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This is one article from the issue of July, 2002.
For other stories and articles, go to the Current Issue.
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The Insider |
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Cowboys Into Collaborators
Expanding Your Team's Skills
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People can be:
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Cowboys -
"Leave me alone to do my job!"
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The Insider is a four page, pull-out section,
the innermost pages of the print edition. It's also
available, free, on our website to anyone. We encourage you to copy and circulate these special pages to
your colleagues and co-workers.
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Communicators -
"Please do this for me, so I can do my job better," and
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Collaborators -
"What can we do together that will go beyond our individual efforts?"
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We believe cowboys may undermine team efforts, and teams and
organizations thrive when there are more collaborators.
Cowboys
One of the most pervasive and enduring icons of our culture
is the lone rider on horseback, the one detective who cracks the case, the
individual who makes a significant difference. We celebrate individuality, and
we call them heroes. Nowhere is this more evident than in media: The solo
driver, performing incredible feats with her new SUV, Time magazine's "Man
of the Year," as if one person accomplished it all alone.
Movies and advertisements appeal to our most basic (and
usually unconscious) beliefs about ourselves. The cowboy (and cowgirl, to be
sure) is the hero/heroine. You're the star of your own life, and you're justly
proud of your wisest decisions, your best accomplishments. But, in reality, you
never did it alone: You've had the support of parents, teachers, co-workers. We
depend on others, whether we admit it or not.
Hardcore cowboys seldom express gratitude. They assume
they're solely responsible for their results, that others are mere tools. They
forget the ideas that came from co-workers, the foundations laid by their
forebears, the people who invested their sweat in turning the cowboy's dreams
into reality.
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Cowboys: It's all about me
doing my job. Everything else is secondary.
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Advantages
There are places where cowboys are essential: Artists are
generally loners, and we appreciate their works. Could any committee produce
work comparable to Mozart, Michelangelo, Mendel? When you need a breakthrough,
it’s often by a cowboy.
Consequences
Successful cowboys are often arrogant, sometimes
insufferable. In their own eyes, they must be to survive the mediocrity they see
surrounding them. Or, their arrogance is just the product of an inflated
self-opinion. Furthermore, not all cowboys are creative; some are merely
critical. Only introspection can help the cowboy decide whether they're creative
or critical...but cowboys don't do introspection.
Identification
The typical cowboy takes all the credit for anything in which
they've participated (although if they're politically savvy, they only take
credit when out of earshot of others who contributed). The cowboy doesn't take
criticism well; they're not sure you're even qualified to give them feedback.
They often leave offended people in their wake.
The cowboy can become manager, but they're often seen as
lacking "people skills." They're good at coordination (that is,
creating and publishing schedules of what others must do, or setting goals and
objectives), but they usually believe people will simply do what they're told to
do, because it's "the right thing."
The cowboy generally speaks in terms of "I,"
"my" and "me:" What "I" think, what "my"
idea is, what you want "me" to do.
Communicators
Communicators have a skill that cowboys either lack or choose
not to employ: The ability to see things through another's eyes. They can
imagine what their own behavior might look like to others.
That ability to empathize also means the communicator often
understands what the other person might need or want, so they can meet it. While
a cowboy dismisses the secretary as someone who can't do anything more
important, the communicator knows the secretary is a human being with desires
and feelings. And, that empathy pays dividends to both. The secretary prefers to
work with the communicator who appreciates her work, rather than the cowboy, who
ignores her.
Advantages
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Communicators often make good writers, because they have the
skill to "be" their readers. They can conjure an imaginary reader
asking questions. To answer, the communicator makes text clearer, anticipating
future readers' needs.
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Communicators can step
into another's shoes, to see through their eyes, to take a viewpoint that's not
naturally their own.
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Communicators can make good leaders: They make sure that
those they would have follow are properly motivated and realize promised
rewards. They imagine themselves both as leader and follower, and speak the
follower's language, because that makes sure they'll be heard.
Consequences
The communicator will make sure people are heard, informed,
and motivated. That increases team unity and their ability to work together to
get things done. A communicator will often assume that the direction the team is
headed is correct, and focus on moving everybody along. On the other hand, they
might tend to avoid questioning the wisdom of the direction the team is heading
because that might be seen as confrontational.
Identification
The communicator not only gets the job done, but is also
aware that others are on the same journey, too. They'll be more persuasive,
helping others to understand where the opportunities and challenges are, and why
it's in the other person's self-interest to participate.
They speak in words of "you," and what
"you" will derive from the experience.
Helping Cowboys Become Communicators
If you've got a cowboy or two you'd like to encourage to
become communicators, you have to challenge them to try to see other
perspectives, other viewpoints. Each conflict the cowboy has with another person
is an opportunity to help them learn how to become a better communicator.
Conflict is an opportunity to coach the cowboy to see things
from the other person's perspective. Questions you can use to stimulate those
skills:
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"What do you
think they want?" Help the cowboy understand the other person may have
different wants, needs and values.
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"What would
satisfy both of you?" Help the cowboy take the other person's
satisfaction into consideration.
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"If you
changed places, what would you want?" This one requires some
cleverness, because the cowboy will often just imagine what they wish the
other person would want, from the cowboy's perspective.
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Collaborators
The collaborator has a skill the communicator hasn't yet
acquired: The ability to hear criticism from a peer without anxiety or anger.
That's driven by the collaborator's understanding that, "No one of us is as
smart as all of us."
Advantages
Collaborators are often the unsung stars on teams. If
assessed only by the work they produce, they may appear average. But, when you
look beyond to the work that others produce because of the collaborators
involvement, you'll see the immense value they add to the team.
Collaborators often contribute vital energy: They may be
cheerleaders, helping others recognize and take justifiable pride in their
successes. They may be playful, trying to keep the group from becoming so
serious they abandon innovative, creative behaviors.
Above all, collaborators ask questions. They ask questions to
draw quiet people out, they help the shy expose what they know but are afraid to
contribute. They ask questions that help people grow.
Sometimes, those questions are seen as "stupid."
That usually a sign they're challenging an assumption that everyone else is
taking for granted. They might be wrong...but they also might be alerting you to
a critical issue that everyone else has overlooked.
Consequences
Good collaborators are as precious as gold. When you have
them on your team, you've got allies to get things done, because collaborators
will listen to your ideas, too.
Identification
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Collaborators actively seek out and solicit divergent opinions. They're
not only good communicators, they also believe the end result will be better
than they, alone, could create. They're most concerned about what they may've overlooked,
what they don't know that they don't know.
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Collaborators actively seek out divergent and conflicting opinions
and experience.
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Collaborators float trial balloons into a group of people,
just to see what better ideas might emerge from the discussion.
Really good collaborators (especially when they know they're
working with cowboys and communicators) will even float a poorly phrased idea,
or an idea that's intentionally close but slightly wrong, so others can fill in
the blanks. When that happens, the people who clean up the language or supply
the missing information become virtual owners of the idea. That encourages group
ownership of the idea, and therefore more whole-hearted commitment to carrying
it out. A true collaborator doesn't care who gets credit, they just want to see
the whole team excel.
Collaborators speak convincingly in the language of
"we" and "us." They speak of how "we" will
benefit; they encourage "us" to do things.
Helping Communicators Become Collaborators
The communicator is focused on everybody pulling
together...even if they're pulling in a misguided direction. Since they may not
even understand the best direction, nor do they ask, they can lead people in the
wrong direction. There are some key questions you can ask the communicator when
they think they've done all they can:
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"What could
be missing here?" Push them out of the safety of certainty, and get
them to start asking the questions that will expose other possibilities.
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"Who else
might know?" Urge them to go ask people who aren't part of the normal
team, just to see if there's information there that might be useful.
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"What would
happen if the team membership changed?" Get them to consider the
consequences of losing a key person and how they'd deal with the new ideas, new
values and new behaviors of an addition to the team.
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Success Strategies
If you hope to improve the performance of your team, whether
in the same office building, or scattered across continents, you start by
assessing what you have, and defining where you want to end up.
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Know Your Place
— What you can do depends on your role in the team.
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Define Your Goal
— Set realistic targets for the behavior of people you intend to influence.
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Assess Your People
— Figure out where each person lies on our three-point spectrum.
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Assess Your Self
— Rather, set up a process through which others can offer you feedback.
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Know Your Place
You may be the team's leader, a mid-level team player, or an
outside consultant or contractor. Where you stand with respect to the rest of
the group determines how much flexibility and choice you have to be influential.
The leader/manager, of course, can hire and fire as necessary
to unload deadwood. If you're a part-time or junior team player, you won't have
that much influence...but you’re a social being, so you always have some
influence.
In any event, if you intend to change a team for the better,
you're going to have to work on coaching individuals, one at a time. Its always
best to keep it low-key, as private as possible.
Ask questions. Questions invite people to collaborate with
you; assertions and statements—no matter how correct—invite rebellion and
resistance. You can even ask questions—if you're careful to keep it
non-threatening—in a public setting (say a meeting or teleconference), without
appearing to be demanding.
People often resent the idea that someone else wants them to
change. You counter that by keeping your intentions to yourself, finding and
reinforcing people's beliefs in their own strengths, and asking questions that
help them consider new possibilities.
Define Your Goal
Only you can determine what you need to achieve in
order to have a better team. If you're the manager you have a certain amount of
freedom in defining where you want to be, by when, and what resources you're
willing to allocate to get there. If you're not the team's manager, you have to
be more careful of what you do, and with whom. In either event, we recommend you
work quietly and behind the scenes. Private is better than public.
Assessing Your People
Start with a list of team members with whom you work. If
you're the manager, that's everybody on the team; if not, there may only be a
subset of the team you need to assess. Add to that people who might be
"virtual" or part-time participants (vendors, contractors,
consultants, people with whom you or your team may frequently collaborate).
Next, review the three "Identification"
sections (above) for cowboys, communicators and collaborators, and place each
person on the spectrum. You might want to use a numeric scale:
1 Cowboy
2 Communicator
3 Collaborator
It's okay to use decimals: If someone is often a
communicator, sometimes cowboy, you might rate that individual at, say, 1.6.
You may be surprised to discover how much work you need to
do. If you have a lot of individuals who score on your chart at less than 1.5,
you've got to start moving them into being better communicators. Consult your HR
department, if you can. Ask the questions that help cowboys
become communicators. Similarly, scores under
2.5 mean you have to move them toward being better collaborators.
Assessing Yourself
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Simply put, you can't. We all operate out of our beliefs
about the world, and those same beliefs keep us from seeing our own flaws. You
have to take others into your confidence, explain what you're doing, and ask
them to assess you on the same scale. Get several evaluations, preferably from
peers, superiors and subordinates, so you can see how you appear to others.
It can be humbling. It will be worth it, if you aspire to
become a better team player, a better manager, a better person.
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A client graciously included me in their annual evaluation program
with all his employees. The results were really scary. He identified flaws I thought I'd
been successfully hiding. But the feedback was invaluable and set
me on a two-year course to change some of my beliefs and practices.
I'd've never discovered those facts about myself without his honest assessment.
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It's Important Work
It's a worthwhile endeavor (unless you're really a cowboy). Not only does
helping people become better collaborators enrich your team, you'll find your
team getting more done. And, you'll all enjoy the process of getting that work
done more in the bargain. It's often the most important work you can do: Helping
people become more of who they really want to be; helping them realize themselves.
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