9 Frameworks for Leading and Managing People
Essential models and ways of thinking for managing people and interpersonal spaces with more grace and ease.
This piece was written in collaboration with Ali Schultz and Jim Marsden.
Work is a very people-y place. When it comes to leading and managing masterfully, the art is in handling the interpersonal and relationship parts of the work well so that tasks can happen with less tension. From 1–1s to groups, putting ‘relationship before task’ is a practice that tracks individual teammates, as well as, what’s here in the group as a whole.
There are many ways to do this and many ways to do so in ways that establish norms around how we are together. Here are some frameworks for understanding where stuckness and sticky moments can show up on teams. These are useful models you can use to navigate the interpersonal spaces in your organization.
Employing these models allows you to meet people where they are. By using inquiry and getting curious about what’s happening, managers are better able to see where a person actually ‘is’ before jumping to conclusions and actions based on their own projections. These models will also help name conflicts and behaviors that are showing up on the team so that they can be defused, related to in a new way, and/or addressed in a timely manner.
1. Establish group norms.
Group norms ensure we have a safe and productive experience together and serve as the foundation for shaping expectations around ‘how things are done around here.’
By intentionally establishing and naming group norms, leaders can influence how team members interact with each other, communicate, and collaboratively work towards common goals.
This intentional approach fosters group cohesion and drives success, as it ensures that the norms align with the organization’s values and aspirations. Knowing what behavioral norms are for your group and organization gives everyone a structure for how we commit to being together. Read more about group norms, here.
2. Have one conversation at a time.
Ever had a conversation that doesn’t seem to go anywhere? Oftentimes, we think we’re talking about one thing, but there are more unspoken parts happening in the conversation. In these instances, leaning in to voice concerns, share your perspective, or offer feedback can be tricky.
In any conversation, we can break up the vectors of meaning into three important parts — I-We-It. Using this framework can help unbraid a complex conversation by focusing on each individual part separately. Read more, here.
3. Think, Pair, Share.
Sometimes in larger group conversations, individuals need time to think about their thoughts, ideas, and feelings on a topic before they are ready for group sharing and digestion. At offsites or in larger team meetings, using a Think-Pair-Share format can ensure that individuals have time to process and articulate what is true for them or what they are seeing.
This framework invites folks to get centered in their own voice before they get caught up in a larger group conversation. In your longer team sessions, or sessions with a strong focus on big issues, carve out think time in the agenda by making time for journaling or jotting thoughts down in writing. Then, have folks pair with a colleague or the person next to them to share those thoughts or hear them out loud, and have a dialog. Then, have folks turn into the larger group to share and have a conversation at large.
4. Follow the growth mindset track.
The attitudes and behaviors of the growth mindset set the stage for team growth and success.
The two mindsets look and feel like this: In a growth mindset, intelligence is developed. The growth mindset attitudes and behaviors are that people develop, ongoing feedback can be given, learning from mistakes and failures is celebrated, stretch projects are given, and others’ potential is seen and fostered.
In a fixed mindset, intelligence is static. Fixed mindset attitudes and behaviors are that people don’t change, feedback is seen as futile, failure is seen as catastrophic, and “I will do the work myself.”
Where might you have a fixed mindset with regard to yourself? Others? If you embraced a growth mindset in relation to a member of your team, what might the impact be? What might you say to that team member to share your confidence in their ability?
5. A formula for trust.
The building blocks of trust are: Sincerity, Competence, and Consistency. Each of these components is an element of reliability. If someone means what they say, is good at what they do, and shows up to meet commitments, their reliability and self-accountability are the stuff from which trust is borne.
Learning the components of trust can help you understand what parts are missing from a person or situation so that you can identify more clearly what’s causing you concern. If you can name it, you can address it. Read more, here.
6. Performance vs. Behavior
Performance concerns and behavior issues can cause havoc in teams. Know what one you’re dealing with so you can address it correctly. A performance concern results when a team member fails to meet the basic requirements of their job. Underperformance often shows up as repeatedly missing deadlines, low quality of work, repeated errors in work, and poor prioritizing and/or organization.
Behavior issues are unacceptable actions that do not align with culture and creed and conflict with company expectations. These may be: difficult to work with such as toxic or aggressive behavior, reactive communication or under-communication, redirecting constructive feedback to blame others, and not taking ownership of their actions.
7. Destigmatize failure for psychological safety.
What is your organization’s relationship to failure? In The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson, she offers reframes on failure to destigmatize it. Through her corrective lens on the old notions of failure, failure is a natural by-product of experimentation; effective performers produce, learn from, and share the lessons from intelligent failure; and the goal in our work together is to promote fast learning. Because people are not trying to hide failures to protect themselves, the impact of this reframe is that teams dive into open discussion, there’s fast learning, and more innovation.
Think of a recent example of “failure” that took place on your team. What happened? What led to the “failure?” What was the cost? How did you respond as a leader? To what degree did the failure result in learning and growth for you and the team? Would you say the experience left the team feeling more psychologically safe and aligned or less so? What (if anything) would you do differently if you could?
8. Informed by the future, head towards the present.
This concept helps us conceptualize and feel what it is we would like to move into. Without naming what that place is or might be, it’s not always clear what we’re aiming for. Ask yourself or the group: What is the future we’re building towards or that we’d like to see?
Exercising the creative imagination muscle, from the current place you are, jump out into a compelling future. Where are we going? What are we trying to get to? From that place in the future, describe the qualities and attributes of that future-place. What does it feel like to be there? What’s happening? What have we achieved? What are we looking towards? Get that vision as complete as possible. Then, head back to the present and begin to move toward that optimal future, one obvious step at a time.
9. The challenge of decision-making.
How do you make decisions? Do you need to slow down or speed up your decision-making process? Making tough decisions is a hallmark of a leader. However, a leader rarely has 100% certainty in any decision based on the amount of data they have alone. Colin Powell had a 40/70 rule for making tough decisions which goes like this: every time you face a tough decision you should have no less than forty percent and no more than seventy percent of the information you need to make the decision. If you have that much information and trust your gut, you have what you need to make the call.
Working well together depends on each individual to feel safe to show up and use their voice as well as for each person to adhere to how we agree to work together. These frameworks can be used as tools that can be employed in the role of the leader and in 1–1’s and larger group meetings to put relationships ahead of tasks and move past points of stuckness that can arise in the very human and conversationally driven world of work.
