Marcia's Leadership Q and As: When Soft Skills are Lacking
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Q. As the new president of a technology company, I’ve found a culture full of technical skills, but lacking in ability to lead, manage, communicate, problem solve, or work effectively as a team together. How do I rapidly develop more well-rounded people?
A. Leaders who appreciate their people (tap into their intrinsic motivators, rather than extrinsic motivators) and invest in them will often experience a rapid, powerful return on their investment. In recent years people weren’t continually developing new skills and knowledge together. Leaders are creative and seek new ways to show appreciation and develop their teams. One way to learn what will work with your staff is to ask them: What do they need? What do they want? What kind of organization do they want to be part of? Create teams to come up with ideas and plans to make improvements. They can engage and contribute more in an environment that they can take ownership in.
Q. How do we create a culture that is more collaborative and successful?
A. If you want people to learn, work, and problem solve together, first identify the barriers in the workplace that do not allow them to collaborate and support each other. What creates internal competition at your business? Work to reduce those barriers. Some of them will be management fads and entrenched “best practices” or procedures you’ve had for years. But question everything.
Leaders create the vision, aim, direction, and values of the company. These are not just words; they are actions and behaviors. To create a culture that has your aim and values at the foundation, there needs to be conversations and actions. What is your desired culture vs. the reality of the workplace? Work to close the gap. What needs to change?
Define what quality looks like, in everything you do. What’s the quality of your service? Your support of each other? Your product quality? Your customer support? Your innovation? What’s the quality of all of the administrative work? The teamwork and decision-making? Organizations survive, thrive, or fail based on the quality that is delivered. Because customers define quality. If they don’t like yours, they’ll go somewhere else.
Q. What does it take for people to support each other, work together, and succeed in delivering to the customers?
A. Ask your staff what they need to support each other and what they need to do their job with pride for the customers. Employees know how to make improvements and what they need to do it. Ask them and listen. Make a plan to implement their ideas. The quality of the culture and customer experiences can help the company exponentially grow. A sustainable business is one that creates a business full of creative, collaborative teams that can continually support each other and understand their customers’ needs and meet them. Leaders create a plan to educate and train everyone in a myriad of skills: communication, team-building, leadership development, process improvement and statistical tools. Employees work well to together to solve important problems for their customers or to create new products or services for their clients.
