This can be a touchy subject. While you may recognise when you feel you are being coerced to conform against your will, we can sometimes be complicit to someone else being coerced just because we were agreeable to the change.

 

Now, i'm NOT suggesting that leadership should seek to appease every person on every matter, that would be very ineffective. Any well led team must have a unifying vision and a complimentary set of values and behaviours that become a compass towards realising that vision. With that out of the way, I'd like to suggest an alternative way to approach this. By adapting your language to 'request' or 'invite' a team member's participation you are making an offer to that person that allows them to choose from a place of free will.

 

When a person feels respected in this way it is more likely that they will return a willingness to trust in that leader's new endeavour rather than resist it (or sabotage it). Some of us don't like the feeling of being told what to do, yet when the conversation is offered as a choice to participate, there becomes a willingness to support and reciprocate the respect that was offered to us. They can also develop a sense of buy-in and accountability to the new direction.

 

In my own sporting career I was involved in a number of teams, what I noticed was that a team dependant on compliance lacked the capacity to be adaptable when challenged. This is because the team members were so dependant on being directed that they never had the opportunity to self navigate challenges in the moment. The consequence of this was under performing in the games that mattered most. In the teams we have worked with we have noticed an improved willingness to cooperate from resistant personalities when they felt they had a choice.

 

You may be reading this and thinking, but what about when someone won't do what I want? Won't that undermine my leadership and the teams productivity? Not necessarily. Teams will always be a place in which there is an evolution of culture and an evolution of the people that contribute to that. If you are operating out of fear that someone or something will undermine the team and/or your leadership, then there is a risk of defaulting to a 'control' style of leadership that becomes self fulfilling in the teams demise.

 

However, if you are willing to acknowledge that a team and its culture is ever evolving, then you will likely recognise the opportunity that this brings to realign the team. This can be done by both inviting cooperative behaviours as well as allowing the amicable transition of people in and out of the team to best fit the change occurring.

 

In the teams we have worked with we have noticed a significant and beneficial adaptation towards cooperative language from a leadership level, and with that it has created a greater safety and satisfaction for team members and their leadership to enjoy. Could this be useful in your team? Why not test it? Too often we procrastinate due to the fear of something not working out. However, if we are to acknowledge the risk of perceived failure then we must also acknowledge the risk of not taking action to test an idea's worth to have a positive impact.

 

Contact us to find out more about how our facilitators can assist your organisation to become more 'Adaptable in Attitude and Adaptable in Action' at theadaptabilitymovement.world