Knowledge

The specifics of our projects require us as a team to carry out activities remotely and collaborate in a dispersed team. Considering personal experiences and knowledge gained during collaboration with clients (in the context of building dispersed teams), we concluded that knowledge about what works in such realities can be very useful for managers today. Therefore, we have launched an e-learning platform and invite you to our courses conducted online. The following proposals are general and can be modified according to individual needs to fully meet the requirements of a specific organization. Goals of the online course: Providing knowledge about work organization, task execution, and motivation in the context of remote work Analyzing the team’s situation and defining an action plan to maintain high productivity levels in remote work Developing action schemes for your team in the current situation Learning tools that support effective task execution in remote work Preparation of tools (presentations) that the manager can use during meetings conducted in the team Preparation of a plan for the upcoming week, which will help test new solutions – what tools are we deciding on, how do we see our collaboration? Technical assumptions for each of the thematic blocks: Each module is conducted in the form of a 30-45 minute introductory webinar (knowledge) and a series of 2-hour online training modules Online training is conducted synchronously – the trainer works together with the participants at a set time during specified hours For online training, participants receive tasks to complete asynchronously (independently using the online course platform, where the trainer answers questions within 48 hours) To participate in webinars and courses, participants must be equipped with: a computer with a stable internet connection; headphones with a microphone; a smartphone (with browser capability) Thematic blocks proposed within the scope of online courses on remote work – can be completed individually or as a whole: Block I: ‘Strategy in the manager’s actions in a crisis situation – what to pay attention to so that the team works effectively?’ Block II: “Remote Work Efficiency – Based on Lencioni’s Levels” Block III: “Emotional Comfort in the Team During Crisis/Difficult Situations” Block IV: “Task Execution in the Context of Remote Work” Block V: “Effective Online Meetings – Methods and Tools” Block VI: “Effective Written Communication – Chat Conversations and Emails” For detailed information and the full program of each module, please contact: Monika Bursztyńska Tel: 536 755 075 Email: monika@generatorpomyslow.pl

Good collaboration in a team requires practicing and developing skills related not only to communication. A smoothly functioning team unfortunately does not build itself. As managers, we are responsible for both our own results and those of our team (which also includes the synergy of collaboration between people), but let’s face it: priorities are mainly set on the efficiency of task execution. From time to time, we are reminded that it would be good to take care of integration and effective collaboration. In this article, I intend to help you precisely in those moments: when you need a concrete idea on how to take care of your team as a whole, with a focus on a good atmosphere and a climate conducive to productivity.

Resolving conflicts in the team often means stress, emotions, tensions, and doubts for managers – both before approaching the conversation and after it ends. Difficult conversations in situations where each party feels uncomfortable are a source of stress at work and are a challenge in the emotional sphere (i.e., what to do to ensure the discussion does not end in a disaster for our relationship?) and the business sphere (what to do to avoid demotivating the employee in such a situation?) When such important issues are at stake in our conversation, it is worth approaching each other kindly and being well-prepared – especially in the context of our own emotions. Each of us has a certain sequence of actions that appear under stress. What allows us to avoid entering stress sequences is having fully charged energy reserves. From your own experience, you know that many of your reactions in such situations depend on the mood you start the conversation with. When our batteries are charged (neutral or positive state), even when we find ourselves in a difficult situation, we can handle it better in terms of both our own emotions and specific outcomes (we propose more accurate solutions). IMPORTANT: recharging batteries is building resilience to stress, which allows us to better cope with emotions. Resolving conflicts at work or having a difficult conversation, we will experience emotions – this is inevitable. The essence of recharging batteries is to build a buffer, a reserve of internal energy, which will allow us to maintain decent comfort during such a conversation.  If we catch signs of stress, we can identify what we should focus on in search of ideas for quickly recharging our batteries a day or two before a difficult conversation or meeting. Below you will find some ideas on how to feel more comfortable and have greater reflection and decision-making during such a conversation with an employee/team.

Management 3.0 is a way of thinking about managing teams through the lens of the system (organization) and people (team members). The key difference compared to previous ways of thinking (management philosophies) is the shift in emphasis and attention towards the two mentioned factors. In this approach, the manager’s task is to adapt the system in which people work daily to the individual needs of each employee. In the M 3.0 management approach, the main actions related to adaptation and adjustment are on the side of the leader and the organization. To effectively carry out such a task, the manager in the M 3.0 approach is not alone – they share this reality with the team. They engage the entire team in JOINTLY developing solutions that will allow the SYSTEM to be adapted to the PEOPLE. This way of thinking allows addressing the challenges arising from the internet revolution (also known as the digitalization revolution, the fourth industrial revolution). A revolution that changes the value systems of our daily lives, also in the context of our work. 4 out of 10 reasons why it is worth managing a team according to the Management 3.0 approach Management 3.0 shows how to build a self-managing team, which is a much more pleasant work environment – both for the manager and his team. At the same time, after a few months, it opens up management possibilities that are unattainable for the traditional approach. A self-managing team is one in which all members, not just the manager, actually feel co-responsible for the goals, tasks, and problems of daily work. Management 3.0 gives you a new way of thinking about how to solve previously ‘unsolvable’ problems. A lot of inspiration and tips on how to solve them systematically, not just temporarily. Especially in areas such as building team engagement and motivating employees. Management 3.0 shows what action strategies you can add to your competency panel to respond to changes in the value systems of people in your team. The work atmosphere is becoming a very important criterion for choosing an employer for high-class experts. This effect is becoming an increasing challenge for managers – how to maintain the atmosphere without losing productivity? Management 3.0, beyond team management strategy, provides tools that you can use in your team literally the next day after learning about it (e.g., after training). These include, among others: Kudos, Champfrog motivators, Delegation poker. *Details of each of the above with explanations along with other reasons can be found in the article Management 3.0 – why is it worth it?#

Management 3.0 will show you how to build a self-managing team, which is definitely a more pleasant work and management environment. The text was written in a satirical spirit – read. presents the world through comic exaggeration, but does not have to propose any positive solutions. Although not entirely, because some inspirations for choosing positive solutions to the indicated problems did appear in the content. An introductory story to the issue: You start a meeting with your team after a week that you would most like to erase from your diary. Alternatively, he left blank pages for each day. It was 5 days of meetings, correcting reports, confirming plans for the coming months, of course, when you have the least time for it… problems one after another, every day the email inbox screams with unread messages, and Krysia and Maciek went on leave because they couldn’t handle it anymore. And probably rightly so. Yes, it’s those few days in the year that you want to forget as quickly as possible. Erase from memory. Crumple the page from the diary with that date and triumphantly throw it into the trash. As if it were just a failed imagination… So you start this meeting on Monday after such a week, and 5 minutes in, you find out that a week ago there was an escalation from an important client. You already feel that twinge in your heart. Adrenaline doesn’t ask, it just shoots hard into your bloodstream and you already see the coming days, which will be more empty pages in your diary… then you start to feel like you’re dreaming… like it’s some kind of fairy tale. What’s happening? Maybe you’re already in heaven, because the previous week was even worse than you expected? Maybe it’s already your sixth coffee today that has raised your brain waves to a slightly illegal level? All this feeling of ecstasy comes from the fact that Kasia has actually already called that client, explained the situation, and gathered information about what exactly this Vietnam is about? Then, together with Karolina, they called several other departments to gather key information about what really happened on our side that caused such a mess… Konrad came up with two or three solutions on how you can approach this, and together they propose that you all sit down for 15 minutes today as a group of four, make a decision on what to do next in this situation, and plan the next steps. Does it sound like utopia? It can be done in practice. This is exactly what a self-managing team is. „We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

In the Management 3.0 approach, the main task of the manager is to adjust the system in which people work daily to the individual needs of each employee. The main actions related to adaptation and adjustment are the responsibility of the leader and the organization (not the employee). The key ideas of the creator of Management 3.0 – Jurgen Appelo – on how he creates such a work environment can be summarized into a short list of six key activities. It sounds reasonable, because how many things can we handle at once? 🙂 The mentioned activities are: Energize people Empower teams Align constraints Develop competence Grow structure Improve everything Energize people + Empower teams = engage the team in the co-creation process – goals, methods of implementation, deadlines, in the decision-making process. The more important topics you discuss together with the team (instead of communicating your decision), the greater the space for the feeling that we are actually creating our work environment together in the team. Examples: You need to prepare the budget for next year – sit down with the team and collectively determine what should be included (what are the priorities for the entire budget or parts of it) You are planning a team-building trip – during one meeting, ask everyone to suggest ideas on what you can do / where you can go for the integration. One of the team members is consistently late for meetings – during a team meeting, ask if you are the only one who notices this (maybe it doesn’t bother others, and then you need to reflect on yourself ;)) IMPORTANT FROM THE AUTHOR: before you rush to co-create everything with the team, consider its level of maturity. Particularly issues related to relationships and joint decision-making (e.g., conflict resolution) work in a co-creation model if the team demonstrates a high level of maturity (has a high level of trust and at least decent communication competencies). Align constraints + develop competence = work that has meaning and purpose – if you are one of those managers who think: “yeah, right, I can already see the self-management of the team. How will they self-manage, so that in the end, I don’t get in trouble when it comes to reporting KPIs? this area will be for you! Because the mentioned self-management requires defining a certain territory (frameworks within which we can operate) and planning the development of competencies (so that the team matures to the ideal version of self-management). The tools that help structure the reality of the team in the context of M 3.0 are OKRs (for defining goals) and a clarified sense of the work performed by the team. Here you can freely express yourself: we set goals, the values of the team that we should follow, agree on reporting, make competency development plans (so our geniuses become even more brilliant). Plan, execution, reporting, adjustments, and off we go for another year! Come on, come on, because the targets won’t achieve themselves! Important: note that the above content contains the terms “-my” (we). We set goals that are most important (for the team or for the individual – if we are talking about development goals). We define the values that we want to follow in the team. We define the metrics of goals, which we account for within a specified time. This is a good starting point for giving a clear, common goal and meaning to the work we do as a team. In Management 3.0, what keeps our wild inner selves from becoming unruly, lazy, missing deadlines, and producing low-quality results is the desire to strive for something (motivation towards something), instead of imposed constraints (motivation away from something – avoidance)*. In a certain simplification. *Of course, motivation towards something and away from something is not as simple as I presented it in one sentence. That’s the nature of human nature. But if this topic interests you, let me know – write – and I will prepare a text clarifying how it is with this motivation. Grow structure + improve everything = improve the system by creating a structure that supports value creation AND people – think of processes and procedures in your organization as something that is subject to change (sooner or later). This means that with the right arguments (and the right amount of time), you can change those elements of the system that most ‘hurt’ your team. When planning, preparing, and implementing changes, think about systemic solutions that may one day become the new status quo. Is your team frustrated with the poor quality of data provided by another department? Instead of saying ‘that’s our process,’ it’s better to spend some time brainstorming ideas on how we can improve it or reduce its impact on our team. Are tickets from clients coming in with rude comments, lacking substance, and without specific information? Consider with your team what tools you can use to engage clients in improving the ‘quality’ of the information they provide. Is the system you are using outdated and limited in functionality? Prepare a proposal for a good alternative to present to decision-makers while testing elements of this improvement in the meantime (e.g., semi-automation with the help of the immortal Excel spreadsheets). IMPORTANT FROM THE AUTHOR: as a creativity psychologist by education, I come from the romantic assumption that everything can be improved and the world is open to us. Later, I completed postgraduate studies in clinical trial monitoring (the pharmaceutical industry in its skeleton and bloodstream has rather-unchangeable-procedures) and I understood that… well, we are not always standing before the opening we desire (editor’s note: apologies for the author’s less sophisticated humor). In practice, if you have a boss who will never change something that really ‘annoys’ your team, it’s better to think about how to reduce the feeling of that annoyance rather than commenting ‘sorry, that’s the way it is.’ If the market is doing quite well, it is always worth considering the option: ‘which employer provides the opportunity to create an environment that will be good for my team?’ Are you intrigued by the idea of Management 3.0? Check out our training offer # and try this approach in practice! 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