Tip of the month for September:  Delegating Successfully

You know the scenario: everyone in the team is working to capacity so their least preferred - but essential - tasks get demoted to the bottom of their ‘to do’ list. How can you get a necessary task done as you want it, without the team member complaining or even doing all they can to avoid it?

Barry Gordon, from Massey University , applied a process he learnt on one of Nexus Partner’s leadership programmes. Barry is responsible for a departmental team of 12 people and like most team leaders he has to “motivate” people to deliver on tasks which they may resist doing.

Like most people he had often used part of the process shown below. This time he used the whole process. The result he got was, he said, “Unbelievable!” - the report requested was completed in record time, and to a good standard.

What Barry did was frame the delegation in terms of eight elements. They are not rocket science - in fact most leaders intuitively use several of these, but when all 8 are combined they are exceptionally effective.

Now Barry delegates in terms of:

Notice the number of questions used in the above process. The reason for the questions is that where you ask rather than tell, you act inclusively. By asking, you increase ownership, reasoned input and motivation.

These days Barry pauses before he delegates, and checks the delegation against those 8 elements. Team performance has definitely improved, stress has reduced, and conflict and errors have diminished.

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Working Safe

 “Working Safe” involves more than following OSH regulations and knowing the location of the First Aid kit!! A safe workplace is also about your personal safety.

Personal safety involves physical, emotional, health and security issues. The way you work, including interactions with colleagues and customers, is important in ensuring your work environment is safe.

Nexus Partners Ltd has developed a programme specifically designed to equip staff and managers with tools for working safely. There are two workshops options:

Working Safe is a one day or one-and-a-half day programme. It covers:

Equipped is a two-day programme. Day One covers the content of “Working Safe” while day two covers the following:

This is particularly valuable for front-line staff who may have to deal with angry or abusive customers, or for staff who work with customers with special needs.

We can also help organisations develop policies and procedures needed to improve workplace safety.

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High Performing Teams

We love watching high performing teams achieve challenging goals. Their energy, competence and sheer determination is inspiring.

When we look at a team performing really well we see a vision of how things could be.

Sometimes as we watch we wonder if such a dynamic is possible elsewhere, in our workplaces, organisations and clubs.

Too often, the reality is that teams struggle with factions, power games, conflict and miscommunication.

Effective teams don’t just happen. They develop. There is a process, with key components. First individuals come together, usually with a common purpose, and a group is formed. This is the place at which many teams stop growing. To become an effective team, more is needed.

Effective teams talk about what they want to achieve, creating a picture the mind can hold, a vision that excites.

They talk about how they want to behave and set ground rules for how they want to operate. They spend time clarifying expectations, learning to work together, identifying obstacles and brainstorming ways to surmount these. They lay a solid basis to build on.

They are more than task focussed. They focus not just on the what of what they are to do, but the how. They know that wearing the same tee shirt does not make a team.

By taking time to discuss who they are, how they want to work, what is important to them, they create ownership. People feel valued.

In high performing teams in clubs, agencies or workplaces, members pull together, help each other out, recognise and complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and share a belief that they are responsible for themselves and to each other.

How does your “team” stack up?

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Case Study - Waitotara Valley Flooding

A case study on the response to the floods that hit the Central North Island of New Zealand last February.

The flood rushing down the Waitotara Valley caused the water to rise in homes faster than a bath can fill.

Almost the entire township of 41 houses was flooded. Power was cut to some areas of the valley for four weeks. There were huge pasture and stock losses. 14 homes were condemned and 27 required refurbishment.

When this devastation hit the Waitotara community during the storms of February 2004 people expected their local authority, the South Taranaki District council, to respond immediately and to all the needs.

What can prepare any authority, with limited resources, for something so out of the ordinary? How can an organisation prepare, even years ahead so they are ready?

After the devastation had subsided, Craig Stevenson, Chief Executive of STDC remarked: “When you are standing knee deep in mud and being abused by someone who has lost all their possessions, and you use skills you have learnt in training then you realise that they do work in practice. This emergency could not have been a better live test of the skills we’d been learning over the last three years. We needed it all: relationship management; handling pressure and stress; conflict resolution; handling emotionally charged people; creative problem solving and working effectively as a team.”

These skill sets were embedded through an ongoing and integrated suite of leadership and interpersonal training and mentoring provided by Nexus Partners, and enabled staff to operate from a position of unconscious competence.

Mayor Mary Bourke was impressed at how staff communicated effectively with the victims. “They heard what was said, made the hard calls and co-ordinated responses. This meant a lot less angst than could have been expected. I was really proud of the team” she said.

Right across the organisation people forgot about structural silos and titles and pitched in according to their abilities and experience. Although a fully manned Operations HQ was established at Waverley , a Council presence was required in Waitotara village. A local operations centre was established in the back bar of the local pub and while one person coordinated the contractors and volunteers, another was trouble shooting from the back of a quad bike. Others filled the roles of welfare officers, logistics supply and runners between Waverley HQ and Waitotara. For over twelve hours a day for over seven days, a quarter of the STDC staff worked entirely on disaster relief.

Each staff member had a genuine sense of wanting to help in this Civil Defence emergency. It was a true test of the strong team culture that had been developed over the previous few years.

The organisation had used the Myers Briggs Personality Indicator ® extensively and intuitively used this during the crisis to ensure that the right people were in the right place doing the right job at the right time. “Our work with MBTI certainly helped us get it right,” says Craig.

Graham Young, Environmental Services Group Manager and Civil Defence Controller, said that there were unexpected lessons too. “If you follow the ‘should do’ text book and it doesn’t fit, resist it. Follow what you think is right. We had manuals and processes, and that is important, but you just don’t have time to consult them. Another lesson too, was that initially we tried the nice approach but it didn’t work. We had to impose a curfew and get in and manage. We used positional power, but then quickly moved to influencing through personal power.”

Effective leadership in this crisis, Graham observed, included deciding what not to do - the team just could not do everything. Leadership also involved listening to people, assessing their ability and knowledge and watching to see when they reached their capacity. “It was crucial”, he said, “to help people understand their role so that where people were not suited to a task it was minimised till a niche could be found for them. The management team worked to the rule that everyone could be involved in meaningful work”.

During times of crisis it is difficult to find the time to pause and review. However, throughout the event the leaders stopped periodically and asked: What do we need to do here in order to make things work better? What are we doing well? What could we do differently?

When the Governor General visited later she had high praise for the competent efforts of all staff. Jim Collins in his excellent book Good to Great talks about one hallmark of leadership: humility. Hearing the praise from The Governor General, many staff acknowledged others’ efforts before their own.

Through investing in wider preparation than just Civil Defence training, the South Taranaki District Council was able to provide effective and competent leadership and to coordinate a comprehensive cleanup of the affected areas. Thanks to this approach, the ongoing effects of this disaster on the Waitotara community, were considerably less than what might have otherwise been the case.

 For further information on South Taranaki District Council check their website www.stdc.co.nz For information on the services of Nexus Partners who provide training to South Taranaki District Council, visit our website: www.nexuspartners.co.nz

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Prize Winners from our Launch Giveaway

When Nexus Partners launched, back in April, we gave away 30 prizes in a draw which people could enter online or by returning the entry form included in our launch brochure.

Prize winners could choose from a selection of books or movies. The winners were:

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