A recent article by Terri Brown (2006: 8) caught my eye.
How many more careers have to suffer the consequences of leaders that base their management style on a teacher –pupil model of communication? Have you ever considered how this behavior impacts on the profitability and performance of the company?

We have presented many team building programs to a wide variety of businesses the past ten years. Experience has shown that leadership commitment and engagement in the program is crucial for return on investment. Our company has gone so far to even turn clients away where we have realized that the intervention has been arranged to “spend the budget”.

A misaligned autocratic CEO normally deals with meetings in the following manner:

“…the CEO shares what he wants you to know: what’s atop his agenda, what he expects from you. It’s one-way communication that’s neither engaging nor particularly relevant. You have been here before – your school assembly” Brown (2006:8).

It has been documented in the McKinsey Quarterly, a one point improvement in management practices (on a scale of one to five) correlated with a 6% improvement in total productivity. This could also be translated in having 11% more people, or a 35% increase in the book value capital.

A solution to this problem starts with the organizational structure. But, be careful; this is where our experience can help you.

Can you remember the early nineties when the South African Police Force went through restructuring and “demilitarization”? The irony is that one hierarchy was just replaced with another, bosses still acted as school principals. So where do you start?

One of the Departmental Leaders at Sasol Synfuels; Oliver Naidoo, always say: “We have to touch the hearts and minds of our people.” How do you do that?

Transformation starts with visible change in behavior and attitude. Forget about reorganizing your company on paper. Reorganize the way your leaders relate to their team members by exposing them to real life experiences. This will give them the courage to experiment and try out new ways of treating their direct reports. Guide them to discover how to create an internal locus of control. Train them as facilitators. The word “facilitator” means “to make easier”. The manager becomes a functional leader. He/she has a whole new job description; … to function as a leader. The newly appointed leader must understand that his career has changed; specialist knowledge takes a back-seat to being a functional leader.

This new breed of managers must be trained in the skill of creating an environment conducive for motivating their teams. This doesn’t imply that the leader must become a motivational speaker of sorts. The leader must understand the principles of motivation and how to make company values visible in the way team members relate to one another.

When this is in place, hierarchical structures will be dismantled through the empowered behavior of team members. The point I’m trying to make is that bureaucracy does not start with organizational structure per sé; but how we behave within these structures.

Brown (2006) suggests that leaders should try to understand their audience, come to grips with issues on their mind and then hook other aspects onto that. Engage in conversations with your team members, avoid presentations.

According to Brown (2006) a study of UK employees reports that 40% of workers are doodling, 22% make lists, 18% think about TV, sport, shopping etc. and 7% pass sarcastic notes to colleagues.

Try this, it is the small things that turn companies around.

TBI, being a learning organisation decided to send 2 facilitators and 1 ropes course rigger to the United States to meet up with other practitioners. The aim of the visit was to network internationally, measure our own standards and to get new activities.

The three fortunate ones were me, Leonie and Abe. Our journey started with an 18 hour flight to Washington DC, where we got to do some sight seeing for the day. From there it was a 2-hour flight to Minneapolis where we met the practitioners in St. Paul.

Experiential Education is very well known in the US and most of the schools go through the process. Schools are funded by the government to attend these programmes. Sharing information, best practice, new ideas, new activities are done in abundance.
 

The trip was worthwhile and
TBI will try to make this an annual event.

Tel: (012) 807 0242 | team@team.co.za | www.team.co.za