As a team leader, does your team (human or canine) ALWAYS do exactly as you

specify, IMMEDIATELY when you make your wishes known? If so, we have nothing

further to discuss on this topic and you can go back to your surfing the net

and vacation planning. If not, read on...

We often see our team hesitate, be confused, head the other way, or "mutiny"

when presented with what we, as team leaders, see as a clear and unequivocal

command or direction. Check in with yourself...there are many different ways

you can be sabotaging your team. Which one(s) are you choosing? How do you

get rid of your own negative sabotaging behaviors and get out of the way of

your team so they can perform and excel?

Last time we discussed how as leaders we may have inadvertently taught our

team that we are irrelevant. In this part II, let's talk about specific

problems with your team not hearing what you're saying. Why and how does this

happen?

First, we need to understand the stimuli to which our team responds. Teams

(here we're using the term to mean human or canine, one person/dog or

several) will respond to the stimuli which is most salient (important) to

them at the moment. With dogs, that is quite often motion -- body language,

energy, hand signals, foot movement -- and NOT verbal cues. With people, it

can vary -- deadlines, repercussions, rewards, visibility -- and you must

find out what is the most salient for YOUR team. But canine or human, there

is always a most salient stimuli or cue for team behavior, and it will

overshadow or block all others. This selective attention has far-reaching

ramifications in terms of leading and interacting with your team.

Let's start with some simple examples. If you verbally command your dog to

"STAY" but you are moving around, agitated, anxious they won't stay, waving

your hands, etc., its highly likely your dog will respond to the more salient

motion cues and not stay. Similarly, if you tell your human team that you

have a new goal for them that it is imperative they complete by Friday, but

previously you've told them the basis for their bonus is something else also

due in the same timeframe...which do you think is most salient to them?

The lesson here is twofold. Make sure you understand what is most salient to

your team at the given moment, and what direction they will most likely and

willingly respond to. You MUST understand that from your team's perspective,

because it isn't necessarily that they are reluctant, confused or mutinying

against a different cue or request -- simply put, they never even heard it,

because of the prominence of the most salient direction to which they are

responding. Secondly, since we now know that selective attention exists, we

can use it to our advantage. We need to make sure that our directions give

our team useful, new and executable information, and is not being blocked by

prior directions/cues from us. As the team leader, you must be cognizant that

every direction you give your team be new and useful (not redundant, which

will be ignored) and relevant (executable within the context of the topic at

hand, otherwise also ignored).