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Winsor Jenkins is president of Winsor Jenkins & Associates, LLC, based in Portland, Oregon. As a leader who served in senior HR positions and contributed to the professional development of countless business executives, including HR managers, Winsor brings a deep knowledge about what it takes to achieve executive-level leadership in today's changing business landscape. He is the author of The Collaborator: Discover Soccer as a Metaphor for Global Business Leadership.

Winsor Jenkins

Winsor Jenkins explains that global business success is only achieved by applying a mindset that recognizes the interdependent nature of the team’s relationship.

May the Best Team Win!

Organizations can leverage soccer’s model for coaching teams in today’s global business world. Winsor Jenkins explains how.

It’s All in the Game for Coaching Business Teams

ATD 2016 speaker Winsor Jenkins discusses how the sport of soccer offers the business world a model for Diversity & Inclusion.

It’s All in the Game for Women in Business

Winsor Jenkins explains that true collaborative teamwork isn’t the same thing as cooperating or coordinating with others.

It’s All in the Game

Women, Sport, and Leadership

 This blog series examines how organization must use collaboration to manage globally and foster innovation. Part 1 of the series asserted that organizations must develop a “mindset” that aligns with genuine collaboration—even before developing actual collaboration skills. Part 2 discussed how organizations can cultivate an alternative understanding of genuine collaborative teamwork. In these earlier posts, I presented soccer as a metaphor for collaboration and leadership, as explained in my book, The Collaborator:  Discover Soccer as a Metaphor for Global Business Leadership.  My purpose in writing the book was to provide a viable option in the form of an “operating platform” that organizations can use to support genuine collaborative teamwork.  To that end, there are 11 operating principles (or operating assumptions) that serve as the core part of this operating platform. These principles are the “governing assumptions” that teams—and their leaders—must possess to support genuine collaboration. Here’s a brief look at each operating principle.  They are listed below in no order—but they must all be in-play to unlock the “collaboration code” for leading in today’s global business world.  Focus on Team, Not Positon: Addresses the need to focus on results produced when “all” positions effectively interact on the business field.Understand That Everyone Can Play:  Recognizes that technology is the great enabler—allowing people everywhere to collaborate in business.Embrace Diversity:  Represents the prerequisite for partnering in global business, and serves as a springboard for establishing trust. Diversity brings strength to teams.Rely on Each Other:  Reinforces the team orientation and minimizes the “silo” mindset, recognizing a “mutual” dependency between people and promoting genuine collaboration.Promote Both Individual and Team Values:  Deals with managing both values in a never-ending cycle to help ensure that the process for producing team results is working.Seek Skillful, Adaptable Players:  Promotes the need for flexibility for managing change, requires people and teams who can quickly “assimilate” and use new skills, information, and the like. It also recognizes that multiple skills are needed to play the game of business.Charge the Team to Perform the Work: Recognizes the “self-directed” nature of the team charged with performing the work…and recognizes that the team’s performance during the game (business) is “left up to the team.”Empower Players To Win:  Speaks to the commitment to developing all employees—to providing continuous feedback—all for the purpose of positioning people to make better decisions.Coach Teams to Respond to Changing Conditions on Their Own:  Reinforces the application of a “real” team that is self-directed, operating on a real-time basis and responding to changing conditions.Develop Partners on the Field:  Recognizes that “all” players on the business field are leaders, and requires leaders to view every opportunity as a leadership development step.Achieve Cross-Cultural Agility:  Calls for leveraging relationships in business to achieve results, transcending “technique” in dealing with people across cultures. These 11 operating principles mirror actions that happen on the soccer field—unlocking the “collaboration code” for managing globally. Together they describe SOCCER as a Strategic Operating Collaboration Code for Earning Results, for Engaging Resources and for Establishing Relationships. Remember: It’s “mind-set before skill-set” when it comes to developing collaboration skills!

Discover the Collaboration Code for Innovation, Part 3

In my last post, I attempted to “connect the dots” on collaboration’s relationship to innovation with a few key references. Let’s recap:Based on IBM’s 2013 C-Suite Study, CEOs view innovation as key to future growth, with collaboration serving as the vehicle for achieving this objective.The Center for Creative Leadership’s (CCL) 2014 report Future Trends in Leadership Development report indicated that “innovation is a result of large numbers of connection points that cause existing ideas to be combined in new ways—and that it lives in the social network (versus emanating from the individual).” The concept of “mindset before skillset” is integral for developing collaboration skills. Mindset equates to one’s underlying assumptions that shape values and influence behaviors.Alternative mindsets must be cultivated to support genuine collaborative teamwork, as argued by Danah Zohar in An Alternative Sports Metaphor for Understanding Teamwork as Complex: Soccer. With that as backdrop, let’s segue (in more detail) to the question: How can organizations cultivate an alternative understanding of genuine collaborative teamwork?  In The Collaborator:  Discover Soccer as a Metaphor for Global Business Leadership, I present 11 operating principles (or assumptions) that human capital professionals can use to support collaborative teamwork.  Those operating principles are (in no order):  Focus on team—not positionUnderstand that everybody can playEmbrace diversityRely on each otherPromote both individual and team valuesSeek skillful, adaptable playersCharge the team to perform the workEmpower players to winCoach teams to respond to changing conditions on their ownDevelop partners on the fieldAchieve cross-cultural agility.  Again, these principles serve as the “governing assumptions” an organization or team must have in place to support genuine collaborative teamwork.  Once these principles are understood—and learned—the next step to developing collaboration skills “starts with teaching managers a new range of competencies that focus on collaboration and influence skills,” reports CCL in Future Trends in Leadership Development. These competencies will provide the vehicle that drives the development collaboration skills.  For example, the principle, “Focus on Team—Not Position,” has five underlying competencies that must be targeted for development:  adaptabilitylearning agilityrelationship buildingteam managementteam player.  Through the process of developing competencies aligned with this operating principle, as well as the remaining operating principles, team members can build collaboration skills and acquire a deeper understanding of the mindset needed to fully support genuine collaborative leadership.

Discover the Collaboration Code for Innovation, Part 2

Discover the Collaboration Code for Innovation, Part 1

Team coaching is a leadership skill that can be developed. Managers who serve as coaches for their teams may need to cultivate groups who practice genuine team collaboration. If so, this webcast can be your start for developing your capacity. In this webcast, you will:

Gain a renewed appreciation for the term team collaboration and what it means to you in today’s hyper-connected world.
Understand why you need to develop a collaborative mindset—and skillset—to effectively coach a team.
Discover a new framework from which to coach individuals on your team.

By signing up for this webcast, you will be eligible to participate in a drawing to receive a free copy of ATD’s new book, Focus on Them. Five books will be awarded. Winsor Jenkins is a contributing author of the book, which covers the material presented in this webcast.
 

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