How to Develop the Individual I , the Team We and the Company Us For Fun and Profit

A highly functioning, financially sustainable business is a group of individuals ("I") who have the ability and willingness to be responsible for contributing to the team's accountabilities ("We") and with those efforts increase the value of the company ("Us").

So, in a company of 100 employees ("I's"), there might be 10 teams ("We's") contributing to the sustainability of the company ("Us"). This is often expressed as, "I" am an applications engineer working in the sales dept. ("We") at Norpac Controls Inc.("Us").

Integrating this trio of interrelated identities seems to be a rather difficult challenge for most companies.

Harris Interactive, originators of the Harris Poll, recently polled 23,000 Americans employed full-time within key industries and in key functional areas.

Their most stunning findings:

• Only 37% said they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve, and why -- 63% say "huh?"
• Only 20% were enthusiastic about their team and company's goals -- that means 80% are not!
• Only 15% felt that their organization fully enables them to execute key goals -- Wow! 85% can't execute properly!
• Only 10% believe their company holds people accountable. I guess they're sleeping!

And as Stephen Covey, in his book The 8th Habit, states, "The front line produces the bottom line."

Here's the dilemma.

Somehow the "Us" has to convey to the "I's" what the goals of the company are. The company leadership also has to engage the "I's" by demonstrating to them that by committing to the "Us" goals the "I's" will fulfill their personal goals.

As the Harris data indicates, many companies are failing at this very important task.

So, how do you do that?

Actually it's relatively simple, IF you have the skills plus the motivation.

Skiing a difficult black diamond run is easy if you have the skills and the desire to do it. A person lacking the skills can get badly hurt. They are unlikely to try it again.

Many companies, lacking the skills, fail, then don't ever try to involve the "I's" in making the company successful. They revert to the safe and ineffective ways of doing things.

The skills required to get the "I's" engaged, aligned, competent and committed are a series of leader behaviors that take people from being passive to choosing to be actively involved in the company's success. It's about bringing out the genius in people so they can act with "enlightened self-interest."

Four progressive leader style are required:

1. Showing people what's in it for them to engage, how they can do it, and how, what they do contributes to the bigger outcomes of "Us";
2. Focusing people's attention to what needs to be done.
3. Facilitating the "I's" to become a bunch of "we's" because business is a team sport. And when the "I's" and the "we's" are aligned, engaged, competent and committed, it is then time for the leader to;
4. Delegate to the "we's" because they are now competent and motivated to contribute to the "Us."

The very basic skills that drive those leader styles are;

1. Leader Emotional Intelligence, which includes the following competencies: (i) communicating and listening actively plus sending congruent messages, (ii) managing conflict,by negotiating and resolving disagreements, (iii) Inspiring, focusing and facilitating individuals and groups, (iv) initiating and managing change, and (v) collaborating and cooperating with others to achieve clearly identified, shared "I", "We" and "Us" goals.
2. Being clear on what's important around here - Company Values.
3. Having an idea of where the leaders of the company want to go - Vision.
4. Engaging in a two-way dialogue to figure out how we're going to get there - Mission and . . .
5. Creating a culture in which the self-responsible "I's" keep the "we's" accountable to the "Us."

This is the antidote to "silo" thinking and doing that is so often seen in companies that are based in individualism vs. self-responsibility and resistance out of ignorance of WIIFM -- "what's in it for me."

When the WIIFM is answered, the gap between the "I's" and the "Us" is more easily bridged. The "We's" can more easily work together because they understand the big picture. That will only happen when the company's leaders make the moves to reverse the Harris Poll results to read:

• 87% of employees say they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve, and why.
• 80%+ are enthusiastic about their team and company's goals.
• 85% are clear that their organization fully enables them to execute key goals.
• 90% of employees are very aware that the company holds people accountable.

Wouldn't that be a fun, profitable place to work!

As Vern Harnish says in his book, Mastering The Rockefeller Habits:

"As goes the leadership team, so goes the rest of the firm. Whatever strengths or weaknesses exist within the organization can be traced right back to the cohesion of the business owner and/or executive team and their levels of risk management, competencies, discipline, respect, and alignment to the vision/mission."

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