Ask for their input, not their vote

A few weeks ago, I was thinking "guilty as charged" as I was reading the book "Stomp the Elephant in the Office".  The book is about how to stomp negativity and apathy in the office, how to create an energized culture with people cooperating to reach their goals.

What was I guilty of?  The authors talked about the common error of leaders who use meetings to explain their ideas and ask for approval.  The agenda for every meeting is, "Here's my new idea about what we should all do.  Let's take a vote."  Guilty as charged, at least for SOME of the teams that I lead.

What should I be doing instead?  According to the authors, I have to come to my team with a vision.  Make sure it is sketchy.  Then fill in the details as a team.  The team will become energized about the plan only if they help create it.  In essence, for every conference call, I need to ask my team for their input, not their vote.

Over the years, some of my teams have thrived and others have had low energy and poor attendance for meetings.  The teams that are thriving are ones where I have less expertise, such as an information systems team call that I'm leading.  With my lack of expertise, I come to the conference calls with an open ended issue, and we work as a team to develop solutions.  I don't HAVE an answer for these problems because I'm not an expert in these information systems.  I'm forced to share the task of defining goals and strategies.

For all the teams that have been disengaged with poor attendance, I AM the expert in the subject.  I've come to the calls with "all the answers".  Most conference calls have consisted of me explaining what I think should be done and asking team members if they can do the task and, if so, by when. 

For the last few weeks, I've been trying to fix this.  Despite being the expert on these teams, I have to adopt what Zen Buddhists call "Beginner's Mind".  By this they mean that, even if you are a Zen Master, you need to maintain the mind of a beginning student, a mind that is open and hungry for new ideas. 

As I plan each conference call now, despite being an expert, despite having a ton of ideas about how things should be done, I now think, "What topics will get people to contribute their ideas?  What open ended questions can I ask?"  I may still need to do some explaining and teaching because of my expertise in the subject.  But how can I balance that with a hunger for what my team members think?  These conference calls are getting much more energized now.  Attendance is slowly growing.