I meet with leaders all the time who are passionate, talented, and innovative but who are still struggling to get their teams to perform at the level they know is possible.
Most leaders don't know that the thing they're most avoiding—tension—is the very thing that could explode the growth and effectiveness of their team. The greatest mistake I see leaders make is treating every challenge they face as if it were a problem to solve, rather than a tension to manage. This problem solving approach is great when you're dealing with an actual problem – things like policy, procedure, accounting, or finance. However, when you're dealing with a tension to manage—things like planning versus action, flexibility versus structure, and control versus empowerment—treating it like a problem to solve will have you feeling like you're beating your head against a brick wall.
I have the privilege of working with a long list of teams that range from small start-up businesses to weapons inspectors within The United Nations. Even though all of these teams are incredibly unique, I discovered that each one is forced to deal with the same three key tensions. When you learn to manage these three key tensions—the ones I'm about to share with you in this document—you gain a superpower in business that will not only help you and your team to thrive, it will also allow you to maintain the integrity of your values and your purpose.
• Teams lose touch with what is actually working and their areas of expertise.
• Teams feel threatened because they aren't acknowledged for what they're good at and known for.
• Leaders and team forget important lessons from the past and lose connection with their core values and mission.
• Team members become divided—those who are "for change" and those who are against it, creating unnecessary chaos, confusion and polarization. Of course, there are certainly leaders who go the other way, seeing "the way we do things around here" as safe, successful and needing to be secured at all costs. This over-focus on preserving tradition results in teams missing out on innovation that can transform the organization and improve the teams' effectiveness. Slowly but surely, teams become stagnant, bored and outdated.
Great leaders know that in order to succeed and have a thriving team, they need to have one hand embracing change and innovation, while at the same time holding in the other hand the preservation of tradition and stability. This is not a problem to solve, but a tension they need to embrace and leverage. When you're able to leverage this tension, rather than push for an either/or solution, you find that not only can you stay true to your value and integrity as a leader and an organization, but you can also be innovators and pursuers of new and better.
• The neglect of individual work—meaning nothing getting done (or done on time).
• A tendency towards "group think", where people hide behind the team to avoid ownership and responsibility. On the other hand, if a leader focuses too much on an individual approach without curating a team environment, this will lead to a disconnected work environment, where everyone is doing their one individual task, but nobody feels connected to the greater vision and mission of the organization. Team "silos" emerge where no one knows what's going on outside of their little world, and no one benefits from collaboration and synergy. I've seen this happen again and again—where individuals will stay motivated for a while (they like their autonomy). But eventually, people burn out when they don't see how they're connected to the whole.
The key to organizing work, and achieving both efficiency and effectiveness is being able to not settle for one approach or the other, but instead achieve a healthy tension between a collaborative, connected team and individuals who have space, autonomy and responsibility to focus and deliver.
• Leaders feel disconnected from their team, because while they share this one aspect of life, they're out of touch with the whole person who is working for them.
• Employees are under-committed to the task at hand, reflecting the level of commitment that has been shown to them. They feel like a number, as if they aren't truly valued and cared for.
• Decrease in engagement, high turnover, and poor team morale The fear I hear all the time from leaders is, "if I start to focus on their home life, they won't get their work done!" But I find that when leaders treat "work and home" as a tension to manage, they actually get higher performance from their employees, not the other way around. When leaders find ways to focus on and care about both employee interests and company interests, embracing flexibility, empathy and personal development, employees know that they matter, and want to give back the best of who they are to their job.
ONCE YOU START TO ACKNOWLEDGE AND EMBRACE THESE THREE TENSIONS, YOU QUICKLY REALIZE THAT SEEING IS RELIEVING!
There is incredible relief in knowing that you haven't been solving these problems poorly. In fact, they are not problems to solve at all! These tensions are never going to go away, so the goal is to find healthy and productive ways to be managing them, since they will be with you for a long, long time. When you become clear on these three tensions and bring this awareness to the teams you lead, you can stop wasting time arguing which approach is right and which is wrong. You can stop dealing with the dysfunction and ineffectiveness of a polarized team. And you can stop swinging back and forth from one approach to another, hoping that one day you'll "figure things out." "Figuring it out" is all about holding the tension. And now you're well on your way. Spending time understanding and embracing these three tensions will take your leadership and your team to a whole new level. You will unite your team, spark sustainable change, and get unstuck!