Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility

by Patty McCord

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER • How open have you been with your team about the current prospects of your business and the most difficult problems the company and your team are dealing with? Do people at all levels know the challenges the company is facing in the next six months? • Are people free to disagree with a point made by someone in authority during a team meeting? Have they seen it done openly, in front of the whole team? • Are there team members who rarely, if ever, speak up with ideas and concerns? Have you called on them or spoken with them about contributing? • When was the last time you talked openly with your team about a mistake you made in addressing a business issue? • Is there someone on your team who is underper-forming but with whom you haven’t seriously discussed the problem? What impact do you think that person’s performance issues have on the rest of the team? • When you do discuss performance issues with people, do you generally feel that they have understood the specific problems with how they’re doing their work? • How valuable do you think it would be for your team to receive feedback from people in other areas of the company? Is there any way you can facilitate such cross-functional sharing?