by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.® 

“Together, Everyone, Accomplishes, More.”  

To build upon the car dealership’s exercise to enhance frontline staff commitment, Christine now discussed with Joy, the car dealer Visionist, ways to build upon the dealership’s momentum. One particular enlightened leadership (EL2) initiative Christine thought would bear even greater fruit was to enhance Team Leader people-skills as much as possible. Success with this factor would further bolster overall levels of momentum and empowerment.

Done well, inevitably everyone in the dealership would perform even better and with greater confidence than today. Frontline staff woild, in turn, reward their Team Leaders and strategist team by making even more positive dealership suggestions to be implemented with even greater enthusiasm. Have you experienced anything like this?

Joy, it was agreed, would lead another productive meeting with Max; the dealership’s Promotionist mentioned previously; Leslie the Operationist and Patty the Humanist. At their session they agreed upon two key moves:

• To include their other Strategist colleagues in an early strategy meeting to share their proposals. That brought in Keith – the dealership’s Expansionist, responsible for finding market-niches to grow into, among other things. It also included Melanie their Innovationist, who was clever at unearthing fresh sales angles and producing showroom features to impress potential customers. Roger also came into the picture as the dealership’s Provisionist, who would bring his skill to bear in pinpointing and securing any additional required material and financial resources.
• Promote a round of In-Team Discovery sessions with all dealership Team Leaders that would focus them on how to further enhance frontline team member competence and empowerment.

Within a week the entire Visionist-Strategist team met with the full array of eleven Team Leaders – five from Max and Leslie’s domains and six from Keith, Melanie and Roger’s domains. Having the six strategists present enabled them to come up-to-speed on what was intended and show their full support for this initiative. Patty then briefed them all on the In-Team Discovery concept; as a more insightful and productive way to educate people on vital skills for similar operating roles. After Patty’s overview there was an oppor-tunity for Team Leader questions and feedback. But who was going to lead the In-Team Discovery exercise?

Patty – based upon her pre-briefing with Christine – asked the eleven Team Leaders to nominate a complementary “pairing” among them to become the initiative’s leaders. They accomplished this through a confidential ballot to vote for the most likely pairing in their group. Patty gathered up their declarations made on slips of paper and then revealed their nominations on a white-board showing the votes cast. By popular request Todd, a showroom team leader, and Jennifer, one of Keith’s expansionist team leaders, were chosen. You couldn’t help noticing their slight winces at the thought of taking on another significant project, although they felt honored at the trust and confidence their team-leader colleagues showed in them.

Shortly after that, they agreed to meet with Patty to scope out their assignment and to get the ball rolling within the next two weeks. All the Strategists agreed to sit-in on the initial team session as to show full support and become fully briefed on how events would unfold. Two weeks later all were assembled for a morning session with Todd and Jennifer fully prepared to facilitate their meeting that proceeded as follows:

» Setting the stage: Their nine team leader colleagues split into two ad-hoc groups of four and five to discuss potential people-leadership topics they would like to learn more about. It lasted around 45 minutes, with the Strategists sitting in the background to listen-in and quietly make suggestions.

» Agreeing on priority topics: Everyone re-assembled and shared their preferences with Todd and Jennifer to list on a whiteboard for everyone to see. Where topics overlapped they were consolidated into one item until a listing of twelve emerged. A confidential poll of all team members, including Todd and Jennifer, highlighted their top four. Why four: Because aside from Todd and Melanie they could form three complementary-colleague pairs and one threesome to cover the top four topics?

»Topic pairings/threesome move ahead:  Through discussion and negotiation, the pairings/ threesome chose one of the four topics to be researched, formulated and prepared for Socratic learning: such as Role Contribution instead of performance appraisal, Mentoring rather than teach-ins, Empow-ering staff as opposed to controlling them, and “now-that” rather than “if-then” rewards as per Phase 4. (NOTE: Socratic means asking well-informed questions to inspire learning rather than a one-way lecture format.) They drew their turn for a discovery session lasting around two hours each over the next eight weeks and then run-through their sessions with Todd and Melanie for suggestions beforehand. Both Todd and Melanie were expected to sit-in, too, for learning purposes and then give after session constructive critiques. Can you envisage the benefit of such after-review activities?

» Overall review and success celebration: After cycling through all four sessions, there was a further gathering – again including all six Strategists – to review their In-Team Discovery success. Through a confidential poll among all eleven members, they chose the pair/threesome that facilitated the most impactful session. That pair were then given the privilege to choose the restaurant for a prudent, celebratory lunch for all involved. Joy and Patty were expected to give their endorsements.

» Inclusion and Sustaining Momentum: Everyone was now looking forward to the next round of In-Team Discovery within three to six months, when they would likely cover another four of the remaining eight topics left on their listing. All agreed that the exercise was well worthwhile, that they’d learnt/ discovered a lot, and felt more empowered as Team Leaders because of it.

You’re now coming to know why this car dealership was developing such a terrific reputation within its regional neighborhood. Both the customers and potential customers marveled at the professionalism and up-beat tone of all frontline staff. Effective team leadership and empowerment invariably pays dividends.

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Author, Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Founding Principal with Leadership Solutions, Inc., is based in New York, and author of Smart Decisions: Goodbye Problems, Hello Options. He has drafted a potential new publication, Constructive Leadership Disruption: Embrace Five ‘New Organization World’ Opportunities! that offers a slew of fresh leadership concepts and practical models. Feel free to follow author at: Linkedin.com/in/peter-arthur-smith-2115722/

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