First published nationally in the Business Journal Newspapers, September 2021

In the movie, Finding Forrester, Sean Connery plays an aging writer who mentors a high school prodigy. When the mentor discovers that the young man is dating a fellow student, he tells him, “The key to a woman’s heart is an unexpected gift at an unexpected time.” The next scene has the young lady opening a gift from her boyfriend and saying, “This is so unexpected!” The mentor’s advice actually aligns well with research on how to manage distributed teams.

A distributed team is one that works in different geographic locations; not officed all in the same building. The delicate nature of human communication—with its reliance on visual and auditory cues—makes leading and influencing distributed teams a unique challenge. Without the benefit of face-to-face communication, distributed teams are at higher risk of turn-over, poor innovative thinking, and lack of engagement. If there is one thing the pandemic has created, it is a massive shift toward a distributed team model; with some companies planning to make distance working a permanent part of their culture. But, to do so without planning on how to manage communication in this new environment can spell disaster.

Research has discovered that, to keep distributed teams connected, communication with team members must have two important elements. The communication must be frequent, and random. The human brain craves communication, but it must be genuine. And genuine communication is not planned, it happens when it happens. When communication is both frequent and random, it is a signal to the receiver that the other person cares. If you only hear from someone every now and then, or it only occurs at scheduled times, it doesn’t appear there is much care involved. Like the advice to the young suitor, if you want to show you care, your actions must be unexpected event at an unexpected time.

Most leaders would say, “Frequent and random doesn’t work in a business setting.” That is true. How do you surprise someone in the world of Zoom? Efficiency means you schedule a meeting so you can check in with everyone, and then get back to work. That certainly is efficient, but measure the time saved against the time wasted trying to fill positions that are vacated because your staff felt disengaged from the company. Or measure the effectiveness of tightly scheduled communication against lost productivity and poor creativity; all of which occurs when staff feels disconnected.

So, how do you engage in frequent, random communication when people don’t work in the same space. Ironically, you plan it. There is an old saying, Creativity is borne of structure. Leaders must plan random connections, without staff knowing that it was planned. To keep distributed teams engaged, leaders must recognize the importance of going beyond the information provided during communication, but whether the meeting did its job in connecting the workforce. The questions leaders should ask when planning engagement is, “How can I surprise my staff. And how often should I do it?” Regularly scheduled meetings are fine. Routine is necessary to provide a calming structure for the brain. But frequent and random connections are needed to keep the person connected to the group.

I had a couple of staff members who had been doing exceptional work for the company. When I told my co-director that I wanted to recognize them at a meeting, she said, “No. Send them each a surprise gift as a thank you.” She even directed that the gifts be specific to the person, based on their personal interests (reading, cosmetics, fishing, etc.). Because the gifts came as a surprise (random), the employees acted like they had just won the lottery. Communication doesn’t need to include a gift to engage your staff. If the communication is a surprise, and happens often enough, the communication is a gift in and of itself; especially if you talk about something other than work for a change.

Good leaders must plan to surprise their staff, and the surprises must occur more than once a year. So, the old sage’s advice can work for business could be changed to, “The key to a staff member’s heart is an unexpected gift at an unexpected time.”

Stevie Ray is a keynote speaker and trainer, bringing his program, “The Roadmap to Influence” to organizations nationwide. He can be reached at 952-500-9230 or stevie@stevierays.org.

by Stevie Ray

First published in the Business Journal Newspapers, January 2021

Right now, in America and across the world, every business leader has one thing on their mind, “How can I keep my staff focused and productive during one of the most stressful periods in history?” Your business might be afflicted with changing sales patterns, distance working, and economic upheaval, but the greatest threat to your company is rising stress levels among your staff. Stress doesn’t just make people feel bad, long-term stress decreases mental acuity, creative problem-solving, communication skills, and cognition. Add increased rates of illness, and the impact of stress will certainly be seen on your P&L.

Some companies deal with stress with a let’s push through this approach. That approach does work, but only for Acute Stress. Acute stress is short-term, like a traffic jam or a heated argument. The human brain is designed to manage acute stress. However, chronic stress—negative events that last a few hours each day over a period of weeks—is beyond the brain’s ability to mitigate. When in chronic stress, the brain engages in the General Adaptation Syndrome. This syndrome has three stages: Alarm Reaction Stage: the fight-or-flight response, Resistance Stage; the body attempts to repair itself. If stress does not dissipate, this stage can cause irritability and poor concentration, Exhaustion Stage: a draining of physical and emotional resources, resulting in burnout.

Rather than employ quick pick-me-ups—which boost morale only briefly—leaders should consider the issue of Locus of Control, a term in psychology which refers to where control is thought to originate in someone’s life. People who feel an Internal Locus of Control believe that the events in their life are the result of their own actions. People who feel an External Locus of Control feel that events are the result of the world acting upon them. Even though both types of people experience the same event, those with an internal locus of control experience less stress, recover from the negative events more quickly, and are more productive.

To be clear, it is not who actually has control over their environment that matters, it is those who feel in control who do better in life. If a child gets good grades and you say, “That is wonderful. You are naturally smart,” or “You are so gifted,” you are fostering an external locus of control. The positive outcomes are a result of factors outside of the child’s control. However, if you say, “You must have worked very hard to get those grades,” you are fostering an internal locus of control. Children who feel an internal locus of control go on to choose more challenging work, and excel at future tasks. Those with an external locus of control shy away from difficult challenges, and get lower grades. In short, it isn’t the size of the challenge that causes stress, it is the belief in the individual that they have control over their situation that allows them to succeed.

It is easy to see the comparison between school children and your staff. How well your staff can face potentially stressful challenges goes beyond effective training, and the tools they have to perform their job. Those two factors certainly do play a role in employee satisfaction and success, but the ability to employ those factors depends on whether the employee feels in control of their life. The great thing about locus of control is, we don’t need to actually be in control, we just need to feel in control. In studies about stress and productivity, those subjects who were able control even minor decisions fared better. In one study, subjects were placed in a booth and told that an uncomfortably loud buzzer would sound every few minutes. Some subjects were given a button and told that they could choose when the buzzer would sound. Other subjects had no control over the buzzer. Both groups were subjected to the same negative stimulus, but those with the button reported feeling no stress at all.

Rather than saying, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” give your staff a feeling of control by asking their input, take a vote rather than issue a directive, allow them to make as many decisions as possible, no matter how insignificant. Controlling everyday decisions puts the power back into their hands, and helps them navigate the stressful waters ahead.

Stevie Ray is a nationally recognized corporate speaker and trainer, helping companies improve communication skills, customer service, leadership, and team management.  He can be reached at www.stevierays.org or stevie@stevierays.org.

By Stevie Ray

First published in the Business Journal Newspapers

December, 2020

“I am so sorry. We have been experiencing an extremely high volume of business.” Those were the first words I heard from a mortgage company I am using to refinance properties that I own. I had contacted them in early October, seeking to take advantage of dropping interest rates. It was now December, with no closing in sight. This meant I would pay another month of the original mortgage, costing me a lot of money. I sent an email to my broker, detailing how much capital their mistake had cost me. He kicked the matter up to his boss, who assigned someone else to resolve the issue. This person apologized, offered an excuse for the delay, and promised to finish the refinance quickly. After another missed deadline, I contacted my original broker again. This time I said that, since their company caused the delay, they should discount their fee to accommodate for my loss. He agreed. I am still waiting for a closing date.

Jump now to a take-out noodle restaurant. My wife and I ordered online for pick-up at the store. When we get home, my wife’s dish was not what she ordered. She called the restaurant, and the young man said, “Oh yeah. Sorry, we’ve been really busy. Your order is right here if you want to come and pick it up.” She drove back to the restaurant, where they handed her the correct order. Nothing else.

What do a mortgage company, a noodle shop, and most businesses, have in common? A keen focus on attracting new customers, and a poor job of keeping them. Millions of dollars are wasted on advertising to get customers in the door because front-line staff are not trained in how to keep them.

When Gordon Bethune took over Continental Airlines in the early ‘90s, the company was the worst in the airline industry. Two trips to bankruptcy court, a revolving door of CEOs, lagging sales, and appalling passenger satisfaction ratings meant he was in for a long, hard job getting the company back on track (yes, I used a train metaphor for an airline). Within one year, the company was not only profitable, but rated as the top in the airline industry.

Bethune made some smart business decisions, such as cancelling unprofitable routes, but the change he made that caused the greatest impact (and got the greatest push-back from his peers), was to trust the front-line staff to handle customer service issues, and to give them the power to do whatever it took to please the customer. If a passenger had a bad experience, whoever had contact with that person—flight attendant, gate attendant, ticket clerk—not only had permission to make things right, but they also had the tools to do so—whether it was an upgrade to first class, a free meal, or free airline miles. Other business leaders told Bethune that front-line staff could not be trusted to handle delicate customer service issues, and “they would give away the farm.” To the contrary, staff at Continental respected the need for the company to make a profit. In fact, they discovered that most upset passengers were satisfied with a free ice cream cone from the food court. Just like a free rice-cereal treat from the noodle ship would have been enough for my wife. Tiny costs can reap huge payoffs.

When I speak with front-line staff at workshops or conferences about customer service issues they say, “It’s not our fault,” and “What are we supposed to do about it?” These attitudes point to a failing of training, as well as management. The fix involves simple rules.

Rule 1: Whoever deals with a customer must be empowered to fix the problem.

Rule 2: Never give the customer a reason or excuse for your failure.

Rule 3: Never let a mistake go by without offering something to make up for it. Create a list of possible amends for staff to refer to when needed.

Rule 4: If the customer must tell you how to make things right, you have failed at your job, and you should not expect to see that customer again.

Trust your front-line staff to solve customer problems. Otherwise, you will spend a lot more money to find new patrons.

Stevie Ray is a nationally recognized corporate speaker and trainer, helping companies improve communication skills, customer service, leadership, and team management.  He can be reached at www.stevierays.org or stevie@stevierays.org.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I wonder what Abraham Lincoln, who borrowed this Biblical quote for his speech in 1858, would think of how divided his house become. Name the issue—mask wearing, distance learning, public gathering, businesses re-opening—and the civil discourse has lost its civility. Don’t even start a conversation about the presidential race, immigration, or reproductive rights. America has dealt with such issues before, but rather than divide us, they united us in a common cause. Of course, it was a lot easier to get people to make sacrifices when we face a shared enemy. Today, we lack a distinct them to make us us. Also, decades ago we didn’t have social media, broadcasting our every thought to the world. Things were a lot easier when you didn’t know who your co-worker voted for. You could go about your day assuming they were nice, intelligent people.

I have worked with organizations that tried to decrease tension in the workplace by instituted rules about which subjects were off-limits for discussion. This never works. That practice doesn’t teach people to play nice in the sandbox, it removes the sandbox; leaving behind resentment. Guiding teams through hot-button issues takes a leader who understands what triggers to avoid, and which practices foster respect.

The first thing to recognize is that people who have firmly held beliefs rarely change their minds. When confirmation bias sets in, we only accept evidence that supports our case. Don’t blame yourself for not getting through to the other person, or blame them for being stubborn. Just recognize this most human of frailties and move on. If confirmation bias has not set in, there may be a chance for productive dialogue. Let’s start with what to avoid:

Don’t Spout facts

When you trade statistics back and forth, you are essentially saying, “I am smarter than you.” This  only causes them to dig their heels in further.

Don’t Shame

The “Don’t you feel bad about yourself?” approach is all over social media. The fact is, if someone felt bad about an opinion or action, they would have changed their mind before talking to you. Trying to shame someone into coming to your side of the argument only results in greater distancing.

Don’t Circle the Wagons

Gathering like-minded people to support leads to feelings of satisfaction and victory, but only in the short term. Ultimately, this approach results in tribalism; a highly unproductive quality.

What to do instead

Do Find Common Values

To find common ground, tie your discussion into what you know the other person values. If someone says wearing a mask strips them of their rights and freedoms, don’t tell them they are wrong. Recognize that they are concerned about personal rights; and that’s a good thing. Talk about how wearing a mask could be seen as an expression of their rights, rather than the loss of them. In the end, people discover that their values are more aligned than they thought, they just choose to express their values differently.

Do Talk About Consequences

When people make decisions, it is because they are predicting an outcome. Rather than try to convince someone their facts are wrong, talk about the consequences of different actions. Avoid predicting world-ending consequences in an attempt to force someone’s hand. Keep the consequences grounded in reality. If someone’s actions are likely to result in a laundry list of bad outcomes, there is a greater chance that you can discuss different options.

Finally

Allow for Incubation

We all want other people to listen to our argument and say, “Wow! You’re right.” Good luck waiting for that to happen. Whenever the human brain gets a shock—a surprise, new information, a change of plan—it needs time to absorb it and process. That usually takes overnight, which is where Let’s sleep on it came from. While we sleep, we go over everything we experienced that day and we awake a new perspective. Don’t push people to admit to they are wrong. Give them time to incubate.

A good leader doesn’t pretend teams will work things out for themselves. Divisiveness leads to resentment, destroying cohesion, retention, and productivity. Lead team members toward cohesion, no matter what side of the fence they’re on.

Stevie Ray is a nationally recognized corporate speaker and trainer, helping companies improve communication skills, customer service, leadership, and team management.  He can be reached at www.stevierays.org or stevie@stevierays.org.

When the pandemic first struck, I penned a column about leading during times of emergency. The style of leadership needed during a crisis is wholly different than during periods of stability and certainty. Now that the pandemic is months old, without a clear end in sight, business leaders must turn their focus from leading during a crisis to helping teams manage the damaging mental effects of stress. To do this, it is important to know exactly what stress is, what causes it, and how the brain best manages it.

Stress is measured by the severity and duration of an unpleasant experience. If the event is severe enough, and lasts long enough, stress can cause harm to the brain; this is called chronic or toxic stress. During an everyday stressful event, the body releases cortisol; a hormone that helps our body chemistry to return to normal once the event has passed. Cortisol also helps regulate blood sugar, and controls the hippocampus, where memories are processed and stored. If stress is prolonged, too much cortisol causes the hippocampus to go out of whack, inhibiting our memory. Stress also causes the prefrontal cortex—the thinking center of the brain—to shrink; causing loss of cognitive function. While the prefrontal cortex shrinks, the amygdala—the reactive part of the brain—grows; making us even more susceptible to stress.

The brain can take almost any situation and adjust to it as the new normal. What is stressful at the outset can, a few months later, be considered perfectly acceptable; with a notable exception. The brain cannot seem to deem acceptable situations that are unpredictable and/or uncontrolled. Tragic events are eventually managed by the brain because we have control over how we deal with them, and there is a certainty about the outcome. One of life’s everyday stressors has never been shown to be manageable by the human brain is rush-hour traffic. Because we cannot control the traffic, and our time of arrival is always uncertain, no matter what calming techniques we try, rush-hour traffic sucks.

Luckily, the damage caused by stress can be reversed. The brain can regrow neural pathways and re-form new ones; a process called neuroplasticity. The younger the brain, the greater the plasticity, but older brains can regain function and manage stress by engaging in healthy activities. This is where good leadership comes in. Too many leaders think that stress can be managed simply by keeping their staff focused. “If we just focus on the work, and put our shoulders against the wheel, we can push through this crisis.” Yes, having something to focus on keeps the brain from wandering into destructive thoughts, but that is only a small part of managing stress.

We have all heard that regular exercise is healthy for the brain; and exercise has been shown to markedly reduce stress. However, beyond encouraging staff to get out of the chair every now and then, there is little a leader can do to facilitate exercise. There are two other stress relievers that managers can manage; social interaction, and purpose. Social interaction has been long ignored for its impact on productivity. In fact, many leaders consider social conversations to be anathema to getting work done. Recently a client said to me that her greatest frustration about video-based meetings was that “too much time was spent on people catching up on personal stuff.” The fact is, personal stuff in conversations has a positive effect on work output. It is not an interruption to work, it facilitates it.

The second stress reliever is just as important; purpose. The brain hates uncertainty and unpredictability because those conditions prevent accomplishing something that has meaning. So, focusing on the good work being done is a great stress reliever. A good leader can manage the current situation by 1) encouraging social interaction, 2) focusing on what the group can control, instead of lamenting over what is out of reach, 3) keeping doomsday predictions out of the conversation, and 4) exalting every achievement. A accomplishment that would have been considered small in the past takes on new light in this time where every purposeful action can keep stress at bay. Toxic stress is not something people can just get over. Good leaders take steps to conquer it.

Stevie Ray is a nationally recognized corporate speaker and trainer, helping companies improve communication skills, customer service, leadership, and team management.  He can be reached at www.stevierays.org or stevie@stevierays.org.

During a recent workshop, I was having a lively discussion with managers from various companies about how they navigate the emotional states of their employees. It is no secret that managers can play the role of therapist as often as they play the role of boss. In the old days, managers used to assume that employees left their personal issues out of the picture and just did their jobs. The truth is, it is impossible for people to be productive unless their heart is in the work. Sure, you can push through for a while, but if your emotional state is in the dumps, the outcome will be marginal and uninspired. So understanding how emotions affect decision making, cooperation, innovative thinking, and cognitive function is good information for any professional.

It was a nice coincidence that I had just finished reading a book on the subject. I volunteer recording books on tape for the blind, which means I am exposed to many books I would not otherwise read. And, since I select only from the non-fiction options, very often the books I record turn out to be great tools for a business owner such as myself. The most recent book was How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. The author, Lisa Feldman Barrett, discussed research that suggests that people don’t react emotionally as we once assumed. Without getting too deep into details, most emotions are not the result of the brain reacting to a situation. Instead, the brain predicts which emotion will be appropriate for the situation, and then corrects its emotional state based on input that follows. The trouble with this process is, once the brain makes its emotional prediction, it is hard for it to change course based on new input. Essentially, once we are angry, we stay angry even if we discover there is no reason to be.

Because our brains can so easily go down the wrong emotional path, and it is so difficult to course-correct once they do, Barrett advises people to increase their emotional granularity. Emotional granularity is the ability to make distinctions between different emotional states. Since different emotions can have different causes, knowing exactly which emotion you are experiencing can help you avoid being an emotional puppet on a string. So, instead of just “being mad,” are you frustrated (caused by repeated failure to achieve a goal)? Disappointed (caused by a positive experience being denied)? Resentful (belief that someone else is the cause of your problem)? Or angry (caused by a value of yours not being respected). All these emotional states are unpleasant, but they are not at all the same, and each needs a different approach to find a resolution. By the same token, there is a difference between feeling elated, joyful, relieved, or giddy. These are all pleasant emotions, but caused by different experiences.

Note that I used the words pleasant and unpleasant instead of positive and negative when referring to the emotions above. If you consider emotions positive or negative, you limit your ability to manage a situation. While some emotional states might feel unpleasant, they are still part of the Ying-Yang balancing act of the brain. All emotions, pleasant and unpleasant, are necessary to a functioning brain. An emotional only has a negative impact if it is too prolonged, or causes a person to engage in unhealthy behavior. Managers who are uncomfortable dealing with unpleasant emotions are more likely to try to suppress them in others. This often leads to the other person feeling even worse, and not connecting well with that manager in the future.

So what does all this have to do with business? A lot. The more research that is conducted on the brain, especially in the field of decision making, the more we realize that humans make almost every decision based on emotion. This fact has been known, and employed by, sales professionals for hundreds of years. And the marketing industry follows the axiom, people buy with emotion and justify with fact. But emotional states guide much more of the brain’s processing that just buying a car or choosing a movie to watch. Emotions affect teamwork, customer satisfaction, manager-employee relationships, and employee retention. A brain’s emotional state affects its executive function (decision making, planning, and negotiating), and creative thinking. Understanding how the brain constructs emotions as a result of its perception of the world is crucial to managing people, not just selling to them.

Customers report higher satisfaction when a service rep “really seems to understand my problem.” This can’t happen if a service rep lumps every disgruntled customer into the Upset column. If I call a company help line and hear, “We’re so sorry for the inconvenience,” I don’t feel heard, I feel patronized. Sometimes I am inconvenienced, other times I feel frustrated, or frightened, or disappointed. If the language of the person serving me reflected that they really knew how I felt, my loyalty to that company would grow. Beyond customer service, when people feel that others really understand them, they work better together and remain part of a team longer.

If managers and business leaders developed a higher degree of emotional granularity in their own lives, they would have a better command over situations and employees. As with any situation, you can’t develop a good resolution until you have accurately defined it. And getting to the heart of someone’s emotional state helps avoid offering the wrong solution. In the future, when you feel an emotion, put a specific label on it. Go beyond happy and sad. Increase your emotional granularity (you might want to use Thesaurus.com) and expand your emotional horizons.

Instead of fearing unpleasant emotional states at work, fearing emotions all together, or lumping good and bad emotions into one big lump; accurately identifying emotions, and getting to the real cause, is a great first step to using the emotional brain we all have to work better together.

Stevie Ray is a nationally recognized corporate speaker and trainer, helping companies improve communication skills, customer service, leadership, and team management.  He can be reached at www.stevierays.org or stevie@stevierays.org.

Is it me, or has there been a stronger-than-usual reaction to the recent actions in Washington D.C.? Before you toss this newspaper, stop the video, or cancel whatever medium this is reaching you, don’t worry; this is not going to be like the rush of angry social media posts that have been keeping you from viewing photos of people’s children all dressed up for prom, or videos of their dog eating the baby’s food while the child laughs hysterically. But a recent survey did discover that the average worker today spends an average of two hours reading political posts on social media during the work day. Kind of makes you nostalgic for the days when people just wasted fifteen minutes hanging around the water cooler, doesn’t it?

No, I’m not going to weigh in with my thoughts on the current administration. I made an agreement with my wife not to publish anything that would result in angry mobs with torches and pitchforks gathering outside our castle. And these days, no matter which side of the debate you’re on, you can count on even the mildest opinion resulting in a feud that rivals Kylie Jenner and Blac Chyna (but seriously, did you see what Kylie posted about her? OMG!).

The division between left and right, totally engaged and completely uninterested, or slightly annoyed and obsessively furious has never been greater. There are even reports of divorces occurring because couples couldn’t reconcile the fact that their partner pulled the wrong lever in the voting booth. The implications of the current political climate, however, do run deeper than people not getting their work done because they are too busy seeing how many people Like their posts. It doesn’t matter to a business leader if an employee Unfriends someone on Facebook, but it does matter if they do it at work. How is a team supposed to work side by side to get a project done when half the team thinks the other half is either evil incarnate, or spineless snowflakes? If the cornerstone of a productive team is trust (as evidenced by about a bazillion studies), how can trust survive the realization that the person you formerly thought of as a great guy you now consider to be unethical, uneducated, narrow-minded, unreasonable, or a “sore loser.”

The answer, of course, is leadership. (Cue the Roman-style trumpets.) But this situation calls for leadership of a very specific kind, and it might not be the kind that you grew up with. One of the hallmark attitudes of the Traditionalist Generation (born roughly between 1900-1945), is the mantra, You don’t have to like your job, you just have to have one. The need to find employment, when employment was impossible to find, also led to, You don’t have to like your co-workers, you just have to work with them. Certainly, the threat to one’s livelihood would be incentive enough to quell any personal disagreements. But we no longer live in a keep your head down and do your job world, and leaders cannot simply tell employees to keep their nose to the grindstone. This approach is not only unrealistic, it is ultimately self-defeating.

One company I worked with has actually instituted a rule that no conversation in the workplace may include the topics of politics, religion, ethnicity, or even sports. Sports? “Dude, the Hope University volleyball team totally stepped over the foul line on that spike.” “That’s it. Meet me in the parking lot with your gloves on!” The no talking about sensitive issues at work rule might seem like a reasonable approach. If an issue isn’t likely to ever find a peaceful resolution, why bring it up? I am sure many families across America employed that strategy at Thanksgiving. The problem is, not talking about an issue doesn’t make it go away. You might not have said to your brother, “Please pass the mashed potatoes, you racist pig!” but you can’t hide the sentiment. Leaders who try to quash disagreement by prohibiting conversation create an environment of avoidance and resentment. On the list of qualities of productive teams, avoidance and resentment rank below apathy and irresponsibility. Essentially, taking away the right, and the responsibility, to talk about tough issues with team members is like saying, “You kids can’t play well in the sandbox. So, rather than teaching you how to play well, we’re taking the sandbox away.” Kids without a sandbox rarely blame the parent who took it away; they blame the other kid in the sandbox.

Good leaders are so because they protect team members, even if from each other. This is not a time to hide from the tough issues of the day, it is time to get in front of it. The first step is to put it out there. Don’t pretend that it only affects people outside of work. If it hasn’t been brought up yet, be the person to bring it up. The next step is to lay out expectations. Employees need to know that no matter how they voted, or if they voted, or how they feel about the issues at hand, these are our expectations when you step through our doors. Employees need to know that you don’t want them to just put their heads down and work, you want them to talk to each other. People don’t have to agree, but they have to disagree the right way. And, as their leader, you are there to protect everyone in the company. Because, in the end, things in the world will always change, but people still have to work side by side.

This is going to sound a bit cranky, but I trust it will be taken in the spirit intended. I am tired of hearing leadership and team work lessons from the military, sports, or from people who have survived horrible disasters. The most notable example was when the business world latched onto Ernest Shakleton’s Arctic Expedition in the early 1900s. When his ship was crushed by shifting ice, Shakleton led his men to safety by surviving over a year in the Arctic. Make no mistake, this story is one of great heroism and self-sacrifice, but I challenge any manager to translate the lessons of Shakleton’s voyage to the daily task of keeping a working group motivated and productive.
The same holds true for lessons from the military. Again, make no mistake that I hold our men and women in the armed forces in the highest regard, but teamwork in the field is quite different than teamwork in the office. In the military, and for Shakleton, teamwork has one goal; stay alive. The laser focus of survival, of keeping every team member at your side and breathing, allows one to forget petty disagreements and personality clashes. That is neither the kind of workplace we should strive for, nor one that would produce lasting results.
Sports analogies are also worthless in the workplace. All you hear is how “teamwork helped them to victory.” Duh. We understand that if one basketball team has five players on the court and the other has one, the team will probably win. But the world of sports is not creative, it is authoritarian. The coach creates the plays, the players each have one part to play. Any company or organization that followed this plan would not last long.
First of all, fear—whether for one’s survival or one’s job—creates a stress that only allows the brain to focus on one thing, eliminating the fear. This kind of stress cannot be endured for long, which is why managers have learned not to use the threat of firing as a motivating tool. Also, stress does not enhance creativity, it kills it. Those under extreme stress are always encouraged by leaders to “rely on your training.” This advice is effective for the military and for sports, where individualism is harmful to the team. For a working group, however, this atmosphere would quickly suffocate the company.
No one in a military unit would dream of harming a teammate, just as everyone on Shakleton’s team knew that their survival depended on the survival of everyone. In sports, the loss of a valuable teammate is obvious. That attitude, however, is not as easily maintained in day-to-day working environments. In some cases, the loss of a teammate can actually be beneficial to someone looking for an opportunity.
So now you’re asking, “So what? Why the tirade?” Simple. As leaders we must stop wasting our time by looking for simple analogies—military, sports, survival—to teach how us to lead. We have to dig deeper and work harder. We have to read, research, and challenge; not simply accept advice from people who hold a title. We must truly understand how people are motivated, not just what makes them want to survive.