Since its publication, this book has been ranked first in management books. Its author, Rainsny, wrote a self-contained bestseller and developed a training course with the same name. No matter in China or the United States, many well-known enterprises are loyal customers of Lansini, and Lansini has thus become a well-known management master.
The reason why this book has a wide influence is that the core issue discussed in this book, that is, effective cooperation, is the pain point of many teams. It stands to reason that collaboration should be the most basic requirement of a team, but in reality too many teams just can't do it. Many people think that teamwork is like an illusory metaphysics, which can be met but not sought. If you meet these people with the same temper in the team, there will naturally be cooperation; If it were a group of people, it might not be possible to get together. At this time, you ask the leader of that team, and the leader may say, "They just have personality, but they don't have a sense of cooperation, and they just don't like each other. What can I do? " By the way, did you do anything? He said yes, we did a lot of team-building games. We are always happy when we play, and the atmosphere is particularly good, but as soon as we return to work, we immediately return to our original shape. In this way, it seems that the effectiveness of teamwork depends entirely on luck.
This book gives us a completely different answer, that is, teamwork can be organized completely. This book tells us that teams may encounter five obstacles in the process of forming cooperation. If any of these five obstacles cannot be overcome, the team will be paralyzed. Tolstoy, a great writer, famously said that all happy families are similar, and each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. The same is true of teamwork. Those teams that can't cooperate may get stuck in one or several links, while those teams that cooperate efficiently have overcome these five obstacles one by one.
In addition, the style and format of this book are very special. Total ***2 10 pages, the first 150 pages are management novels with practical significance, and the last 60 pages are theoretical explanations of five obstacles. In this style and format, the novel itself is not an end, but to let everyone better understand the connotation of the five obstacles and how to use them in management practice.
Therefore, in the first part of today's lecture, we will briefly explain the background and outline of the novel and see how a CEO leads the company's management team to overcome these five obstacles. The second part introduces the theoretical model of five obstacles in detail, what each obstacle is, what kind of progressive relationship it has, and what corresponding methods can overcome these obstacles. Finally, in the third part, we will summarize and analyze the important principles that a team should follow to overcome the five obstacles.
first part
The novel is set in a fictional high-tech company in Silicon Valley, USA. This company used to be brilliant, with abundant funds and leading technology, and people in the industry think it has potential. However, in the past two years, the company began to decline and eventually fell into a serious crisis. Catherine, the protagonist of the novel, is a 57-year-old woman who was appointed as the new CEO of this company at a critical moment. Her previous resume was not brilliant, mainly focusing on manufacturing. Think about it. At the age of 57, he has crossed the border from traditional industries to Silicon Valley. How can an elderly layman play the role of fire fighting captain?
After taking office, Catherine did not use any drastic measures immediately. But running around looking for people to chat, attending meetings, not talking, just watching silently. It was not until the third week that she moved and announced that the management team would hold a series of leisure meetings in the famous wine producing areas, each of which lasted for two days. The plot after the novel almost revolves around two management meetings, which can be said to be the turning point of the company's fate.
What did Catherine do during the meeting? There are three main aspects.
Catherine first clarified the company's problems, saying that after her thorough investigation during this period, the company was not short of funds or technology, and the management team had roots in getting to this point. For the success of the company, she hopes that the team can have profound changes in thinking and style.
Second, Catherine gradually infiltrated her ideas into the team. Said that the team has encountered five major obstacles at present. Although Catherine is the CEO of the company, she has explained a set of theories clearly, but don't forget that everyone attending the meeting is a veteran of the workplace for many years, and it is not so easy to make them submit. After countless times of communication, collision and clarification, everyone finally believes that Catherine does not want to establish personal prestige by picking holes. Instead, they began to agree with Catherine. These five obstacles have really been bothering them, making them unable to really help the company.
Third, in order to overcome these five obstacles, Catherine used some tools to improve teamwork. Some of these tools are used to discuss personal behavior issues, while others are used to discuss corporate business issues. At the same time, she has been observing the team members to see if they are fully committed and willing to work hard to overcome these five obstacles. One of them is the vice president in charge of marketing, who is recognized as a marketing genius in Silicon Valley, but has never shown the importance and desire for teamwork. This "indifference" was noticed by Catherine, and finally she resolutely dismissed the vice president.
In this way, although Catherine encountered a lot of resistance in the process of promoting teamwork, she showed great determination and the team finally began to unite again. At the end of the novel, that is, Catherine's ninth month as CEO, the company's annual performance rebounded sharply and came back to life in the crisis.
the second part
So, what are the five obstacle models mentioned by Catherine, and what tools did she use to make a qualitative change in team cooperation? In the second part, let's take a look at them one by one.
The first obstacle is lack of trust. When it comes to trust, it's a cliche. When Catherine raised this obstacle, everyone else frowned. It means, "bring us here for a serious meeting. Will you talk to us about this?" Many people are very dissatisfied with the lack of trust. Here I quote Mahatma Gandhi: When a person's motives are questioned, everything he does will be defiled. Imagine if a team is full of suspicious eyes and a high degree of defensive psychology, what consequences will this cause?
There is a concept in psychology called fundamental attribution error, which means that people like to attribute their faults to the environment and feel that they really don't depend on themselves; If you find fault with others, it must be that they have problems, either lack of ability or incorrect attitude. Fundamental attribution errors may occur between any two people, but if there is a lack of trust in the team, members will become very sensitive and more prone to fundamental attribution errors. Once a little trouble happens, people will think things in a crooked direction, always suspecting that they have done something wrong, and people around them are in the way. And when someone else makes an unintentional mistake, he thinks that this person has bad motives-who does he want to target? It can't be me.
In this way, the fundamental attribution error is in constant friction. There is a saying, nothing is difficult in the world, but if you put your mind to it, because of random attribution, a lot of suspicion and revenge will be born out of thin air, which will further undermine the trust foundation of the team. It is easy for the whole team to fall into a vicious circle.
Trust is the foundation of teamwork. Without trust, no team can talk about collaboration. Among the five obstacle models, trust is the easiest to understand, but it is also the most important and difficult to do.
Find out why the consequences of lack of trust are so serious, and let's see how to overcome this obstacle. This book divides trust into two types, one is trust based on ability, which means that because we believe in a person's ability, we think he can do one thing well. It is good to have this kind of trust, but teamwork is more important for the second kind: trust based on weakness. It is said that team members should dare to open their hearts and admit their weaknesses and shortcomings, including being able to apologize to others and accepting their apologies when necessary. Being together as a team is like living at home. Since you are alive, you can't be too busy. We need to take off our masks and disguises in order to dispel each other's vigilance and trust each other's goodwill.
There is an old saying in China that what is iron? "I carried a gun together and went through the window together." Building trust based on weaknesses is related to whether the team shares weal and woe and works together. However, Lan Sini believes that leaders can also take some measures to greatly shorten the time needed to build trust. For example, when the team meets, we can talk about personal background topics such as family, hobbies and childhood experiences, or let everyone make a scientific psychological evaluation, announce the results, and understand each other's behavior and style. In previous novels, Catherine used these measures to improve the trust base of team members.
The second obstacle is the fear of conflict. The conflict mentioned here refers to the direct collision or even fierce confrontation of different viewpoints within the team, which can help the team to "listen to both". But even if the foundation of trust is initially established, most teams are still afraid of conflict.
Have you ever seen such a scene? Everyone was in harmony at the meeting. You like to hide your thoughts, fearing that it will cause disputes and affect your interpersonal relationship in the team. The consequence of this is that the problem may not really be solved, and it will even get worse and worse, and finally develop into an elephant in the room. There is an elephant running around the room, but everyone in this room pretends not to see it, thinking that this can maintain a superficial harmony.
This apparent harmony will not last long. When the problem is serious enough, the elephant will almost burst the whole room. At this time, people began to resent each other and accuse each other of "why didn't you see it earlier?" So at first, we were afraid of conflict, so we maintained superficial harmony, but superficial harmony could not solve the problem, and often led to greater and destructive conflicts. These are the two extremes that the average team will fall into.
To overcome the second obstacle, you need to find an ideal conflict point, which is the constructive conflict advocated by Catherine. When a team can often engage in constructive conflicts, people will be very willing to express disagreement and are not afraid of heated debates. Because as we all know, this represents a pursuit of truth and an effort to seek better decisions.
Therefore, leaders should guide the team to engage in more constructive conflicts. In the novel, Catherine uses two methods. One is to dig out the topic of conflict and consciously put some hidden problems on the table. If there is any difference, say it quickly and discuss it together. The other is to create a safe atmosphere during the discussion. You can say, "This discussion is very important to us. The current atmosphere may be a bit uncomfortable, but it just shows that we are doing the right thing. " Say that kind of nervous feeling in your heart, and everyone will become relaxed. After the discussion or meeting, you can also praise those who participated in the conflict. Through such repeated exercises, teams can skillfully control the scale of conflicts and trust each other more.
After constructive conflict, the team will enter the decision-making stage. Be careful of the third obstacle at this time: lack of knowledge. If there is not enough knowledge within a team, it is obviously impossible for them to cooperate well. There are two main reasons for the lack of knowledge.
The first is that the decision is not timely. Many teams hold meetings to discuss and discuss, but there is always no result, and in the end, there is nothing. Is the problem solved? No, nominally, I'm going to leave it for later, but in fact, it has been postponed. This situation is often not to say that this issue is unimportant, or that it is not the time to make a decision, but out of fear of making a decision. Why is there fear of decision? It may be that after the discussion, everyone still has differences and has not reached an agreement. At this time, making decisions will worry about losing the support of some people. It is also possible that I hope to collect more information, and it is best to have data support from all parties, otherwise there will always be a feeling of unease. Both kinds of psychology will lead to the team's delay in forming * * * knowledge.
Besides untimely decision-making, the second reason for lack of knowledge is unclear decision-making. Have you ever seen such a scene? It seems that you have reached a knowledge. After the meeting, someone pulled someone and asked, hey, what did you mean by the leader just now? The second man said, what is my understanding? I don't know if it's right. Look, this is all speculation. Some leaders like to give up halfway to ensure that they can advance and retreat freely. Anyway, the right to interpret belongs to him. This so-called "art of leadership" is not conducive to teamwork.
What can we do if we find the reason for our lack of knowledge? Here are four learning methods:
Through these methods, we can make good decisions. At this time, the team meeting has become very efficient, but is it possible to go astray in the subsequent implementation process and can the spirit of the meeting be implemented? At this time, you will encounter the fourth obstacle: avoiding responsibility.
The responsibility mentioned here mainly refers to whether members can perform the responsibility of mutual supervision. In other words, when you see that other members have not fulfilled their promises, do you have the courage to stand up and remind him that it is wrong to do so? You may think that it depends on whether I am the leader of this team, otherwise it is not meddling. Contrary to this idea. With everyone's supervision, we can form a kind of social pressure and let everyone resolutely implement the team's decision.
This requirement is not easy to achieve. When other members' behavior problems are discovered, many people have scruples about interpersonal relationships and are unwilling to point them out in person. This is similar to the fear of conflict before. Therefore, there may be two ways to evade responsibility. The first is to turn a blind eye. I'm not the one who sabotaged it anyway. The second is to quietly remind leaders and report.
This book thinks neither way is good. Since the team belongs to everyone, all members have the responsibility to maintain the team. He should just tell that person, "I didn't mean to offend you, but I saw that you might be different from what we knew before." Because I had knowledge of * * * before, at this time, another person is likely to say, "What I did may be really inappropriate because I met some difficulties. Can you give me some good advice? " You see, this is a benign way of interaction. If you have never worked in such a team, you may feel a little idealistic, like telling a fairy tale. In fact, this is normal, and those who stand up for the team will gain everyone's respect.
What should a team leader do? As a team leader, you should create good conditions for members to perform their supervisory responsibilities. Catherine asked her team to do a feedback exercise. Let's sit together and talk about our strengths and weaknesses, which are helpful and which are negative to the team. Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the team leader first, and then the team leader will talk about his feelings after listening. The more sincere you feel, the better the effect of this exercise will be. After the feedback to him is over, change one person, one by one.
You may say, isn't this criticism and self-criticism Whether criticism and self-criticism are effective has a lot to do with whether the first three obstacles are eliminated. Many teams don't have the basis of trust, and they dare not express different opinions on this matter at ordinary times. How do they give valuable feedback in person? Therefore, the five major obstacles should also be overcome, and we should not rush to achieve success. In addition to feedback exercises, we can also evaluate the team's work progress, and in the reward mechanism, we should reward the team rather than the individual, bind everyone's interests together, and encourage everyone to fulfill their supervisory responsibilities.
When a team comes here successfully, it has overcome four big obstacles, and the last obstacle is to ignore the results. Ignoring the result doesn't mean that we don't pay attention to the result, but that the team members are in their own way and pay attention to the same result.
First, we need to distinguish between team and individual results. The results that teams and individuals want are likely to be inconsistent. For example, the team may want to optimize the workflow and improve the overall efficiency, but from a personal point of view, this often means having to change the familiar way of doing things, which invisibly increases the workload.
For another example, the team needs someone to undertake a lot of routine work that lacks exercise value, while the individual may want to do less trivial things and undertake more challenging work, which will bring more growth to the individual. Therefore, teamwork requires members not to haggle over the results of personal care, but to make some sacrifices for the team when necessary. Of course, the team should also pay attention to individual needs, so that everyone can find their own position.
In addition to distinguishing between teams and individuals, this book also puts forward the concept of "the first team". In the novel, Catherine's team members are all company managers, and after the meeting, they each lead a departmental team composed of middle managers. Then the question is coming. What are the rankings of the two teams? Which team should I pay the most attention to? The reality is that people tend to pay more attention to the departmental team they lead and regard the departmental team as the same interest body, which is the so-called "my person". It doesn't matter what the management team wants. What is important is how to win more resources for "my people".
This is how the departmental barriers in the company are created. Therefore, Catherine explicitly requires members to regard the management team as the first team and put the needs of the management team in front of the departmental team. Of course, not only the management, but also the first team is suitable for teams at all levels, so that a large organization can work in the same direction.
In order to set up the first team, Catherine used a tool called thematic goals. In another book, Breaking Departmental Barriers, Rainsny elaborated on the theme objectives in more detail. He believes that the team should take half a year to a year as a cycle, and the most important thing in this cycle is only one thing, called the theme goal.
Thematic objectives have several characteristics: first, they are unique, and there will not be multiple thematic objectives at the same time. Everything is important, that is, nothing is important; Second, it is phased, suitable for the cycle of half a year to one year, and is used to connect the long-term planning and short-term operation of the team; Third, there is cohesion, which is discussed by all members, and should be reviewed regularly at the team meeting. Even those members who are not leaders or even directly related to their duties should participate in the discussion and express their opinions.
This concludes the introduction of the five obstacle models. Let's sum up how a good team works from a positive perspective: first, the team should have a foundation of trust and be able to open up; We should express our views freely and take part in constructive conflicts. In order to form clear knowledge in time, members make personal commitments. When someone violates his knowledge and commitment, others should point it out to him. Finally, members should first pay attention to the theme objectives of the first team.
the third part
At this point, I believe you should understand why Catherine, as a layman, can lead the company to success, because the concept of teamwork transcends industry boundaries. In order to better understand the contents of this book, in the third part, we analyze what principles should be followed in the process of overcoming the five obstacles from a more macro perspective.
First of all, leaders should assume the responsibility of establishing cooperation. A team needs the participation of every member to form a good cooperative atmosphere. Teamwork is typical, but if one member is indifferent, it will bring very bad influence to the team. Therefore, only the team leader holds the key to teamwork, and he is responsible for mobilizing all members.
This is the role played by Catherine. If she doesn't take this responsibility as a leader, it is actually impossible to expect the team to make natural progress. Even bad money drives out good money: some members of the team have very good personal qualities and were eager to cooperate, but they will be changed by the messy environment and become less cooperative, or they can't stand it and leave angrily.
The second is to establish clear values. Catherine has been conveying an idea to the team from beginning to end, that is, teamwork is above all else. Otherwise, even if a member is more capable, Catherine will ask her to leave. The author Rainsny explained this point in detail in his other book "Advantages": the competitiveness of an organization is divided into two aspects, on the one hand, the IQ of the organization, such as whether the technology is advanced or not, whether the strategy is clever or not, and so on. Another aspect is the emotional intelligence of the organization. The most important thing is to see if there is enough teamwork within the organization.
It is generally accepted that emotional intelligence is more important than IQ for a person's success. This view also applies to an organization. When an organization has clear values and everyone understands that teamwork is not negotiable, the emotional intelligence of this organization will become its core competitiveness.
The third is to do a good job in the whole article of the meeting. This book makes us understand why it is difficult to help a team with game expansion. Game development is to design a special scene so that everyone can leave work and try to cultivate teamwork in this designed scene. But how can we get everyone back to reality and continue to cooperate? This way of game development has not been solved at all, which is why team-building games can't promote a team's effective cooperation, as we said at the beginning.
The scenes and meetings selected in this book are things that almost every team does every week. When it comes to meetings, you may scoff and say that the most important thing here is meetings. What's the use of driving so much? In fact, if the meeting makes everyone feel bored and useless, it just shows that this team must have a big problem. Because the five obstacles that the team has to overcome are inextricably linked with the meeting. When we can make the meeting tense and exciting, teamwork will become close.
Fourth, teamwork requires deliberate practice. Just now, we mentioned that Catherine used many methods to improve teamwork, some discussed personal behavior issues, and some discussed company business issues. This is a conscious exercise. The reason why we should do exercises in an orderly way is because of some weaknesses of human nature. For example, Maslow's demand theory tells us that people should have both a sense of security and a sense of belonging. The problem is that the sense of security and belonging are contradictory. A sense of security makes us like to arm ourselves psychologically and not let others discover our weaknesses. A sense of belonging requires everyone to open their hearts and show goodwill.
You see, the sense of security is closed, and being closed is safe; A sense of belonging makes people open, and openness can establish social relations. The problem of many teams is that everyone pursues a sense of security too much, which leads to the team's inability to build trust. There are many similar contradictions in human nature, and the function of deliberate practice is to let team members find the third choice in contradictions.
abstract
Looking back on the above, this paper describes five obstacles that are often encountered in the process of teamwork, namely, lack of trust, fear of conflict, lack of knowledge, evasion of responsibility and disregard for results. What is an effective team? Have a foundation of trust and be able to open your heart; We should freely express our views and participate in constructive conflicts; To form clear * * * knowledge in time, members make personal commitments; When someone violates his knowledge and commitment, others should point it out to him; Finally, members should first pay attention to the theme objectives of the first team. This requires leaders to set an example, be brave in taking responsibility, establish clear values, do enough articles in the meeting, and then lead the team to practice repeatedly to overcome these five obstacles.