TTU Case Study 1

The TTU Principle: Support for Leaders Who are Facing Real Team Problems

When the Phone Rings, I Listen
The director of the team contacts me, “Mylena, do you have a moment?” In our world of email and texting, when someone actually calls and starts with that question, I know I need to stop multitasking and turn the radio down.

 

The Three-Layered Conflict

The client explained that a few months prior to our conversation, she’d hired a new team leader who came from a different industry. Neither his approach to the work nor his leadership style meshed with that of her pre-existing team leaders. Even his direct reports were revolting and putting out feelers to other team leaders that they wanted to jump ship.

This meant we had three problems:

The new guy was being rejected by his direct reports.
Their requests for transfers turned into gossip—“Have you heard that his team hates him?”
The new guy doubled down on his leadership style and actually criticized his colleagues as less effective leaders who were trying to win a popularity contest.
Translation? He was a walking example of fight or flight—and he was fighting everybody.

 

Fight Mode: Isolation and Escalation

He was fighting everybody because he felt isolated, attacked, and probably a bit embarrassed. He even fought me. When I initially began to engage the team, he reached out to me via phone to let me know that he was not going to meaningfully participate in the process because he thought the entire thing was disingenuous.

Again, when people actually pick up the phone to call you, whatever they’re saying—they mean it.

 

My First Move: Safety and Accountability

I told him that I appreciated his transparency, that I wanted him to feel safe through the process, that I would never disclose information shared with me in confidence without permission… but that nothing could be fixed if the entire team didn’t commit to the repair. Essentially, I wanted him to see that to be silent was to be complicit in his own misery.

 

Human First, Leader Second

When we finally got everyone in the same room and began to walk through the process I’d created for them, I almost had to scratch my head: is this the same guy who said he wouldn’t participate? I think he was disarmed by the process because my initial goal was to get them to humanize one another—and him.

There are no monsters or bad leaders here. We’re just people working for the same organization and trying to advance the mission and goal with different approaches.

Owning the Mess

By the middle of the afternoon, not only had the new guy fully committed, his fellow leaders had owned the fact that they were aware of his challenges and were actively participating in the gossip about him.
#ownyourstuff

 

From “Us vs. Him” to “We”

The most surprising part of the entire process was the relief of ownership. By acknowledging the problem and their contribution to it, they could freely talk about all of its moving parts, which led to a comprehensive solution.

In an effort to do away with the “us against him” narrative that had emerged, they even agreed to attend each other’s staff meetings to acknowledge the challenges. If they hadn’t owned the entire problem, they could have never agreed to this.

 

Restoration and Realignment

We spent the rest of the afternoon balancing the restoration of the leaders’ image before their respective direct reports and talking through specific steps to get aligned on how they lead differently.

 

Final Reflection: What It Takes to Fix It

You can’t fix these kinds of issues if you can’t talk about them, won’t take accountability, double down on them, or hide from them.