By Lisa Hochgraf
My editorial colleague Theresa Witham is quite a knitter. Check out the photo of Theresa and her son Henry out in the snow wearing hand-knits!
While I'm not particularly crafty myself, I can see how Theresa could get excited about bringing the elements of a project together to create something new and useful. Using the right size needles, a good pattern and--naturally--wonderful yarn, she can create scarves, mittens, sweaters and more.
In his 2012 book, The Synergist: How to lead your team to predictable success, Les McKeown describes how "synergists" are key organizational players who use their skills to "knit" together people with different styles into a dynamic, well-rounded team that can overcome distrust, poor communication and fear of change to produce successful business outcomes.
Keynoting at CUES' CEO/Executive Team Network Nov. 3-6 in San Diego, McKeown will describe how organizations can achieve predictable success--the kind that can be repeated--and the key role that synergists play in this.
A person of any working style "can learn to become a synergist--in addition to retaining their own" preferred style, McKeown writes in the book. "There are some natural synergists ... . These are rare, however, and most teams form without a natural synergist on board."
He identifies nine skills of synergists. The four "personal productivity" skills synergists have are time management, priority management, crisis management and delegation. The five "teamwork" skills synergists have are conflict management, handling difficult conversations well, communication skills, inclusiveness and accountability.
"The more people on a team who can switch into synergist mode, the better. Once around a third of the people in an organization learn to use the synergist style, the rate of adoption increases significantly."
I'm heartened that McKeown thinks people can learn to be synergists. Maybe one day, I can learn to knit.
Lisa Hochgraf is a CUES editor.
Read "Achieving Predictable Growth," a Credit Union Management magazine article about Les McKeown.
Learn more about CUES' CEO/Executive Team Network coming up next month in San Diego.
