Category Archives: Collaboration

Slideshare Presentation – Interview with Tony Lendrum

Gary Ryan interviews Tony Lendrum, Founder of 0 to 10 Relationship Management and author of his 3rd book “Building High Performance Business Relationships“.

Learn about the Storyboard, Six Principles and Five Themes required to create high performance business relationships.

Please ensure that you allow enough time for the audio to load prior to pressing play (loading times will depend on the spend of your internet service)

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

New Book Release – Go Further Together

Go Further Together – 31 lessons from the road and the workplace

Description
Go Further Together by Andrew O’Brien, Sue O’Brien and illustrated by Jock MacNeish is a collection of lessons based on stories from Andrew and Sue running more than 50 marathons together and Andrew and Jock working with organisations.

Each lesson is accompanied by a conversation starting picture from Jock and either an insight from Andrew and Sue (lessons from the road) or a comment from people working in organisations (lessons from the workplace).

About The Authors
Andrew and Sue O’Brien are passionate about healthy relationships and creating desired futures. They combine this with a love of running together and a dedication to inspiring others to be active through their speeches, presentations, books, workshops, blog www.coupleontherun.info and websites www.coupleontherun.com and www.Partnerunning.com.

In 2008 Andrew and Sue ran 8 Marathons in 8 Countries in 8 weeks and became know as the “Couple on the Run.” Partnerunning combines Andrew’s “Desired Futures” framework and extensive CEO experience with Sue’s expertise in fitness and exercise.

Sue O’Brien is a tour de force. She is a recognised expert in the fitness industry with 25 years experience teaching, coaching and helping individuals meet their goals. Her achievements include having completed over 50 marathons and having represented Australia at the World triathlon championships.

Sue is the author of “Couple on the Run” and “Lessons from Running Relationships” and is already working on her next project “Partnerunning : How to go further together.”

A strong campaigner for the benefits of health and fitness for success in life, Sue is currently researching women’s health and teenage fitness. Topics that are of particular importance in her personal life, as a mother of two.

Andrew O’Brien is passionate about assisting people create “Desired Futures” and since experiencing a period without personal vision during his 20’s he has devoted himself to becoming an expert in developing personal and organisational vision so as to create desired futures for individuals and organisations. A gifted and sought after facilitator, together with Gary Ryan, Andrew founded the Organisations That Matter Group which oversees an increasing range of successful business activities. Andrew lives with Sue by the bay in Melbourne, Australia and spends as much time as possible in the warmth of South East Queensland and Arizona. After more than 20 years working as a CEO in the services, retail, food, fitness, sports, facility management and higher education services industries Andrew now devotes his time to working with individuals and organisations to create “Desired Futures”.

A former winner of a Customer Service Institute of Australia CEO of the year award Andrew has a bunch of masters degrees in business and management and a doctorate on shared vision which was the initial catalyst for the “Desired Futures” series of books.

Andrew is a Thought Leaders Mentor and works with CEOs and executive leaders to develop corporate thinking for commercial advantage.

Jock Macneish was born in Trinidad and went to school in Scotland. He studied Architecture in London and in Melbourne and has worked in many parts of the world, including two years in Papua New Guinea. His work covers Architecture, Acoustic Consultancy, Illustrations and Cartooning. Jock now runs a company that creates images designed to carry ideas. He calls them “Strategic Images”.

He lives in the hills near Melbourne where, if he heard a hooter, he’d assume there was a bushfire rather than the start of a marathon.

Book Details
Total length: 106 pages

Order information
Price $25 (Australian) plus postage and handling
Our secure checkout includes a currency converter.
Postage: $5 within Australia, $9 everywhere else

Order the book via our secure server here.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

How a collaborative style and positional authority work hand in hand for effective leadership

Below is a dialogue between two colleagues. One of them Paul, is upset with his manager because he believes that while she preaches ‘collaboration’, she is in fact (to him) a hypocrite. His colleague Aiden provides a different perspective and eventually enables Paul to see that maybe his manager isn’t the hypocrite he thinks she is.

Paul: “Amanda is a hypocrite!”

Aiden: “What do you mean?”

Paul: “Well, she says that she wants us to collaborate, so I gave her my opinion about the Seymour incident and she’s pulled rank on me. I’ve been told that it’s her decision and that if I do what I said I was going
to do, then I’ll be in trouble.”

Aiden: “Hmmm. You’re saying that Amanda has asked you for your opinion, you’ve given it and she’s made a decision that is not what you want. Is that correct?”

Paul: “Yes. That is exactly what has happened. She’s a hypocrite!”

Aiden: “Paul, let’s slow down for a second. What behaviour does Amanda display when you believe that she has listened to you?”

Paul: “Well, that’s easy. She does what I want. That proves that she has listened. After all, that’s what collaboration is, isn’t it?”

Aiden: “Well, not exactly. If we slow down and listen to what you’re saying it sounds like Amanda has to do what you want otherwise she isn’t seen to be listening to you. Is that what you mean?”

Paul: “No, not really. But she asked me to give my opinion and then she didn’t take it. What’s the point of asking me what I think?”

Aiden: “The point is that Amanda is seeking more information by getting your opinion. Think back over the past few times that Amanda has asked your opinion, have there been any times when she has appeared to listen to you?”

Paul: “Yes, a couple. There was the Monroe issue and the Pothole issue where Amanda’s final decision was very close to what I thought we should do.”

Aiden: “So, from your perspective Amanda does listen sometimes?”

Paul: “Yes, sometimes.”

Aiden: “What’s your definition of when Amanda isn’t listening to you?

Paul: “That’s obvious. When her decisions are different to what I want.”

Aiden: “Paul, Can you hear what you are saying? It seems to me that you’re saying that unless Amanda’s decisions equal what you want, then she’s being a hypocrite because she hasn’t listened to you. Yet you agree that there have been times when her decisions have been very similar to what your input recommended.”

Paul: “I’m listening” nodded Paul.

Aiden: “Look at it this way. When you’ve been a boss in the past, don’t you expect your positional authority to count for something from time to time?”

Paul: “Yes”

Aiden: “In that case, isn’t it possible that Amanda really has listened? In taking your opinion on board she has decided to do something different. She has then used her positional authority, which she is entitled to use, to make the decision. What’s wrong with that?”

Paul: “Okay. I suppose that you have a point. In fact she did say that she was using her positional authority to ‘make the call’. I took offence to that for some reason, but I’m not sure why”.

Aiden: “Great. I’m glad you’ve been open to having this chat.”

Paul; “Yeah, so I am I. I was going to go and do something that probably wouldn’t have been the right thing to do. In fact,, I probably would have undermined Amanda if I had continued with the action that I was planning to do. I suppose there are just times when I’m not going to fully understand Amanda’s decisions. I suppose I’ll just need to trust her and keep asking questions. That can’t hurt, can it?

Aiden: “Of course not. And my experience with Amanda is that she does listen and does try to explain why her decisions are what they are. I think that sometimes we don’t listen to her because we’re so focussed on what we want. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt for us all to have a chat about these issues at our next meeting.

Paul: “You really think that she’d be up for it?”

Aiden: “Yeah, I do.”

This dialogue highlights how powerful mental models (see How what you think affects what you see) can be and how they can influence what we see and don’t see. In this situation a manager who collaborates with her team is seen as being a hypocrite simply because she at times, makes decisions that aren’t exactly what her team members want her to do.

Collaboration exists when people work as a team. Teamwork requires members to perform their role from both a technical role and team role (see What Makes People Tick Personality Profile & Job Fit Assessments) perspective. In this context it is fair and reasonable for a leader to exert their positional authority from time to time when making decisions. Providing the leader is constantly seeking and absorbing input from team members, there may be times when the leader has to make a decision and that decision may not be popular with the rest of the team. The nature of a leadership role means that leaders are exposed to information that other staff are not able to access. (at least not in the same timeframe). This means that sometimes leaders have access to information as an input to their decision-making that other team members may not yet know. This can create a paradox for the leader who wishes to be known for their collaborative style because there are times (such as employee disciplinary processes) when a leader is not able to share all the information with their team members.

A way to manage this situation is for the leader to declare when they are expressing a view from the perspective of their formal position and authority, compared to when they are simply expressing a view. For such a system to work the leader will need to conduct a series of conversations with their team about how such a system should work. The intention of the system is to enable team members to be able to speak candidly with their ‘boss’ (see the video Transparency – How leaders create a culture of candor).

If conversations such as the ones just described had been conducted throughout Paul and Aiden’s team’s history, it is unlikely that Paul would have been so convinced that his manager, Amanda, was a hypocrite.

What have been your experiences with regard to the challenge of having a collaborative leadership style, with making decisions when required?

Please feel free to ask questions and comment on this article.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com