The document provides information on collaborative leadership and team dynamics. It discusses how collaborative leaders focus on both managing tasks and sustaining relationships. They use questioning rather than telling to build trust and foster collaboration. Leaders must adapt their approach across the different stages of team development (forming, storming, norming, performing), focusing more on tasks early on and relationships later. Signs of successful collaboration include teams being self-organizing, empowered, and consensus-driven rather than leader-driven.

1. Speak Using
Both Sides of
Your Brain,
Like a
Collaborative
Leader
Toastmasters District 60
Spring 2014 Conference
Susan Antoft, MMath (CS),
MBA, PMP, ACS, CL
skantoft@sympatico.ca

2. Select the messages to foster team collaboration, according the
development stages and dynamics of the team
After This Session, You Will be Able to...
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Describe a model for speaking like a collaborative leader
(Hint: See the slides with the )
Be able to ask questions that build and sustain trust that is required for
collaboration
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3. When we collaborate, we achieve great things that are not possible
when we are divided.
How Do You Define Collaboration?
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2 Collaboration is harnessing the power of many, to do, create, or invent
something better or otherwise impossible.
3 Collaboration is sharing and collective action oriented toward a common
goal in a spirit of harmony and trust.
4 Collaboration consists of recursive interactions of knowledge,
engagement, results, perceptions of trust and accumulation of activity
over time.
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4. Obstacles to Collaboration
Large teams
Highly educated team members
Limited face-to-face working time
Team has limited motivation to be collaborative
Team members don’t know each other
Team members have diverse backgrounds and
perspectives
Work can be uncertain or chaotic or complex
Team membership is short-term and fluid
Gratton, L. and Erickson, T.J. (2007). Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams. Harvard Business Review.
Weiss, J. and Hughes, J. (2005). Want Collaboration? Accept – and Actively Manage – Conflict. Harvard Business Review
Corporate Executive Board. (2013). How the Future of Corporate IT Impacts Skills
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Team has limited skills needed for collaboration
IT staff who LACK the
collaborative skills needed for
their work:
• Business Results Orientation
• Communication
• Influence
• Relationship Management
• Teamwork
90%
• Compensation only for
individual contributions to
outcomes
• Team members are
simultaneously on several
teams
• Bad prior team experiences
• Senior people won’t / can’t work
with junior people
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Lack of trust10

5. Collaboration Gaps and Impacts
Project ChickenTeam Failure
Team members are unwilling or unable to support
the project.
*Vital Smarts. (2006). Silence Fails: The Five Crucial Conversations for Flawless Execution
http://cms.vitalsmarts.com/d/d/workspace/SpacesStore/baf1dafa-24f8-4108-8d0e-3813fbe96d80/Silence%20Fails%20Full%20Report.pdf?guest=true
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• 1,000 senior executives,
project sponsors, project
leaders, and project
participants
• 2,200 projects, ranging
from $10,000 IT projects
to billion-dollar
organizational
restructuring
• 40 companies - 90% on
Fortune 500;10% smaller,
regional firms: pharma;
fast food; construction;
airlines; financial services,
government agencies and
consumer products
Team leaders and members don’t admit when
there are problems with a project but instead wait
for someone else to speak up first.
Measures of Collaboration Gaps Team Failure Project Chicken
Number of participants who reported this problem 80% 55%
Percentage of projects affected 30% 31%
Persistence of the problem on these projects 80% 76%
Describe the issue as difficult or impossible to resolve 76% 61%
Someone spoke up at all 49% 42%
Someone spoke up skillfully and had some effect 14% 13%
Able to solve the problem 24% 26%
Impacts of Collaboration Gaps Team Failure Project Chicken
Exceeded budget 73% 78%
Missed deadlines 82% 86%
Missing or wrong functionality, or quality problems 77% 74%
Damage to team morale 69% 54%
Long list of problems to be resolved AFTER the project ended 24% 23%

6. Manage
Tasks
Sustain
Relationships
What Collaborative Leaders Do
Gratton, L. and Erickson, T.J. (2007). Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams. Harvard Business Review.
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7. Vocabulary of Collaborative Leaders
Sustain RelationshipsManage Tasks
• Production
• Schedule
• Budget
• Risks
• Status
• Roles
• Outcomes
• Tasks
• Plans
• Results
• Reports
• Relationships
• Mindsets and behaviours
• Culture and practices
• Input and advice
• Individual and team
performance
• Conflict resolution
• Trust and respect
• Enjoyment of the company of
the team
• Mastery of task and
relationship skills
• “We value people”
7Kozlowski, S. W. J., Watola, D. J., Nowakowski, J.M., Kim, B. H., & Botero, I.C. Developing adaptive teams: A theory of dynamic team leadership. In E. Salas, G. F. Goodwin, & C.
S. Burke (Eds.). (2008). Team effectiveness in complex organizations: Cross-disciplinary perspectives and approaches (SIOP Frontiers Series).

8. Telling
Questioning
How Collaborative Leaders Speak
Schein, E. (2013). Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling. Berrett-Koehler
Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R. and Switzler, A. (2002). Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. McGraw-Hill
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9. What is Your Favourite Side of Your Brain?
Sustain RelationshipsManage Tasks
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10. Computer Scientist
Project Manager
Ottawa
Technology
Anglophone
Bio-chemistry
Lab Managers
Toronto
Government / Regulatory
Anglophone
Information Technology
Systems Analyst
Montreal
Government / Regulatory
Francophone
Collaborative Leadership Case Study
Chemistry
Lab Managers
Montreal
Government / Regulatory
Bi-lingual
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11. Collaborative Leadership Advances Team
Dynamics
Storming NormingForming Performing
Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63, 384-399. doi: 10.1037/h0022100
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Tasks
Relation-
ships
Tasks
Relation-
ships
Tasks
Relation-
ships
Tasks
Relation-
ships

12. Forming
Sustain RelationshipsManage Tasks
• Set the vision for the team and work
• Establish roles and responsibilities
• Confirm decision-making processes
• Expect diverse views for the tasks, solutions,
and outcomes
• Provide the process for escalation
• Establish your leadership, by using more talking
time
• Enable team to get to know each other and feel
included
• Open the floor for “What will we be known for?”
• Give team members a fine reputation to live up to
• Generate the Rules of Engagement
• Describe team behaviour norms:
• That we expect conflicts and we resolve
them
• That we share information
• That we build on each other's ideas
• That we focus on both tasks and
relationships
• That we encourage contributions from all
• That we speak more of “AND” over “BUT”
• Purpose and goals for the team are unclear
• Members feel varying degrees of commitment
• Members are cautious, don’t initiate and avoid responsibility
• Communication is low and a few members often dominate
• Members are dependent on directive leadership
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Catalyst Consulting Team (2005). Catalyst Desk Reference. http://www.catalystonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Catalyst_Desk_Ref.jpg
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13. Storming
Sustain RelationshipsManage Tasks
• Revise and reinforce roles and responsibilities
• Support task completion and skill development
• Plan, Execute, Monitor, Control
• Intervene and lead task, process or business
conflict resolution / problem solving
• Establish feedback cycles for work processes and
tasks:
• What we should STOP doing
• What we should CONTINUE doing
• What we should START doing
• Listen and Paraphrase
• Coach individual and team performance:
• Accommodating; Competing; Comprising;
Avoiding; Dominating; Conflicts
• Create safety for team to speak up
• “What do we want as a team? What don’t we
want as a team?”
• “Could I check something with you?”
• “Could we build on the idea from Evelyn?”
• “Could we hear from Jeff, because he knows
about...?”
• “Are you open to feedback?”
• Differences and confusion arise over goals and roles
• Struggles erupt over approaches, direction and control
• Team members react against boundaries, roles, team members and leadership with
counterproductive behaviours
• Team is uncertain about how to deal with issues openly
• Team wrestles with issues of communication
• Members act from an independent stance
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Catalyst Consulting Team (2005). Catalyst Desk Reference. http://www.catalystonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Catalyst_Desk_Ref.jpg
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14. Norming
Sustain RelationshipsManage Tasks
• Facilitate processes
• Support task interactions
• Encourage alternate approaches
• Get the work unstuck
• Celebrate wins, big and small
• Listen and advise
• Get the relationships unstuck
• Encourage learning and skill development
• Team gains confidence and feels a sense of momentum
• WHAT, HOW, WHO and WHEN become clarified
• Team develops agreements on approaches, goals, communication, and leadership roles.
• Team builds relationships with externals (customers, key stakeholders)
• Members begin to relate interdependently
Catalyst Consulting Team (2005). Catalyst Desk Reference. http://www.catalystonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Catalyst_Desk_Ref.jpg
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15. Performing
Sustain RelationshipsManage Tasks
• Get out of the way of immediate work and
decisions
• Introduce strategic changes
• Set the stage for the next initiatives
• Solicit ideas for process, product and business
improvements
• Observe and support
• Coach for high performance and next roles
• Celebrate big wins
• Develop talent
• Members take full responsibility for tasks and relationships
• Team achieves effective and satisfying results
• Team takes the initiative to continually assess external forces
• Team facilitates itself easily
• Members work proactively for the benefit of the team
Catalyst Consulting Team (2005). Catalyst Desk Reference. http://www.catalystonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Catalyst_Desk_Ref.jpg
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16. Collaborative Leadership:
Signs of Success
Tabaka, J. (2006). Collaboration Explained: Facilitation Skills for Software Project Leaders. Addison-Wesley Professional
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Are self-organizing vs. perpetuate a command and control top down organization
Are empowered to discuss, evaluate and make decisions vs. being dictated to by an outside authority
Understand the project vision and goals, and truly believe that, as a team, we can solve any problem
to achieve those goals
Are committed to succeed as a team vs. individual success at any cost
Have the confidence to continually work in improving our ability to act without fear, anger, or bullying
Are engaged in participatory decision-making vs. bending to authoritarian decision-making or
succumbing decisions from others
Are consensus-driven vs. leader-driven. Team members share opinions freely and participate in the
final decision
Are able to negotiate through a variety of alternatives and impacts regarding a decision, and craft the
one that provides the best outcome
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Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree
Would you agree that we as a team...?