Equipo La Machi en un Workshop de liderazgo y trabajo en equipo

Leadership and teamwork workshop

Today we invited Raúl Medina Fernández, president of our Advisory Board, to our Barcelona office to hold a leadership and teamwork workshop.

Raúl explained that every company is made up of a team of people that supports tensions of all kinds and that the shared challenge generates trust. Trust is based on sincerity to specify, name the unnameable, put things on the table, anticipate the errors and that we are the ones who should discover them first, to solidify that trust. Suitability is a professional criteria that we all value. In a company where continuous learning prevails, it is essential that knowledge flows. This way the team will be more integrated. Confidence transforms you into a credible and predictable person. Among other things it is based on: not presupposing that the other know, not imposing a disorder in the planning of times, always facilitating a good communication, not advancing conclusions without concrete data and not having guilt for charging the team.

In companies, it is very common for the culture of dependence on authority to prevail (“to be covered by authority”). One takes refuge in him, seeks to seduce authority, establishing a comfortable position. The work scheme is manipulated because we do not take charge of what we have to do.

Leadership, on the other hand, is the ability to mobilize, to foster a susceptibility. For this we must observe, investigate, interpret and intervene. An interesting alternative is to make learning meetings every 15 days so that everyone assumes leadership. What should be released to facilitate this process? Prejudice, ego, fear of asking questions, putting pressure if there are no extreme circumstances. The tool that is in our favor is to ASK US QUESTIONS. At work there must be a constant tension.

For the agency to work, there must be a climate of containment, we have to learn to formulate questions that generate management tension, name the unnameable, exercise critical thinking and orchestrate the conflict. All are adaptive challenges, in the people who see the problems are the solutions.

A good leader must be able to INSPIRE – ability to touch other people’s spirit so they can give a plus -, INFLUENCE – behavior they have between what they think, say, feel and do -, CHALLENGE – asking people to take charge of their work, looking at challenges as something positive and enabling difficult conversations, and MOBILIZING – the ability to orchestrate conflict and build loyalties. The three most important elements of leadership are creating energy, creating clarity, and creating results. This leads to learning.

It was a very enriching experience, we look forward to chapter 2. Thanks Raúl!