Team Development Framework I
Balance
Balance
One of the Mental Models that will often be used to select management decisions is the balance between two extreme simple solutions. One focuses on performance and subordination, the other on the individual's ability and initiative.
Let's say you gave a task to your employee and explained how it should be done correctly. The employee did not do it the way you said and the task was failed. There are two obvious reactions here.
Command & Control.
The classic approach to managing people is to give them a task, supervise their performance, and reward or punish them based on results. In this approach, the answer to the error case is obvious: the person needs to be punished. We will call this C&C culture ‘blue’ as opposed to ‘green’ [SD].
Green Approach.
The other approach, which was formed in response to the first one, is called the green approach at Kite. This approach assumes that the most important thing is the person, their feelings, their desire to develop, their initiative. The answer to the case is also simple: the person must be forgiven. The employee showed initiative, they tried their approach. Yes, it did not work out, but if we penalise initiative, we will get people who are most eager to shift the blame onto someone else.
Let's say you gave a task to your employee and explained how it should be done correctly. The employee did not do it the way you said and the task was failed. There are two obvious reactions here.
Command & Control.
The classic approach to managing people is to give them a task, supervise their performance, and reward or punish them based on results. In this approach, the answer to the error case is obvious: the person needs to be punished. We will call this C&C culture ‘blue’ as opposed to ‘green’ [SD].
Green Approach.
The other approach, which was formed in response to the first one, is called the green approach at Kite. This approach assumes that the most important thing is the person, their feelings, their desire to develop, their initiative. The answer to the case is also simple: the person must be forgiven. The employee showed initiative, they tried their approach. Yes, it did not work out, but if we penalise initiative, we will get people who are most eager to shift the blame onto someone else.
Neither solution is a good solution. A good decision is a balanced decision. Balanced decisions were made in classic factories in the 70's, and they are still made today in DEI companies.
- Communicate with the employee without aggression and blame: conduct an After Action Review (AAR). It is important for the manager that the employee learns from this failure and does not make such mistakes again, or ideally, does not make a whole class of mistakes.
- If the employee continues to make mistakes, then a more suitable position can be found: it is possible that the person is doing something they are not good at.
- If the mistakes continue in the new position, then part ways.
'M Balance Mental Model: when a management decision needs to be made, look at the situation through the eyes of a classic manager from the 70s: authoritarian, concerned primarily with production. Then look at the situation through the eyes of a modern human-centred leader who is focused on employee development and harmonious work more than on metrics. Then, and only then, formulate a solution, taking into account your team's goals, resources and constraints, and other people's reactions to your solution.
That's Not How We Do It Here [JK]. This mental model was best described by John Kotter. There is a crisis in the blue meerkat pack: a drought has led to a shortage of food, and for this reason the predators have begun to behave more aggressively. One of the low-ranking meerkat guards developed an idea: if you watch the terrain from a tree, you can see the danger from afar. He was fired for this innovation, as his job is to follow the rules, not develop them.
The other, 'green' pack follows a more meerkat-centred approach: encouraging initiative and innovation. Because of this, meerkats have learnt to grow food for themselves instead of gathering it. Unfortunately, in the "green" pack, everyone wanted to eat food, but no one wanted to grow it. The pack lacked discipline.
John Kotter shows that the extreme ‘blue’ solution results in a clear structure but low flexibility and innovativeness; the extreme "green" solution results in innovation and flexibility but suffers from implementation problems. It would be better to look for a more balanced solution.
Cognitive Social Capital (CSC) is the origin of our work with teams and this guide. Cognitive Social Capital is the mental models that people have in their heads that help them work effectively in teams. Of course, the academic definition is more cumbersome. CSC sounded good when people theorised about it, but once it came to measurement, it became clear that research psychologists did not understand what effective teamwork was.
Effective teamwork seemed to the researchers to be related to people living in a conflict-free, harmonious environment. At the same time, company management was rather seen as an adversary: the team could unite against it to pursue its own interests.
We believe that such an environment does not favour, but only hinders development. Of course, lack of trust, intrigue and shifting of responsibilities also impede development. But a harmonious environment where everyone agrees with everyone else also does not lead to development [GT] [PR].
That's Not How We Do It Here [JK]. This mental model was best described by John Kotter. There is a crisis in the blue meerkat pack: a drought has led to a shortage of food, and for this reason the predators have begun to behave more aggressively. One of the low-ranking meerkat guards developed an idea: if you watch the terrain from a tree, you can see the danger from afar. He was fired for this innovation, as his job is to follow the rules, not develop them.
The other, 'green' pack follows a more meerkat-centred approach: encouraging initiative and innovation. Because of this, meerkats have learnt to grow food for themselves instead of gathering it. Unfortunately, in the "green" pack, everyone wanted to eat food, but no one wanted to grow it. The pack lacked discipline.
John Kotter shows that the extreme ‘blue’ solution results in a clear structure but low flexibility and innovativeness; the extreme "green" solution results in innovation and flexibility but suffers from implementation problems. It would be better to look for a more balanced solution.
Cognitive Social Capital (CSC) is the origin of our work with teams and this guide. Cognitive Social Capital is the mental models that people have in their heads that help them work effectively in teams. Of course, the academic definition is more cumbersome. CSC sounded good when people theorised about it, but once it came to measurement, it became clear that research psychologists did not understand what effective teamwork was.
Effective teamwork seemed to the researchers to be related to people living in a conflict-free, harmonious environment. At the same time, company management was rather seen as an adversary: the team could unite against it to pursue its own interests.
We believe that such an environment does not favour, but only hinders development. Of course, lack of trust, intrigue and shifting of responsibilities also impede development. But a harmonious environment where everyone agrees with everyone else also does not lead to development [GT] [PR].
[SD]
The colours are taken from Spiral Dynamics and there is no deep meaning behind them. Simply, conventionally, a culture oriented to rigid hierarchy and subordination is called ‘blue’, and a culture oriented to attention to the individual and their needs is called ‘green’. We will go into more detail about organisational cultures in the second phase; you can read about Spiral Dynamics in two of the most popular books: [Don Beck, Christopher Cowan – Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change, 1996]; [Frederic Laloux – Reinventing Organisations, 2014].
[JK]
[John Kotter, Holger Rathgeber – That's Not How We Do It Here!, 2016]
[GT]
For example, the Groupthink effect [Link].
[PR]
People exhibit innovative thinking if they are under pressure; in the absence of pressure, people are disinclined to change [David Cropley, Arthur Cropley – The Psychology of Innovation in Organisations, 2015].