Back-to-Fundamentals Collaboration: Skills for Establishing Extreme Alignment on Your Team
Everyone at work is collaborating with lots more people than ever before. Not just those working alongside them, but all over the organization chart—up, down, sideways, and diagonal. The truth is, everyone wants to be able to depend on each other and deliver for each other. But when no one has the authority to require others to get things done, how are we supposed to deliver consistent results and maintain high performance?
Rather than escalating conflicts to a manager, resisting those conflicts and remaining frozen, or “proceeding until apprehended”, collaborate the right way: by aligning up, down, sideways, and diagonal.
In this program, Bruce distills the proven best practices of real people, collaborating in the real world, into guidelines for communication that will revolutionize how you and your team work together. Drawing on decades of research into the habits and systems of successful people in highly-collaborative roles, Bruce equips teams with simple but powerful strategies for staying aligned, no matter where each person falls on the organization chart.
Participants will learn:
– What The Authority Conundrum is, why it happens, and how it stalls productivity, damaging working relationships over time
– The importance of alignment in today’s workplace—whether working as part of a team or as an “independent” contributor
– Why establishing alignment helps build true accountability by turning it into a process, not a slogan
– How to “work things out at their own level” and “take charge” without bribing, coercing, bullying, or overstepping their role
Techniques and Best Practices for:
– Aligning vertically, before going sideways or diagonal
– “Going over your own head” at every step, through regular structured dialogue
– Putting more structure and substance into ad hoc, unstructured communication
– Dealing with interrupters and distractors
– Having better meetings and being a great meeting citizen
– Managing relationships in every direction on the organization chart: up, down, sideways, and diagonal
Leading and Collaborating Through Change and Uncertainty
There are always going to be forces outside your control. Change is constant. The way to deal with change and continue moving forward is to focus on what is always under your control: YOU!
The more things are changing, the more often you need to communicate. In a
constant-change situation, you need to be in constant communication—up, down, and sideways. You need to stay plugged in to your best sources of information through your own ongoing one-on-one dialogues with your boss, your direct-reports, and with key colleagues.
The foundation is highly-engaged one-on-one dialogues.
In this program, Bruce Tulgan teaches your team the best practices of the real
“change masters” he has studied from real organizations, in the real world.
Participants will Learn:
– The three pillars of leading people through change
– How to identify what forces are outside your control, so you can focus on what is within your control
– The importance and power of maintaining regular, ongoing, highly-engaged one-on-one dialogues
– How to maintain alignment up, down, sideways, and diagonal
– How to lead from wherever you are on the organization chart, without overstepping
– How to look forward, plan ahead, and get better and better at working together
Techniques and Best Practices for:
– Maintaining a focus on what is within your control: yourself
– Building relationships of trust and influence, based on an ongoing dialogue about the work you share
– Conducting regular one-on-ones with bosses, direct reports, and lateral colleagues
– Communicating clearly and effectively, with an emphasis on coaching-style dialogue
– Making expectations clear—for yourself and others
– Monitoring, measuring, and documenting performance
– Preparing contingency plans, standard operating procedures, and decision-making matrixes
– Adapting and remaining flexible, even when the truly unforeseen occurs
Fight Overcommitment Syndrome: Learn the Proven best Practices for Saying “Yes” and “No” at Work
Everyone at work is collaborating with lots more people than ever before. New tasks, projects, responsibilities, and opportunities come at us every single day. The truth is, everyone wants to be able to depend on each other and deliver for each other. But nobody can do everything for everybody. Too often, people overpromise, underdeliver—and burnout. That’s when siege mentality sets in: as individuals begin to resist collaboration, teamwork stalls and productivity suffers. One person’s burnout can have HUGE effects!
Navigating collaborative relationships—and the many demands on our time—is not going away. Overcommitting ourselves is not a sustainable solution for us, our teams, or our organizations. What does work? Adopting a true service mindset. That means delivering on what you promise by only saying “yes” to the best asks and the right opportunities.
In this program, Bruce draws on decades of research, sharing true stories from real people, in real workplaces, in the real world, blending humor, insight, and concrete best-practices to show participants how to fight overcommitment syndrome. Participants will walk away as better collaborators, better prepared to avoid burnout and deliver great results.
Participants will learn:
– What overcommitment syndrome and siege mentality look like—the things most people identify as burnout
– Why adopting a true service mindset is not about saying “yes” to everyone and everything at work
– How carefully choosing “yes” and “no” can build you a better reputation in your organization
– The importance of aligning—up, down, and sideways—to ensure you’re not the one who ends up overcommitted
Techniques and Best Practices for:
– Adopting a service mindset that boosts your reputation at work, rather than damage it
– When to say “no” and how to say “yes”
– Executing one thing at a time, not juggling
– Utilizing to-do lists and schedules to break work into doable chunks and find gaps for focused execution time
– Maintaining alignment up, down, sideways and diagonal
– Finding and building up Go-to People, when and where you need them
Make Accountability a Process, not a Slogan: Lead from Wherever you are … up, down, sideways & Diagonal
When people don’t work things out at their own level and get in the habit of going over each other’s heads, to the boss or the boss’s boss, trust and confidence within work relationships suffer. (Not to mention, the work itself.) But how is anyone supposed to get things done when no one has the authority to require others to do what they ask?
Rather than escalating conflicts to a manager, resisting those conflicts and remaining frozen, or “proceeding until apprehended”, build accountability the right way: by aligning up, down, sideways, and diagonal.
In this program, Bruce distills the proven best practices of real people, collaborating in the real world, into guidelines for communication that will revolutionize how you work together. Drawing on decades of research into the habits and systems of successful people in highly-collaborative roles, Bruce equips you with simple but powerful strategies for staying aligned, no matter where you fall on the organization chart.
Participants will learn:
– What The Authority Conundrum is, why it happens, and how it damages working relationships over time
– The importance of alignment in today’s workplace—whether working as part of a team or as an “independent” contributor
– Why establishing alignment helps build true accountability by turning it into a process, not a slogan
– How to “work things out at their own level” and “take charge” without bribing, coercing, bullying, or overstepping their role
Techniques and Best Practices for:
– Aligning vertically, before going sideways or diagonal
– “Going over your own head” at every step, through regular structured dialogue
– Putting more structure and substance into ad hoc, unstructured communication
– Dealing with interrupters and distractors
– Having better meetings and being a great meeting citizen
– Managing relationships in every direction on the organization chart: up, down, sideways, and diagonal
Managing Remotely: When the Workplace is no Longer a Place
Suddenly, everything’s turned upside-down. Where we work, when we work, how we relate to our bosses, to our people—it’s all in flux.
The most successful organizations and managers will design their futures and lead the way. They will be highly intentional and strategic about this sea change occurring in the work of managing work. They will acknowledge and understand the impact of what’s being lost—that intangible but oh-so-critical human factor—in order to address it. They will see that what matters today is, first, how we do what kinds of work and, second, when we do it. Where we do it comes last.
In this program, Bruce draws on decades of research and observation, to answer the most common and pressing questions about the new realities of working remotely:
– What will organizations look like?
– How will company culture be communicated and lived?
– How will we handle the basic work of management—staffing, performance management, and development?
Participants will learn:
– How remote work exacerbates the complications of interdependent, high-collaboration work
– How remote work offers an opportunity for managers and organizations to take systems, practices, and competencies to a higher level
– Why place and time matter less and less as the currency of work becomes what value you can add
– Why even the most critical communication can be accomplished asynchronously
Techniques and Best Practices for:
– Communicating with intention and cadence
– Coordinating the logistics of work and communication, while keeping the focus on results
– Hybrid-style management, where working and communicating together onsite is the exception, not the rule
– Mastering the three key aspects of managing in the new remote reality of work: staffing strategies; performance management; and employee development
– Translating the fundamentals of strong, highly-engaged management to remote work
– Conducting strong virtual meetings with teams and one-on-one
– How to impart intangibles such as culture and attitude through strong, highly-engaged management
