Valuing Differences

'Truly great leaders understand how vital it is to listen to people who disagree with them.' - Andrew Roberts, historian.

The leader is hired for their experience and judgement, and part of this is the wisdom to know that they do not know it all. So they must also have the ability to involve others: all major lasting achievements are founded on effective teamwork. But the trusted leadership style goes further: it means fundamentally working through differences of opinion.

If a member of the team expresses concerns about an idea or a direction, take time to debate it. Or even, in the words of Margaret Harrison CBE, founder of Home-Start and one of the UK’s most respected voluntary sector leaders, "screech to a halt and listen."

Stephen Covey’s excellent manual Seven Basic Habits of Highly Effective People (copyright: Stephen Covey Associates) exemplifies this all in the principle: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood.

Building confidence

If a colleague is uncomfortable with a direction being taken, realise that this can chip away at their wellbeing. So as well as being an opportunity to avert a possible error, it is more important than just the issue raised. Even if you then decide to press ahead with the first direction, the reassurance that people derive from seeing their concerns understood and debated builds confidence, contributions and creativity.

Sharing the Vision

Start at the beginning by creating opportunites for everyone to contribute to the vision of the organisation. What is it that you are all trying to achieve? Why is it important? Allow input to, and if possible gain consensus of, a shared direction right from the start.

Seeking the gatekeepers

When was the last time you worked at the coalface of your organisation? In a linear structure, sometimes senior managers will tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to know. The successful ‘Back To The Floor’ BBC TV series, about CEOs going back to the shop floor, showed how much essential information people gain by keeping open all lines of communication. The person who sweeps the factory floor deserves your attention and your interested enquiries as much as a senior manager.

They are 'gatekeepers' to knowledge about the organisation and the customer. Everyone in your organisation wants to feel involved in the collective effort, possesses knowledge about what is and isn’t working, and has the capacity to influence other people’s morale.

Balancing Functions

It is also vital to value different functions or departments equally, an obvious principle which is nevertheless often overlooked. To get the best out of everyone, the leader needs to demonstrate equal appreciation of each function, and to show everyone how they are interdependent.

Value everyone's knowledge and experiences. Be it the people in your organisation or the functions, if they are relevant to the ‘customer’ in any significant way, you need them in the organisation. If they are not, you should question the rationale for their employment.

Seeking positive contributions

• Create an open forum or ideas box for suggestions, ideas and improvements – one that you can access directly, that does not go through ‘levels’ in the organisation before it reaches you. In Japanese businesses, Total Quality (TQ) Management involves managers constantly seeking the observations of ‘ground level’ workers, which revolutionised efficiency (and it builds morale!)
• TQ values the differences because it believes in doing the right thing in the right way, first time. To do this you need to invest time in gathering, and encouraging sharing of, the knowledge within your organisation, and the needs and views of your consumers, clients, donors or investors. The time you spend doing this is inversely proportionate to the time you will spend in crisis management or correcting mistakes.
• Learn to listen with an open mind without interruption. Reflect and summarise people’s concerns in your conversations with them.
• Ask for feedback on the team’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Raise your expectations of people; most people will perform as well – or as badly – as your expectations of them.

Through these methods, people will feel that you are listening and responding to their concerns and to their need to belong. They will in turn contribute more willingly and more widely, bring you information that might otherwise be lost, and help to build other people's morale too.

'Teams can work together only if they trust, and trust requires mutuality of respect, integrity, and mutuality of regard.' - Sir John Harvey-Jones