CHAPTER 6 Partnering in and Across Teams

What’s the Problem?

It’s remarkably easy to see the problem in others, but harder to see it in ourselves. Isn’t it obvious when others at work or at home don’t seem to be playing well with the people they need to partner with? What kinds of behaviors do you see when people aren’t working reasonably well together?

Some of these behaviors might include not listening, especially when the topic is important and people are getting increasingly passionate about pushing their own views; talking over others, drowning out their perspectives; not speaking up when the discussion gets more intense, then sabotaging the outcome after the meeting; unnecessarily pushing people away through rude or selfish behaviors; and vacillating between trying to get everyone to agree on one hand and the leader imposing his or her solution out of frustration and impatience on the other.

Have you been there? I remember working with a CEO of a start-up company who was known to get up and leave a meeting when he got frustrated. This is like the little kid taking his ball and going home when he feels offended by his friends. (Yes, his staff did mention that after he left.)

And many of these seemingly powerful, successful executives have surprisingly thin skins when it comes to preserving their egos. Small slights, many unintended as such, can be relationship breakers due to people holding on to a grudge. As with the empowered mindset and the two-way empowered relationship, the collaboration mindset involves many two-way relationships and even more players to make it that much more complex.

At work, we have peers in related functions, across multiple layers of management and geographic boundaries, and on our own teams. At home, we have extended family and friends to consider, perhaps kids or aging parents. Then you add the kids’ teachers or talking through issues with your car mechanic. The list is endless. And so is the frustration and the elusiveness of the results most important to you.

Have you ever seen someone check into a hotel and belittle the one person behind the desk who can help them? Not the best way to get stellar service. But many people, at work and at home, simply don’t know any alternatives. They are limited in their options, so they just do what they’ve always done. It’s painful to watch, and difficult to see in ourselves.

These are often referred to as soft skills within companies. Ed McCracken, former CEO of SGI, a truly effective and honorable leader with whom I worked closely, said the opposite. To paraphrase, these aren’t the soft skills; they’re the hard skills—they’re more amorphous, nebulous, tough to nail down. The technical and strategic skills are comparatively much easier to grasp.

The best organizations in today’s complex world require more collaboration, not less. Companies are investing in new technologies to connect people and teams over distance, highlighting the importance of team contributions in performance, and even creating new work spaces and environments to drive a more collaborative culture. Collaboration accelerates execution, drives innovation, and provides a workplace where people connect and feel that they are making a difference together.

There are three problems associated with collaboration:

People often need to collaborate with others who report up through different managers to achieve goals. In your organization, this could be referred to as cross-functional, departmental, geographical, agency, discipline, committee, and so on. Whatever the nomenclature, as we highlighted in the discussion on alignment, upper-level managers may have conflicting priorities and agendas, which can cascade confusion and ambiguity down throughout the rest of the organization. Egos and personality differences can compound this problem even further.
It’s frustrating and inefficient to try to collaborate with people who are not reasonably empowered. This goes back to our first mindset, empowered relationships. Have you ever been in a meeting where one team member needs to check in too much with his or her team leader before committing or making a decision? Think of the impact. Projects are delayed, actions are stalled, and team members can start to disengage. Of course, team members should check in periodically, but clearly not all the time about everything.
Many people lack a basic understanding of what it takes to collaborate effectively. We find that collaboration is often confused with simply seeking consensus. Consensus suggests that all stakeholders have participated in discussing the decision, and all have committed to support the decision to make it a reality, even if some still disagree with it.

But seeking consensus from too many people is typically too slow for today’s fast-paced competitive business environments. You still may find that decisions get overturned later or that what was apparently agreed to in the meeting was never truly committed to by some constituents. People may want to be good team players but may be poor at handling conflict, articulating and sharing their ideas, and other collaborative challenges. Effective collaboration builds the foundation for successfully partnering with others to achieve desired goals, and in the coming chapter we will highlight the tips and skills for you to improve this important lever to strengthen and accelerate your impact.

The Alienator: Weak on Collaboration

When a person is strong on empowered relationships and alignment but weak on collaboration, it creates the Alienator.

These folks don’t know how to “play well” with others. They have the full support of their team leader to take action and drive decisions, and they are aligned and know the right thing to do, but their ability to partner with others to achieve goals is lacking.

In today’s complex business environments, most work is interconnected. Very few people sit at their desks and work on singular tasks. There are requirements to gather, perspectives to be gained, processes to align, lessons to be shared, and deliverables that require the full support of not just individuals, but entire teams. There are many consequences of poor collaboration, including lack of diverse ideas and slow or poor execution for team members who encounter the Alienator. This can impact business in serious ways. Imagine a company’s sales rep and customer support rep for a particular customer not working well together to solve issues.

An aligned and empowered person with too little collaboration is simply unable to tap into the team capacity required to get significant goals achieved. The Alienator may or may not be aware that they are alienating themselves from others, or alienating others so severely that they would avoid working with the Alienator in the future at all costs.

Example of the Alienator

There are varying examples of the Alienator. In this particular situation, I witnessed an extreme case of a senior leader whose collaboration style cost him his job.

John was a seasoned professional who had built a reputation for getting things done. His drive for results earned him a leadership position for a new cross-functional initiative.

John’s boss trusted that he would do the right thing and take the correct actions for the company. They had multiple check-ins throughout the project, and although John would describe actions that would cause some extra friction on the team, his manager continued to support him to drive results at all costs.

At the end of the year, when it was time to allocate bonuses and reward the successes of the year, John assumed he would be significantly rewarded for the progress he had made. However, when his manager was discussing John’s performance in a talent review meeting with other leaders, it became apparent that while what he did was good, how he did it—by isolating himself, not taking full advantage of the team, and even discounting input—left too many people around him unwilling to work with him again.

In this case, John’s manager tried to argue that the end justified the means, but others strongly disagreed. John’s bonus was impacted, and he felt betrayed by his boss, who had empowered him. Ultimately, his lack of collaboration skills inhibited his future career growth. John was the Alienator.

The good news you’ll see in the following chapter is that we’ve come a long way in articulating the collaboration mindset and its key skills in a way that is both actionable and compelling. And they transfer perfectly between work and home. With the collaboration mindset, we’ll examine what it takes to partner in and across teams to achieve the goals most important to you—at work and at home.