Tag: leadership

Managing Change in a Media Landscape That is Always Changing

Shannon Cassidy Leave a comment

Media companies are prime examples of organizations that need to focus on positive change management strategies.

Why? Because they are constantly evolving, more than any other industry. This is in part because of changes to technology that are creating new digital platforms. These platforms are fundamentally changing not only the ways in which we communicate but how we receive news and information. And this, in turn, is changing the business models on which media was originally built.

So the challenge in the media landscape is this: How can they manage this constant evolution effectively?

The first step is to have solid leadership

Without clear and targeted leadership, the rest of the organization cannot hope to manage change effectively. Those leaders need to have extensive experience in the digital landscape to have credibility.

They need to be more than good leaders: they need to be knowledge banks, too — with the ability to communicate the path clearly. Leaders who prefer status quo won’t be effective. Leaders who embrace what’s new — think Elon Musk — will flourish, as will their organizations.

Accepting changes that are untested is difficult for leaders, too, but it starts and ends with them. If they can do it, more of the team will follow.

A culture of change is essential

Most workplace cultures have to establish processes to help people within the organization to accept change. Media companies are almost born to change, out of necessity. But that’s not to say that everyone is always on board.

As with all change management, it starts with the top levels of the organization. Ultimately, however, the branches below have to be on the same page too. Evolution is too fast and changes in technology are too frequent to have naysayers along for the ride. Hiring needs must always consider change and the ability of a candidate to embrace it.

An open culture, where different ideas and out of the box thinking are not only accepted but expected, is ideal. A culture where management trusts in the team they have put together is also ideal. A team that can move fast and be allowed to think on their feet will be more successful than one that cannot improvise. Fast change can meet resistance, so a team that is motivated to accept the challenge is essential.

Talent counts when speed is of the essence

In an environment where change is almost the norm, talent counts. A team with a particular ability for morphing their skills to meet demands will be a positive influence. Those teams need to be highlighted as the standard. Other teams need to see what they are meant to be achieving themselves.

It’s not about fostering competition so much as setting a positive example. Fast changes in technology and business models means a lot of upheaval. Having a successful team that can share their abilities for others to copy creates more success all around.

The speed of change in media is much faster than with other industries but it’s a question of starting out on the right foot. If the organization is built for change, it will withstand and even embrace it. If not, it will fail. This begins and ends with the leadership of the organization. If they are ready for change, they can create the vision to bring their teams with them.

How to Get Your Team to Embrace Change

Shannon Cassidy Leave a comment

The key is to remember that people aren’t robots.

This may seem like a trite phrase but organizations often forget, as they proceed at high speed to implement big changes (and small ones too), that people cannot be programmed to accept a change. They need to embrace change and be brought on board — a process that takes time and effort.

“But we’re paying them to do their job? They should just do it!”

Right. And kids will just clean their rooms because you tell them to. Unless you want to be labeled the ‘Chief Executive of Fantasy Land’, you need to think through changes that you want to bring to a team, or an organization as a whole, before you run headlong into it.

You need a change management process.

Before you make a change, understand the ramifications fully

Whatever change you want to make, whether it’s the addition of technology or a change in business structure, you need to understand the effects this change will have.

Look at it from the point of view of the person who is going to have to deal with the results of the change. How can you communicate the changes in such a way as they see it as a short-term learning curve that creates a long-term benefit?

  • Involve the people who will be affected. If you’re thinking about buying new software, for example, include key members of the team in the evaluation process. This will help ensure that it, in fact, does meet their needs. Just dumping it on them without consultation won’t get you the buy-in you’re looking for.
  • Ensure you have the support you need for change from the highest levels. If the CEO doesn’t support and even promote the change, there’s little chance that downstream team members will get on board easily.
  • Look at the possible effects on customers and outside parties. Why? Because your team will be dealing with whatever negative effects might occur, at least in the short term, they are prepared. As the saying goes: forewarned is forearmed.

Involve your team in the changes

Change management is a process meant to ease your team into changes being made. It’s not about moving them into a new environment without warning. This can be difficult for a lot of people, especially longer-term employees who are used to doing things a certain way.

Change management can help you to not only make the evolution less tension-filled but, in fact, can help your team not only accept the change but in fact embrace it.

How can you get that buy-in? You can do this by involving them and:

  • Listening to their concerns
  • Dealing with the issues that your team is worried about
  • Creating an environment where communication can take place openly and without judgment

Communicate constantly

Figuring out how to make the changes resonate with your team is the key to any change management process. Even with the best of intentions and communication, you’re likely to end up with three groups in your team. You will have team members who will:

  • Embrace the change
  • Go along, but not enthusiastically
  • Oppose the change

Realistically, unless your team is super cohesive and coordinated, you’ll find the bulk of people in the middle group, with a few at either of the two extremes.

Those who embrace the change can help be your biggest advocates. And, those who resist it can really throw a wrench into the process. So, you need to take the time to find out what their concerns are and why they are resisting. Then, focus on what you can do to help ease the transition for them.

Creating comfort in the process is a huge part of getting people to accept, if not embrace, the changes.

Ultimately, you can’t ram in change and expect it to work.  Take it slowly, perhaps incrementally so that your team can get used to things. That way, they may come to see the change as a positive enhancement, rather than something to be endured.

As they come on board, continue with the evolution you have in mind. And, be sure to limit disruption, tension and fear.

4 Ways to Display Generosity at Work

Shannon Cassidy Leave a comment

When we talk about generosity in leadership, we’re not referring to money. This isn’t about bonuses or increases. It’s about an enduring generosity of spirit, which infuses how a leader will affect their team members.

How can a leader display generosity? So many ways!

Being generous with time

A leader who will not share their time, a notably precious commodity, cannot possibly be effective. If every point of access is blocked and no one can score an ‘audience’, there’s no effective leadership going on. Yes, a leader will be busy but making time available for those that need it is a cornerstone of good leadership.

Being generous with knowledge and information

Many companies, through their leaders, breed a culture of competition. While knowledge IS power, knowledge shared can be even better. People will not improve their skills by competition and fear. They will get there through collaboration.

It’s vital for leaders to encourage information sharing among their staff. Success comes from the growing of one idea with the contributions of others, not by working in a silo. Sharing, teaching and supporting your team is how you can be generous with your knowledge.

Being generous with encouragement and empowerment

Encouraging team members to work together, empowering them to make decisions, creating a safe environment for collaboration and teamwork. These are all vital aspects of being an effective leader. It’s not about micromanaging tasks: it’s about getting team members to take initiative and contribute.

Communication suffers if team members are working to get attention instead of working for the good of the team. If co-workers are prone to blame one another, this can be traced back to generosity, or a lack of it.

Being generous also shows confidence

Being confident is another notable leadership quality and being generous is the natural result. If you’re confident in your abilities and leadership, you will be naturally generous. If you’re not, you’ll tend towards being competitive and disruptive. The two qualities go hand in hand. Generous actions show your team that you are confident in your skills.

Generosity is catching too. If others see you behaving in a generous way, they will model your attitude. As with all aspects of leadership, modeling the behavior you want to see from your team is ideal.

Generosity is essential to strong, effective leadership. Cultivate it in yourself, in your team and you’ll see your bottom line improving, however you measure it.

5 Necessary Elements for Effective Teams | BridgeBetween.com

5 Necessary Elements for Effective Teams

Shannon Cassidy Leave a comment

You’ve got a team assembled. Now what?

Bodies in chairs do not a team make! There are elements which are necessary within a team for it to work as a finely oiled machine. After all, a solid team can create unbelievable results as well as competitive advantage in the marketplace:

“The idea of building a good team is not just an abstract: these are real people, real projects and real goals.”

But bringing together different personalities with a range of skills and goals, you have to find some common points to build a cohesive team.

It’s important for any good leader to build up their teams to reflect five common elements of team success:

  • Results
  • Accountability
  • Commitment
  • Conflict
  • Trust

We’ll look at each of these in turn, in ascending order:

1. Trust

If you’ve ever worked in a group where team members didn’t trust each other, you’ll know exactly how it feels, compared to a team that has built up that inter-member reliance.

From a business point of view, trust comes with transparency. You’re not guessing what your colleagues are thinking: you know. You’re not wondering if someone is talking behind your back because they’re not. A team that has trust has members that have each other’s backs in terms of support for one another.

They’re also quick to point out and accept errors. That’s because, with trust, you know that your colleague isn’t pointing out a mistake to get you in trouble or for their own gain. They’re pointing it out because it’s in the interest of the common goals that you all agree on.

Honesty is vital to building real trust.

2. Conflict

It’s unrealistic to imagine a team of people agreeing about everything, all of the time. Conflict is inevitable but it’s the style of conflict that the team engages in that matters. This is linked to trust in that if you don’t have a team whose members trust one another, you can’t have healthy debates about issues and ideas.

Constructive disagreement is totally acceptable, knowing that the goal each person has is not to ‘take down’ the other but to contribute to the good of the team.

A team that can engage in debate but still provide a safe environment where everyone is heard respectfully is a solid team!

3. Commitment

When everyone has a voice and that voice can be expressed in a safe, trust-based environment, then it’s that much more likely that everyone on the team will be committed to whatever decision comes at the end of the discussion.

It doesn’t become about winning or losing: the commitment to a team and its decisions means compromise, sometimes, but again with the knowledge that everyone is working toward a common goal or results.

4. Accountability

Teams flounder when there are members who aren’t pulling their own weight. A committed team will hold each other accountable to the plans, processes and steps that need to be taken, to ensure that everyone is ‘in the game’, so to speak.

No one takes the credit and no one takes the blame but every team member does have to serve every other team member and one way to do that is through accountability.

Think of a football team, as an analogy. The goal for the team as a whole is to get the ball to the other end of the field. Each person on the team has a role to play and they know what that role is. If the quarterback stops doing his job or the halfback quits halfway through a play, the team, as a whole, will fail, so they hold each other accountable.

By working as a team and supporting one another and holding each person accountable for their part of the play, the team works as a cohesive whole and will score.

“By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall!” (Source)

5. Results

This is the end goal of any team: to work together to achieve results. Whatever those results are, there is always a goal and getting there as a team creates strength that can be leveraged onwards.

With a solid grasp on these five elements, a team can make decisions quickly and effectively, leverage everyone’s differing skills, value all opinions, avoid destructive conflict, and have a solid goal that each member has a stake in reaching.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? If you want your team working and thinking this way, contact us to take part in the ‘Five Elements of Effective Teams’ program. It’s a benefit for the individuals, the team as a whole and the organization that supports them!

What Makes a Great Leader?

Shannon Cassidy Leave a comment

Are leaders born or is leadership learned?

It’s a little bit of both, but it’s more complicated than an either/or statement so let’s look more closely at the aspects of personality that make a great leader. Why? Because one thing that IS true is that calling someone a leader/CEO/President doesn’t make them a leader.

What are some personality traits of a great leader?

Authenticity

Someone who is not authentic or honest is obvious. This can be observed in social media interactions every single day. The ‘influencers’ who are successful are the ones who are authentic. The ones that have a great big ‘for sale’ sign on their foreheads will have a moment in the spotlight but it’s not a lasting reality.

In order to motivate people to follow your lead, you need to appeal to them at a core level. This can’t happen if you appear constantly inauthentic. Empathy and awareness of others, of their needs, is an important part of authenticity. A leader who is only concerned with the bottom line and not what is going on with his team members will not be authentic or effective, in the long run.

Intelligence

To make tough and important decisions, which a leader is bound to have to do, they have to be intelligent in order to be able to do this with confidence and authority. Intelligence doesn’t just mean knowing the details of a project inside and out, though.

There are other forms of intelligence: street smarts, if you will. Understanding how emotions between team members and throughout a hierarchy work and play a part in success, for example. It’s not all about knowing the ins and outs of a project or company. It’s about understanding how people work and how to work most effectively with them.

Positivity

To inspire people to do the work that they need to do, a leader must project positivity. There are few who would follow someone who was perpetually negative, always assuming the worst of a situation or a person and generally unable to see the brighter side. Real optimism is part of authenticity but it is so vital to a team’s well-being that it stands apart as an important aspect of leadership qualities.

Focus

A leader who cannot keep his or her eye on the prize, all the while ensuring the team members are still on board, won’t be effective either. Ultimately, most leaders have a goal or several goals and a vision of how to get where they are going.

It’s not a question of moving forward headlong without paying attention to what’s happening in the process. It’s the ability to do both: focus on the goal and keep all the tasks in line, at the same time.

Part of focus comes from accountability. A good leader is accountable to his or her team and makes them accountable for their areas of responsibility. It’s by trusting others to get their tasks done and working with them, rather than micromanaging every aspect, and also coming through on the tasks that he or she is responsible for, that a leader gains respect.

Over to you …

While some of these traits might seem difficult to pinpoint in any one individual, over time, a good leader will show these while an ineffective leader will falter. Seeking power for the sake of it is not what makes a good leader. Seeking a solid path to a goal and taking others with them for the ride: that’s the mark of a good leader.

Do you agree? What qualities do you think are essential to being a successful leader?