How great leaders intentionally design their teams and relationships.
On my first day working in the corporate world, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I can remember hoping desperately that I’d be able to keep up, and at the very least be an average performer (wow, way to shoot for the stars Pete). Highlights of my first day include wearing new dress shoes to walk to through the city to work resulting in brutal blisters and a creepy ‘cat burglar-esque’ walk for the entire day. I also managed to step in dog crap on the walk in and successfully smeared it on the carpet underneath my desk providing a wonderful aroma for meeting new colleagues throughout the day. First impressions are everything right?
Successful collaboration between two individuals rarely happens by chance. We all have our own unique views, beliefs and values that are shaped by our past experiences. This can often complicate working with others and can lead to confusion, assumptions, conflict, and ultimately poor results.
Why is it that when we share a desired outcome with others we leave so much to chance? In my years of working with leaders and teams who consistently perform at an elite level, I have observed one major pattern. The pros actively design as much as they possibly can to increase their chances of arriving at the destination they desire.
Creating an intentional alliance is a process that facilitates clarity between two or more individuals ensuring all parties involved have done everything they possibly can to mitigate risk and ensure success when working with one another. This grants the relationship immense power, as it puts people in sync - smoothing out the bumps that can naturally show up along the road when collaborating with others towards a common goal. Relationships can be viewed as a dance; unfortunately, in most cases we step on each other’s toes, compete against one another with contrasting styles and rhythms, and struggle to figure out each other’s rhythm and moves. An intentional alliance creates an instant rapport and assists individuals in starting off on the right foot, propelling them towards successful results rather than the typical awkward stumble.
Imagine starting a new role and from day one, both you and your leader have complete clarity around:
How one another work
What you each value
How you each communicate
What you expect from one another (specifically)
How to successfully navigate conflict before it happens
How to hold each other accountable
How each of you defines success, manages stress, and overcomes challenges.
After a literal crappy start, this is exactly how my first day in the corporate world ended. I was booked for a two-hour meeting with my new leader. I was a little nervous and not sure what to expect. At the start of the meeting, my leader informed me that our conversation had a very specific intention. We were going to define our alliance together. We started with logistics (the easy stuff). When were my typical hours going to be? How to submit a vacation request, her open-door policy etc. Then we changed gears into areas with more depth.
Trust:
We talked about how vital it is for us to trust one another. We talked about what enables us to trust others, what we both need to ensure we can create a strong level of trust.
Communication:
She shared that she often sends abrupt one-line e-mails to be efficient and to not get rattled if I receive one. We covered what sort of things she wants to be in the loop on, and how we will ensure we make time to discuss. We discussed agreements we can make that will set us up for success around communication.
Conflict:
We discussed the importance of being in healthy conflict with one another. The art of challenging each other to new heights as deep allies. We talked about how we both handle conflict. What our personal conflict styes are, and the agreements can we make that will set us up for success around conflict.
Feedback:
She let me know how important feedback was to her and that we will be giving one another feedback consistently. We learned one another’s feedback profiles (ie. I let her know I take feedback personally and typically need a couple days to process before extracting value). We talked about always giving feedback from the place of an ally not an adversary. What then discussed agreements can we make that will set us up for success around feedback.
Delegation:
She let me know that she will be delegating a lot of work to me and that I should expect to become overwhelmed at some point. She let me know that at that point it’s up to me to come to her for support with prioritization. What then discussed the agreements can we make that will set us up for success around delegation of work.
Accountability:
She informed me that if she gives me a deadline and I find that I’m struggling with my work that it’s up to me to ensure I reach out to her immediately leaving enough time for her to support and guide me so I can meet my commitments. She let me know that it’s just as important for me to hold her accountable as my leader as it is for her to ensure my accountability. We then made agreements that will set us up for success in the area of accountability.
Development:
She let me know that I need to own my development. I was tasked with booking meetings at a regular internal and was expected to come prepared to talk about my development, what interests me, and what I want in the future. We talked about how she can support my development in the best way possible and we made agreements that set us up for success in the area of my development.
Recognition:
We talked about how we like to be recognized for our efforts and what motivates us the most.
Key relationships:
She had a list of people that she felt would be key relationships for me in my role. She shared everyone’s strengths and a bit about their personality and encouraged me to reach out to begin building a relationship.
At the end of the meeting, I can remember feeling much more comfortable with her than I did at the start. Fast forward 4 years later as I was moving from her team to another group and my feelings about my time on her team were crystal clear. I absolutely loved it! I knew exactly what was expected of me from day one, and together, we created a road map that guided us through virtually all of challenges that we faced along the way. Over the remainder of my career, I was never as happy and engaged as I was when I worked on her team.
Great leaders don’t roll the dice and hope for results and success, they diligently design the systems, structures and relationships needed to ensure it.