Nod and smile

 You will help your clients to put systemisation in place.  You and they will believe that it is working.

• Managers will have clear targets
• Regular performance reviews take place
• Your client listens, questions and coaches  instead of telling managers what to do

And yet…one day your client will tell you they are unhappy because their managers are not doing the things that they agreed to do.  “They nod and say yes – but then don’t do what we agreed.”

Their immediate reaction is often that it is something to do with incentivisation.  You can explain how motivation works and the benefits and drawbacks of incentivisation schemes.  However, this is not usually the cause of nodding and saying yes.

Perhaps your client thinks they need to be more of a disciplinarian.  Whilst it is true that leaders need to be prepared to take firm action on sustained poor performance it is unlikely this will help if all the managers are backsliding.

Ask them why they think someone might agree to do something in a meeting and then not do it and then introduce Patrick Lencioni’s “Five Dysfunctions of a Team”.  Suggest that working on the trust layer of this really useful model might be a good place to start.

To remind you, trust in this context doesn’t mean you are pretty confident they won’t steal the silver service.  It means that the members of the team honestly and openly express their feelings, doubts and opinions without fear of this causing resentment, defensiveness or aggression in the other members.  Where this is not the case, in dysfunctional teams, people nod agreement without meaning it, don’t feel encouraged to give their opinion and so have no commitment to whatever is agreed.

As the leader, your client has to start this trust process, and not just with fine words.  You could suggest that, at their next meeting, your client explain their feelings and concerns to the managers and initiate a conversation that encouraged them to explain how they felt about these unfulfilled actions and the way they were prioritised and agreed in meetings.

This is a great way to help you client understand how much potential there is in their management team.

Modified from an original article on www.nickbettes.co.uk