Monthly Archives: May 2017

The trade-off between interpersonal tension and task tension

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The trade-off between interpersonal tension and task tension is not that well understood in organisations.  And yet it is a fundamental equation that can help improve productivity, the quality of work relationship and outcomes.

Interpersonal tension is a sad thing.  It occurs when people simply don’t get along.  This could be a personality clash or residual tension from previous encounters.  Oftentimes, people simply avoid others they don’t get along with, and that’s fine if it doesn’t impact your work outcomes.  But what if your job requires you to work with someone with whom you have interpersonal tension?  I’m not talking about a saboteur who actively tries to stop you doing your job – that would require escalation to a more senior manager or the involvement of HR.  no, I’m talking more about the persistent naysayer who you just don’t get along with well enough to be able to focus on the task at hand.

Task tension is a happy thing. According to taskmanagementguide.com, task tension can be described as a positive feeling that a person or a group feels when they have an interesting work to be done. Task tension includes feelings of zeal and enthusiasm that encourage people to intensively research the task, seek for ways to complete it, build their collaboration around these aims, and overcome many interpersonal problems for the sake of common goals.

Chart: the trade-off between interpersonal tension and task tension

The chart shows that, over time, interpersonal tension decreases as interest in the task increases.  The challenge is to work on techniques that overcome interpersonal tension quickly so that teams can focus on the task.  This moves the interpersonal tension line from A to B, and hence saves time, increasing productivity.

And so, the workplace challenge is first to ensure there is a stream of interesting team-based collaborative work available so that task tension has a fighting chance of overcoming interpersonal tension.

And then, the workplace goal is for task tension to overcome interpersonal tension as quickly as possible.

This requires:

  • Self-awareness of our own behaviours and how those impact others (“Knowing me…”)
  • The ability to ‘let it go’ and work with others as you find them (“Knowing you…”)
  • So that you can get on with the task at hand (“Aha!”).

Knowing me, Knowing you, Aha!

It is important to bring people together to reflect on their own behavioural style, recognise that of others with whom they work and begin to understand how to collaborate.  It helps team members and their leaders play to their strengths, overcome their weaknesses and work collaboratively together for the benefit of the organisation. This is of fundamental importance in today’s complex workplace.

And so, I have three questions for you:

  • Do you have the reflective practice in place to be able to do this?
  • Do you have the right behavioural insights to facilitate the discussion?
  • Do you have the right facilitator to bring people together in a way that values differences, seeks common ground and builds collaboration without the session falling apart?

I can’t help you find a stream of interesting, team-based, collaborative work.  But if you’re searching for your “Aha!” moment, I believe I can help with expert facilitation supported by leading edge psychometrics.

 

Jeremy Lewis

Committed to making a difference in building collaborative teams that get the job done

 

Understanding the public service leadership challenges

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The challenges

The public service leadership challenges of cuts, confusion and change have become the norm.  The basic elements needed to lead through this ever-changing landscape are: clarity over direction; adequate support to adopt change (preferably in the form of budgets for resources and development) and positive consequences for delivering the change without damaging services.

There is now a growing realisation amongst public sector leaders that each of these elements is irrevocably threatened: confusion has replaced clarity; cuts have replaced adequate support and negative consequences have replaced any semblance of positivity.

For too long, individual leaders have sought the answers unilaterally, while the pressure to retain accountability mounts daily.  They have done this while struggling to have influence that the right things get done within an evolving democratic Political process.

Individual leaders cannot be expected to have all the answers.  The solution requires whole system leadership.  This means that learning to collaborate is essential, both within organisations and between partners in other public organisations, and in the private and third sectors.

Evidence-based recommendations

Recent research supports the need for leaders to balance collective leadership and accountability with changes in the Political process:

In The 21st Century Public Servant, the University of Birmingham  asked questions around what is the range of different roles  and requirements on  those responsible for delivery 21st century public services and what are the support and training requirements for these roles.  In a 2016 report, the Institute for Government undertook a study on the impact of elected regional mayors on ministerial and local accountability, reporting that “success of local collaboration and innovation will depend on the strength of local accountability.”

The latest leadership research, Leadership: all you need to know, (Pendleton and Furnham, Palgrave, 2012), suggests that individual leaders cannot be expected to have all the answers.  Leadership requires strategic focus, operational focus and a focus on developing relationships.  Leaders are probably strong in one or two of these and very rarely all three.  The answer is of course to develop collective leadership where the top team has access to all these capabilities.

This evidence points to the need for public sector leaders to understand more deeply their own leadership strengths and development areas and consider how to build collective leadership to face the challenges of cuts, confusion and change.

Supporting leaders to rise to the challenge

In 2013, in association with the LGA and Skills for Government, Solace published Asking the right questions following consultation and a number of interviews with serving CXs to understand the key challenges they faced and the skills and behaviours they believed were required by their peers and those aspiring to such roles.

Working with CMdeltaConsulting, Solace have now adapted the thinking from both sets of research to suit a broader leadership population and develop collective accountability for public sector leadership – the Leading in Context Framework

The framework can be accessed by individual leaders taking a free self-assessment diagnostic questionnaire, available here.  The tool works by presenting you with 30 statements relating to your experience at work.  Once you have selected the responses that most closely represent your experience or usual way of working, you are immediately presented with a brief report that shows your strengths and development areas against the Leading in Context Framework

Next steps

We can build the solution to the current challenges together.  Using the free diagnostic questionnaire and report, individual leaders can deepen their own understanding of their leadership strengths and development areas, build a shared understanding of the leadership challenges and perhaps increase their collective accountability to develop as leadership teams and across multi-agency partnerships.

 

Trudy Birtwell – Head of Leadership and Organisational Development at Solace

Jeremy Lewis – MD at CMdeltaConsulting and Solace Associate

Note for editors

Solace (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers) is the representative body for senior strategic managers working in the public sector. We are committed to public sector excellence. We provide our members with opportunities for personal and professional development and seek to influence the debate about the future of public services to ensure that policy and legislation reflect the experience and expertise of our members.

CMdeltaConsulting is a specialist consulting, coaching and facilitation firm that focuses on whole system leadership and collaborative partnering.  We are committed to making a difference in helping senior leaders and the teams they lead thrive.  Working directly with public sector leaders, we support and challenge them to ensure the changes they need to make stick, partner and coach them throughout their change journey and build the skills they and their teams need to face tomorrow’s challenges.  We support public sector organisations in Local Government, Health and the Police.