In an earlier post, I talked about how politics can eat efforts, investment, and time an organization is spending to grow. Here are more thoughts about that and how you can avoid them by:
- Encouragement of disagreements
- People Diversity
When a company is growing fast, the executive team needs to be able to trust each other and work together as a cohesive unit. As it tries to scale up, however, the executive team often becomes dependent on personal relationships to get things done. This means that if one person believes something strongly enough and wants it badly enough, they may go against the wishes of their colleagues—and even their best judgment—because they want this goal so badly.
This can lead to what’s called “politics” in large companies: a set of behaviors where people act against their teammates’ interests for personal gain or ambition.
In growing companies, politics are less likely because there’s less room for individuals’ egos to grow large enough to obscure their judgment. Friendship plays an important role here too: members of teams must embrace diversity and be willing to challenge each other in making decisions and exposing brutal facts when they’re wrong.
One of the biggest challenges for executives is getting their teams to accept change and embrace diversity—and this can be a problem even among friends.
It’s not always easy for members of teams to challenge each other in making decisions and exposing brutal facts. And when they don’t, they often end up stuck in a mode where they just pretend like the other person didn’t say anything important at all.
That’s why it’s so important that executive teams can work together as a group, with each member having the freedom to speak his or her mind freely without worrying about being ostracized or judged by others on their team.
It’s also important that your team is willing to challenge each other when making decisions and exposing brutal facts. This will help you avoid “going with the strongest wind” and ensure everyone feels comfortable sharing their opinions.
When it comes to diversity, the best ideas come from a wide range of backgrounds. Diversity of teams in ages, backgrounds, experiences, education, gender, religion, and even nationality.
The members of a team should be diverse in their backgrounds and experiences. This will help them to create something new and innovative that meets the needs of their customers.
