting and you’re not sure what was decided? Far too often, I’m afraid. Unfortunately, what happens in meetings, usually stays in meetings. The thing is people talk and talk and talk and, all of a sudden, you are out of time and everyone leaves. So what happened? Did we decide anything? Where did we leave it? Soooo what’s going on?

Always leave about five minutes for questions, wrap up, and next actions. “So now what?” should always be at the end of every meeting. Now what do we do? Did you discuss next actions? Have they been assigned? Divvy up next actions right then so no one is confused stepping out of the meeting. Let your team voice any questions or concerns, so everyone is onboard.

Add Some Fun—Seriously

True to the values of millennials, you need to incorporate some fun at meetings. Meetings don’t need to be all work and no play. You can still have very effective, fun meetings. Bring your own ideas and personality, but I have included a few suggestions for making meetings more engaging and interesting:

High/low—Have everyone state their high and low from the previous day or week.

Reflection question—You pose one question at the beginning of the meeting and everyone has to answer it. Questions can include:

What’s a blocker for you at work right now?

What is taking the majority of your time at work and outside of work?

What project are you most excited about?

What did you accomplish yesterday?

What do you plan to accomplish today?

What one thing do you wish you did more of?

Delegate the creation of fun. Assign team members a meeting, and they are responsible for an ice-breaker or short activity to get the group going. This takes something off of your plate, and it empowers your group to take ownership of the success of your meetings.

Think outside the conference room. Hold a meeting outside or in a different room. Have a stand-up meeting, or have everyone sit in different seats than they normally do.

Have a quotable quotes jar. There are some funny things, hilarious people, and interesting situations at your workplace, no doubt. These are the entertaining situations and quotes that need to be captured. Have team members write down their quotable quotes or situations seen or heard around the office. Every meeting, read one or two quotes to get everyone laughing.

Keep a positive spirit. Sure, you’re busy, stressed, tense, or deadline driven. There is a lot going on—always. Your attitude and outlook at meetings sends a powerful message. You should be a transparent leader, but no one enjoys negative, despondent transparency. For fun, try playing the unfortunately/fortunately game. If anyone says “unfortunately” during the meeting, then someone must counter with a fortunately statement. For example: “Unfortunately, we just heard that we didn’t win the new business pitch.” Someone can respond, “Fortunately, we don’t have to sleep at the office anymore or eat potato chips for dinner.” It’s a lighthearted way to keep a positive atmosphere.

These are just a few, simple ideas for building team relationships while still running an efficient meeting. If done right, meetings are a great venue for collaborating, communicating, and decision making.

CONTRIBUTING TO A COLLABORATIVE COMPANY AND COMMUNITY

I have talked a lot about collaborating on your team and focusing on your role, but you operate within a larger organization. It’s crucial to keep your team connected to the company culture and aligned with the overarching goals. When everyone feels like they are part of a community, employees feel connected to something bigger than themselves.

That sense of togetherness and community at your company is so important. Many of the techniques for building a strong team culture apply to the company at large. CONNECT. Live and breathe your company values and mission. For example, our client Hu-Friedy has six core values that its employees uphold—TRIERS: Teamwork, Respect, Integrity, Excellence, Reliability, and Social Responsibility. These values bring each and every employee together. Your millennial employees especially love this connection to the bigger picture.

You want to contribute to a “we’re in this together” company culture. One of my favorite examples of positive company culture comes from Umpqua, a Pacific Northwest bank. Umpqua has a 15-minute “motivational moment” every morning.⁵ At each of its locations, every morning, the entire group takes a moment to have some fun. Each day an employee leads the event. It can be anything they want. They can have a dance party, sing a song, do a little yoga, and my personal favorite, play marshmallow dodge ball. This happens for ALL employees across ALL levels and locations. The entire company can take a few minutes to relax and play together to get the motivation they need to work hard together. It’s a great, short way to build community and have some fun. A team and organization is only as good as its weakest link. It’s important to keep everyone engaged, energized, and pulling for each other. This is when you realize:

“Oh, Alex isn’t that bad; he’s actually pretty cool now that he’s not in front of that spreadsheet.”

“Veronica actually isn’t as uptight as I thought now that we’re not racing to get our RFP out.”

Finally, the comment that we hear most often: “It was good to see _______ in a different light.”

Everyone in the company doesn’t have to be friends. You can have a strong working relationship and company culture built on trust and respect—without having an office full of BFFs.

Collaborate With Your Community

Connecting, collaborating, and volunteering in the community can go a long way in bringing your organization together. Is there a pro bono project that ties into your business? Can you help out with a local charity? While volunteering, you’re not talking about deadlines and projects, and you get to hang out with your team while helping others. It is about connecting and doing meaningful work.

At JB Training Solutions, we volunteer with Chicago Scholars. We’re all about career success, so it makes perfect sense that we would work with a not-for-profit dedicated to helping underprivileged teens get into a great college, succeed there, and then land a solid job. One evening, we read applications and interviewed students together and, after the interviews, we all sent around nice texts because we felt such a strong connection with the students and the cause. We loved meeting Julian, Lexus, and Yesenia, and we enjoyed hearing from the aspiring engineers, lawyers, doctors, and teachers. It made our team stronger and connected us to the bigger picture—a true millennial aspiration.

MAKING IT HAPPEN

Collaborate and work together. Foster a team environment, so you can knock through challenges and capitalize on opportunities. Set your team on a path toward success by collaborating—not accommodating—and making big decisions. Choose being friendly over being friends to maintain your influence, and enjoy the ride as your energy, intensity, and collaborative spirit propels your team forward. Anne Price offers, “In the coming years, people management will become more and more critical, and the companies who thrive will be those with strong managers with the emotional intelligence to know how to motivate, encourage, show compassion, nurture talent, and perform selflessly.” You can be that manager.