49
Chapter 6
Dear Old School Days
As a leader, Eliza knew that her number-one priority
was to get her team functioning well. She knew that if
she could achieve this, the team would be highly suc-
cessful. Conversely, if she allowed the issues with the
team to persist, the company would never reach its full
potential and, worse yet, sales could fall and the com-
pany could actually fail. The situation with the Cynsis
demo was a perfect example of the risks she faced.
It wasn’t their products or services or technology that
nearly sank the relationship with Cynsis; rather, it was
the lack of trust and communication among her senior
managers. Thank goodness the demo module in Des
Moines was functioning up to expectations. They had
averted that crisis. But there was still work to do.
Although Eliza had many other things she could be
focusing on—investor relations, board relations, P&L
issues, managing the strategic goals she was under
50 ◾ Transforming Teams
pressure to achieve—she knew that the most important
use of her time right now was to get her senior man-
agement team and their staffs to collaborate better.
Sure, one option was to start facilitating more team
meetings and to respond to the Cynsis asco by estab-
lishing more processes and protocols for documenting
major client tickets, but she knew those efforts would
fail if the team wasn’t functioning better. Instead, she
had to take measures to rebuild her executive team at
a fundamental level. She decided that addressing the
interpersonal needs of her senior management team
would be her number-one priority. If they were taken
care of, everything else would work out.
Fortunately, Eliza had a great foundation to build
on. Claire was excellent at her job. She was reliable,
methodical, had excellent organizational skills, was
tenacious about order and structuring client needs, and
was the ultimate team player. And she had excellent lis-
tening skills, a must for a customer service professional.
She was a true customer service maestro.
Dave, too, was a rst-rate salesman and sales man-
ager. He was condent, smart, direct, goal oriented,
and motivated by all aspects of the sales equation. He
was also spectacular at relationship building. He not
only was excellent at landing game-changing oppor-
tunities, but he was successful at imparting his sales
techniques to his sales team. In this way, he was both a
performer and a leader. The company was where it was
today because of his skills.
And Kirby rounded out the team beautifully. As head
of manufacturing, he was analytical, process oriented, a
Dear Old School Days ◾ 51
critical thinker, and always asking detailed questions. He
was a “measure twice, cut once” type of person. Eliza
was always amazed by his ability to satisfy even the most
complicated production orders. He possessed an intensity
and commitment to quality that he delivered each and
every day. She slept well at night knowing that he was in
charge of fullling the company’s client commitments.
All in all, Eliza had a lot to work with. Now her job
was to make sure that each of her leaders realized not
only the value they brought to the table, but the value
each other brought as well. Somehow, she had to get
them to a place where they could learn to truly appre-
ciate each other.
Eliza went back to her list of concerns in her
notebook:
Eliza’s List of Concerns
1. Conflict between
sales
customer service,
sales
operations
2. Throwing peers under the bus
3. Lack of trust
4. Poor communication
5. Mismatched sense of urgency
6. Inability to see the other’s
point of view or perspective
52 ◾ Transforming Teams
As she reected on this list, she realized that many
of the items and much of the conict among her man-
agers related to their natural behavioral style and com-
munication preferences.
Eliza knew about behavioral style as a result of
having taken a DISC behavioral assessment (Driver,
Inuencer, Supporter, Controller) as part of her MBA
program. It was a powerful experience for her, and one
that she could easily recall even though it happened
two decades ago.
She wondered how her behavioral style had changed
over that time. She certainly wasn’t the same person
she had been in grad school. She was now a wife and
a mother, she ran a $40 million company, and she had
demands and rewards that she never knew existed
back when she was on campus. When comparing her-
self to who she was back then, she was certain that her
style had shifted 180 degrees and, to some extent, she
was today a different person altogether.
For example, when she was in her 20s, Eliza was
quiet, reserved, and somewhat introverted. She was
always competent socially but much preferred a small
group gathering to a large party. She was an excellent
planner and a good listener but never considered her-
self a leader in any way.
Today, she was still many of those things, but she had
become more competitive and now had a greater sense
of urgency to get things done. She was more impatient
and much more task-oriented than she had been in her
youth. She also was more comfortable in social gather-
ings, public speaking, and in leadership roles than she
Dear Old School Days ◾ 53
had been—something that she attributed to increased
maturity and condence, but something that was also
indicative of a change in behavioral style as well. Yes,
she thought, she was sure she had changed. It would be
fun to compare the old Eliza to the new one.
Funny, she had never thought in terms of behav-
ioral style or natural preferences prior to learning
about them in school. But once she learned about
style distinctions, she began to see them all around
her. She suddenly began to see telltale signs of behav-
ioral style in the way her boyfriend avoided conict
or in the way her mother sought it out. She could now
objectively assess the way her best friend would talk
incessantly (and always with her hands) and the way
her math tutor could barely stand to look her directly
in the eye. She suddenly had a language to describe
and evaluate all of these behaviors and, even better,
she learned how to respond to different styles, such as
how to tone down her communication style with her
math tutor and speed it up with her girlfriend. It was
truly like awakening and discovering you had learned
a new language overnight.
She also remembered learning that while there are
no right or wrong styles, certain styles are better suited
for different positions. This was the reason they admin-
istered the test back in school—so that they could help
students pick career paths that were suitable, based in
part on behavioral preferences.
She also learned that some styles can conict with
others. Clearly, she thought, this was what was happen-
ing with her current leadership team. They had vastly
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