Issues You Face

Your organization needs to stand out. But the business world of today is more complicated and faces harder challenges than ever before. Here are a few of the most common issues and questions we hear from our customers.

1. The relationship between our leadership and our people feels like Us vs. Them. Why is this and how can we improve?

2. We can’t figure out why [insert problem here] is happening in our organization.

3. Our leaders want to get more out of our people and our people feel like leadership is asking too much.

1. The relationship between our leadership and our people feels like Us vs. Them. Why is this and how can we improve?

Do you ever wonder if those you work with are all on the same team? Is there constant friction between leadership and employees? This same problem afflicts hundreds of thousands of companies across the globe, and is driven by several underlying causes.

A number of these causes are a result of organizational culture. When employees do not feel informed, trusted, or “in the know,” the Us vs. Them mentality will inevitably grow. If there is not a culture of transparency regarding vision, strategies, and results, it can breed feelings of anxiety, apprehension, and mistrust. If your leaders cannot figure out why morale is low and results are lagging, and if your employees wonder why management does not get it, then take a hard look at your culture.

Another Us vs. Them hotspot can be among teams within an organization. Sales vs. Marketing. Operations vs. Planning. Home office vs. the Field. Conflict between teams can result from a fundamental lack of appreciating the others’ perspective on a current issue or business process. It can also be a symptom of a larger problem: lack of alignment around an organization’s core values, vision, and objectives.

Solutions: We come alongside organizations to establish regular communication points, align employees to company objectives, and bring employees to the level of their full potential. We work with teams through facilitation and experiential initiatives to ask questions about what the other team’s needs are, what information they have available to them, and what constraints they are operating under. This process of inquiry lifts the veil that exists in siloed organizations and forms new perspectives, generates new ideas, and helps teams perform more effectively as a result of a higher level of understanding, trust, and collaboration. The Soderquist Center recommends several of our programs to help bring teams into alignment, collaboration, and mutual respect:

• Team Alignment
• Leadership Assessments
• Customized Leadership Development Programs
• Flashpoint
• Talent Management

Contact us to learn more about creating effective teams and leaders.



2. We can’t figure out why [insert problem here] is happening in our organization.

Organizations often come to us with a variety of problems: high turnover, low morale, lackluster sales, discord, no clear sense of direction, poor leadership, unethical behavior, or lack of unity. They come to us because for over 10 years, we have been the experts in diagnosing larger problems from symptoms that plague organizations every day.

What few within organizations know is that these symptomatic problems are really a result of central mission, vision, and values problems. Why does your organization suffer from high turnover or low morale? A probable cause might be lack of mission, or low trust among employees. Why is there low sales or poor teamwork? It might be because there is no long-term vision or because the organization’s values are not taken seriously.

Essentially, almost every problem within an organization results from poorly practiced or articulated mission, vision and values. Don Soderquist, retired COO of Wal-Mart and founding executive of the Soderquist Center, attributes Wal-Mart’s record performance to a core set of values that everyone in the organization lived out daily. We want your organization to succeed using the same principle.

Solutions: The Soderquist Center can help you achieve results through values-based leadership. We work with organizations to identify symptoms and diagnose central problems at the core of an organization. Our team is exceptional at uncovering the core issues and designing programs to help. We can take the small problems that your organization deals with everyday, and use them to get at the root causes that hinder your organization from performing at its full potential. If you cannot figure out why a certain problem is happening, let the Soderquist Center help you uncover the real reasons.

Contact us to learn more about strategic planning around your organization's mission, vision, and values.

3. Our leaders want to get more out of our people and our people feel like leadership is asking too much.

“Take the time to manage your boss the same way you manage your subordinates.” -David Cottrell, Monday Morning Leadership

In the complex technological workplace of today there are many obstacles that prevent unfiltered truth from reaching the proper stakeholders.

Less face to face interaction on a daily basis. A shift in the way people communicate in recent years has created an environment where truth can often be cloaked in email lingo and non-verbal jargon. It is much harder to hide real feelings and emotion around a subject when interacting face to face with a peer or superior.

Economic crisis has fostered lower career courage. Many employees, when faced with the prospect of making waves, will choose not to for fear of losing their job. When keeping a job is difficult enough during a recession, many employees find that the risk in managing up far outweighs the reward.

Solutions:

Commit to spending time with your manager. The most important form of relational currency is trust. When people choose to spend proactive and intentional time with others they lay a foundation of trust upon which it is much easier to be honest with people about expectations and difficulties. Request time with your manager and start building a relationship; it will be much easier to exchange unfiltered dialogue when you start trusting each other.

Commit to be honest. Despite a call for honest feedback, many employees will cloak the truth for fear of making a wrong impression. This can have far-reaching consequences for an organization and damage one’s personal credibility. Management often depends on feedback to make important decisions, and without an accurate picture of what employees are thinking, may continue to push an unpopular or ineffective agenda. Avoid being the “yes man,” build up the courage to critique decisions, and become known for your insightful, honest feedback.

Commit to offer solutions not just present problems. It is easy to complain and identify problems, but it is a rare employee who offers honest critique partnered with insightful alternative solutions. Do not take the easy way out by falling in the complainer crowd. Help yourself and your organization by having the courage to be a problem solver.

Learn to say yes “with conditions.” When presented with tasks that that add to your already busy workload, learn to say yes to your boss with conditions. Say yes, but make it clear to your supervisor how the new task will impact your other responsibilities. Ask what the highest priority is. Take the honest approach and allow your supervisor to have a say in how you and your colleague’s time should be allocated.

Call the Soderquist Center. Sometimes, friction between management and employees requires an impartial mediator or experienced conflict resolver. The Soderquist Center can help your team overcome dysfunction, discord, conflict, and mediocrity through a unique values-based approach. We can help your team work through difficulties and emerge motivated, unified, and ready to operate at full potential.