It’s a staggering achievement in terms of technological accomplishment and video game design, but perhaps more astonishing is that less than a decade ago, Larian was facing bankruptcy.

Founded in 1996 by Swen Vincke, Larian is a Belgian video game developer best known for its Divinity series of RPGs. While producing relatively successful and well-received games for much of its existence, Larian struggled to make a name for themselves and make money. This was partly due to unfavourable deals with publishers, who took the lion’s share of the revenues and left Larian with little to show for their efforts.

Knowing the Audience

However, that wasn’t the only issue. Swen understood his audience as a video gamer, but his publishers often did not. In a candid interview in 2013, Swen spoke of his frustrations with dealing with executives who had never played video games and relied entirely on market research to determine what people did and did not want.

For example, Swen was told that audiences did not like the turn-based strategy approach to combat that he favoured, nor would they appreciate certain other elements of narrative and design. Consequently, Larian were effectively ordered to make inferior products due to the over-reliance on self-selecting data. After all, if nobody is making turn-based RPGs because executives believe there is no demand for them, then nobody will buy turn-based RPGs because there are none to buy. The data might support the claim simply because the sample size is virtually non-existent.

Cutting Out the Middlemen

Realising that his company could not survive without significant changes, Vincke made the decision to break free from the shackles of publishers and do things his own way. As he tells it, the decision to start doing things his own way was little more than a shower thought. The realisation that his publishers were demanding that he sacrifice his vision to try and compete against heavyweight studios that Larian simply did not have the resources to compete against. He’d had enough.

What followed that decision is one of the most remarkable success stories in the video game industry. Larian went from a small company of 30 or so employees forced to cut a deal with the Belgian government to delay tax payments to a global operation with 400 people in offices worldwide now on the brink of launching one of the largest and most ambitious video games of all time.

Praise Where It’s Due

Much of this can be attributed to Swen’s leadership, although, like all good leaders, he would be the first to tell you it’s his people who deserve the credit. Indeed, in every interview, Swen is quick to praise the efforts and contributions of his team. He regularly supports his team members publicly, and many of those team members have offered public endorsements of both Swen and Larian in turn.

Swen Vincke is also a decisive man with the confidence to take risks that many would not. Even with the shadow of bankruptcy hanging over the company, Swen made the risky decision to pull resources from one game to make another, believing in his vision for Larian’s future. That game, Divinity: Original Sin, a classical RPG with turn-based combat, was both a critical and commercial success that secured the immediate future of Larian Studios. More than that, it was Larian’s best-selling game at that time, and because Larian published the game themselves, they no longer had to share the revenues with the executives that had held them back.

Humility

Swen is also a humble man and accepts that he’s not infallible. That’s why he listens to his customers, sometimes making huge and costly changes to a project to better fulfil the wants and needs of his audience, and he engages with that audience regularly. Through live-streamed behind-the-scenes panels, early access feedback, forums, and more, Swen offers potential customers the opportunity to weigh in on all aspects of the games he’s making. When something isn’t working, he addresses it to give the customer the best possible experience. In doing so, he cultivates a fanbase willing and eager to engage with Larian, which converts to more sales. Larian now sells millions of units in a niche genre where most competitors could only aspire to a fraction of that.

Enthusiasm and Love

Perhaps, however, Swen’s most significant leadership trait is his infectious enthusiasm. He makes games that he wants to play and has surrounded himself with people that also want to play those games. He’s spoken about how many times he’s played through Baldur’s Gate 3 as it’s been in development and how many times he’s been astonished by the creativity that’s gone into the game. In a recent tweet, he even said that reaching the end credits of the game and seeing the names of his team members who have been part of this project brought a tear to his eye.

Such devotion to his team and their work has led to a culture where people are genuinely invested in the quality of what they do. When your boss loves what you’re doing and is excited by what you’re bringing to the table, when you know your boss spends hours enjoying what you do, it’s hard not to share in his enthusiasm.

Larian Studios is a modern-day, real-life, rags-to-riches tale starring a man who knew that his company could be so much more than it was. It’s a story of perseverance, determination, calculated risk, and self-ownership that are often themes of the games they make. Mostly, however, it’s about leadership and having the confidence, people skills, enthusiasm, attention to detail, and humility that brings the right people on board and makes them want to follow you.

The post Larian Studios: The Successful Leadership of Swen Vincke appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

The trend has been encouraged by social media personalities who view it as a healthy way to take back control of an individual’s work-life balance and to set better boundaries between themselves and their employer. Often, it’s encouraged as an antidote to burnout and a way of empowering workers to take back control of the self.

Unfortunately, for both employers and the quiet quitters themselves, this approach has considerable drawbacks. Quiet quitting risks lowering an individual’s sense of personal accomplishment, and by discouraging engagement can have a detrimental impact on a person’s workplace relationships. This could lead to a loss of purpose and satisfaction and leave people feeling like their role is ultimately meaningless. When someone lacks motivation and engagement, it becomes a lot easier for them to adopt a negative view of their own life.

From an employer’s point of view, the quiet quitters can be disruptive. People who aren’t engaged with their work are less likely to show initiative, they’re disinclined to provide input during meetings, and they can become a morale-sapping influence on the rest of the team.

If leaders suspect a member of their team is quiet quitting, it’s important that they address the situation quickly but empathetically. Happy people do not quiet quit.

Depression and Mental Health Concerns

Those who have experience with mental health conditions such as depression know that motivation often plummets during particularly low moments. Right now, it shouldn’t be hard to understand why many people, including those who have never previously shown signs of depression, might be feeling particularly low right now. Having only just navigated a difficult pandemic period which impacted people’s ability to see loved ones and, in many tragic cases, cost the lives of friends and relatives, lingering feelings of loss and grief are to be expected.

Furthermore, the cost-of-living crisis has provided many of us with nothing but a parade of bleak news. From the rising costs of essentials such as food to the forthcoming winter of discontent, it’s not hard to understand why many of our people might struggle with depression, anxiety, and stress.

As leaders, we must demonstrate our understanding of this situation. Although there is no single approach to assisting those suffering from mental health problems, we can consider various options. We can provide extra break periods, we can encourage flexible working, we can delegate more effectively so that our people are not overwhelmed, and we may even be able to investigate providing support and counselling services if possible.

Where finances support it, we may even be able to provide some emergency cost-of-living bonuses to our people who are really struggling right now, or at the very least, find some way to lighten the financial load ahead of them.

Overburdening

Most leaders are guilty of overburdening certain individuals from time to time. We have those people in our organisation whose skills or abilities lend themselves to being given extra tasks. When someone like that starts quiet quitting, it may be that we’ve overburdened them and given them too big a load to work with.

If this is the case, it’s time we start looking at why we’re giving so much work to certain people. If it’s due to a lack of people capable of doing that job, perhaps it’s time we started investing in training to equip more people with the desired skillset. If it’s because we regularly find ourselves hitting “crunch” periods, then we need to investigate our time management skills and delegate tasks more efficiently.

Overburdening is almost always the fault of leadership. It’s something we can and should address ourselves as a priority so that we don’t lose the talents of good people.

Lack of Challenge

When your job amounts to doing the same thing every day, it’s difficult to stay motivated. Some quiet quitters do the bare minimum because they spend most of the day on autopilot, inputting the same data or running through the same scripted conversations with customers.

If we want these people to remain motivated and engaged, we need to vary their work and give them something that challenges but does not overburden them. Again, training could help. If we equip people with new skills, we can provide the opportunity to put them to good use. Where we cannot train people for a different role, perhaps we can look at other ways of including them. We could, for example, encourage them to provide more input, or we could afford them other opportunities to do something a little different to the norm.

Be Forthcoming with Praise

We’ve all had that moment where we’ve done something that warrants recognition, and we don’t get it. It leaves us feeling frustrated, irritable, underappreciated, and unhappy.

Many leaders seem to be under the impression that it’s not necessary to comment on a job well done because somebody has just done their job. This is a horrendously bad management technique that should be confined to the dustbin of history.

People like to be praised when they’ve done a good job. It stimulates the striatum in the brain and releases dopamine—often known as the pleasure hormone. Research has indicated that receiving praise improves our physical and mental well-being. We get a better night’s sleep, and during that sleep, our brain engages in what’s known as “skill consolidation” because praise is a form of social reward which improves our learning and understanding.

Every time you praise somebody for a job well done, you’re not only giving them a reason to keep doing a good job, but you’re helping them in several other ways. The same applies to simple gestures such as a “thank you” or handing someone a £10 gift card because they closed a big sale.

Yes, your people might just be doing their jobs, but if they’re doing their jobs well, then you need to show appreciation for it. If you don’t, you have nobody to blame but yourself when they quietly quit on you.

Leave Your Door Open

Most importantly, we must ensure our door is open to our people. It’s all too easy for an employee to start viewing the boss as unapproachable. To stay in their little corner of the office, do their work, and go home feeling unnoticed and unappreciated.

Take some time out of your day to wander around the office and engage with your people—not just about work but about life and interests. If you make yourself approachable, people will be willing to approach you when they have a concern or a problem, and the first step in fixing any problem is identifying that there is one.

Go the Extra Mile

Ultimately, it often boils down to trust. A leader who is willing to go the extra mile for their people is a leader who will encourage their people to go the extra mile for them.

If you’re concerned that your people might be quiet quitting, then contact us and we can help you tailor a programme to Raise the Engagement Bar.

The post Quiet Quitting: What Leaders Need to Know appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Others view appraisals as far too stressful, particularly in workplace cultures that are inclined towards only focusing on the here and now. Even when an appraisal is entirely positive, some people feel that their achievements and efforts are going unnoticed leading to a drop in productivity, motivation, and morale.

Among older workers, appraisals are often a “going through the motions” distraction when they could be doing something useful with their time.

What can business leaders do to make appraisals less of a morale-sapping, time-consuming drain and be more inspiring, motivating, and far less stressful?

Ditch Them Entirely

It’s a possibly radical proposition, but rather than the formal nature of an annual review, many would prefer a regular, informal performance-orientated chat. No business leader is going to let performance issues mount up over several months, and if you’re only praising a good performance once a year then you’re not doing much to consistently motivate your people.

Instead of the annual appraisal, why not switch to a monthly informal meeting where you can give feedback that is going to be more relevant and provide more timely praise for a good performance?

Don’t Just Focus on the Here and Now

If switching to a rolling performance review structure simply isn’t feasible, then ensure that your annual or bi-annual reviews consider everything covered within the period. We all have a few bad weeks from time-to-time, and sometimes those weeks coincide with an upcoming review. Always remember the key sports phrase, “form is temporary, but class is permanent.”

If you’re about to sit down with someone who has had a drop-off in form, don’t forget about the project they aced six months’ ago, or the previous years of consistent excellence. Take the opportunity to dig down into the reasons for the recent drop off in performance by demonstrating your knowledge of their usual capability.

Focus on the Future

Appraisals without a focus on the future are ultimately worthless. Who wants to sit and listen to a recap of the past 6-12 months? They know what they did, they’re the ones who did it! Instead, ask them about their own ambitions and goals, inform them of the company’s outline for the next year, and use the opportunity to suggest training programmes that might lead to advancement opportunities for them.

The best employers with the highest levels of engagement never stop selling the benefits of working for them, and the appraisal is your opportunity to gain commitment from your people for the next year by providing them with something to reach for.

Invite Your People to Review Themselves

At Uber, leadership devised the “Top Three, Bottom Three” process whereby their people are asked to rank themselves in their greatest strengths and weaknesses. From this data, leadership is able to better formulate strategies for growth, improvement, and monitoring of the individual’s performance in key areas. It helps establish whether there is a training need, either on an individual or group basis, or whether a particular employee is suffering from a lack of confidence.

Provide Rewards

In some organisations, annual reviews are linked to pay increases but that’s not always the case. Where it isn’t, then it’s still good practice to ensure that there is more than just a “pat on the back” for those people who have truly excelled during the performance review cycle. Rewards can be anything from gift vouchers, tickets to events, or even just a pint after work. It’s about making people feel seen and appreciated, and not just strings of data on some papers or in a spreadsheet.

Cultivate a Feedback Culture

Even if your organisation is wedded to the annual appraisal cycle, it’s best to ensure that feedback is both given and received throughout the year – both formally and informally. There is not a single advantage in acting aloof about your feelings regarding a person’s performance, just as there isn’t any benefit to a business that avoids thoughts and critique from its own people.

Nobody should be nervously awaiting their leader’s views on their performance. Make sure they have a good idea what they’re going to hear long before they’re sat waiting for the results.

Don’t Assume You Know Everything

Some leaders pride themselves on possessing a supernatural ability to know everything about their people. You almost certainly don’t. We’re not regularly encouraged to share non-workplace concerns with our leaders, and in many office cultures people actively avoid mentioning struggles they may have outside of the workplace for fear that it will negatively impact their standing within the organisation.

You may have some metrics and KPIs to help evaluate your employee performance but that’s all that info is – help. It doesn’t tell the true story, and you may need to build trust, remain positive, and cultivate a culture of empathy and compassion to get the full story.

The post 7 Ways to Improve the Annual Appraisal Process appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

In this episode, I’m joined by Bill Walker of Bill Walker Consulting to discuss the post-pandemic business horizon. We’re looking at what leaders should be focused on right now? What are the key challenges leaders need to overcome? Can we go back to the ‘old normal’ or should we accept that a variation of the ‘new normal’ is here to stay? How do leaders re-engage with their people? Are leaders asking the right questions?

Over the next twenty-two minutes, we discuss these key issues and more!

The post The Robin Lines Podcast: A Measure of Double Scotch appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

People work hardest when they’re working towards something meaningful. When people start to question the point of a new project, the latest meeting, or any particular task they’ve been assigned, it can result in a considerable drop in morale and productivity.

As a leader, getting buy-in is crucial, not just from your customers or backers but from the people you’re tasking to get the work done. Ensure they’re on board, ensure they know the strategy, and be ready to answer any questions they may have about the direction.

Feeling Undervalued

Almost all of us have encountered a manager who believes that there is no need to commend people on a job well done. If you want your people to go above and beyond to excel at any given task, then you should be forthcoming with praise when they do. Little kills the dynamism of an office environment more than people who feel that their accomplishments will not be recognised no matter what effort they make.

Conflict and Office Politics

Office politics is often a touchy subject, but as a leader, it’s vital you maintain awareness of any cliques, power plays, or bullying occurring in the workplace. People don’t like to feel like outsiders, and when they do, morale will plummet. Worst of all, think of the message it sends to new hires when the same group of people seem to be getting preferential treatment because they know how to play the game.

We can’t expect everybody to get on all of the time. Still, the ones who think intimidation and playground tactics are the way to the top are not only going to bring productivity down, they’re going to earn your business a reputation as the wrong place to work.

Unfair or Unrealistic Workloads

Stress is a serious problem, and leaders should be aware of the effect it might be having on people who feel overburdened. As a leadership coach, I have encountered a significant problem across many organisations: the overreliance on a handful of “top stars” who have a reputation for getting things done. Unfortunately, this often signifies that you’ve got people more willing to put in unpaid overtime or take work home with them because they don’t want to disappoint the leaders.

Ensure that you’re giving your people some breathing space, and if you do find yourself assigning tasks to the same people, start asking questions about why others are not sharing the load?

Unapproachable Leaders

Have you ever worked in an organisation where getting five minutes of face-to-face time with the boss seemingly required months of planning? When people want to share concerns, new ideas, or discuss something important, a leader who is forever on the phone, in meetings, out of the office, or otherwise unavailable is a significant problem for motivation.

While leaders do get busy, it’s essential to be proactive in setting aside some time to talk to your people each day. We call it “Leadership by Wandering About” – taking some time each day to speak with your people, find out what their needs and wants are, and make sure that nobody is sitting on something vital.

Micromanagement

On the flip side, leaders who are far too “hands-on” in their approach can become burdensome to their people. Nobody likes feeling like they can’t even write up a report in Word without their helicopter manager hovering around to check every sentence. Micromanagers generally have good intentions, but the message they end up sending is “I don’t trust you” at best or “I think you’re incompetent” at worst.

People enjoy a bit of autonomy in how they do their jobs, and they are much more inclined to feel energised and motivated if they’ve got the support of a leader who is telling them, “I know you’ve got this.”

No Clear Path to Progression

One of the biggest demotivators in any organisation is when individuals feel they can never advance from their current position. People with the potential to climb Everest are not going to be satisfied climbing Ingleborough over and over again. It is in our nature to want to move forward. Humans seek new challenges, and facing a new challenge can be refreshing and exciting.

Even if there are no current positions available for advancement, leaders can still invest in their people with training programmes to equip them with new skills. If you make people feel that you’re thinking about their future just as much as they are, then they’ll push harder to achieve for you, rather than peruse the job ads so they can achieve for somebody else.

The post 7 Reasons Your People Are Demotivated appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Fun is an essential component of a dynamic working environment. That doesn’t mean slacking off, bad jokes, or interrupting meetings to jam on your guitar like David Brent. It does mean you should look for ways that can make coming to work more of an experience and less of a grind.

Today, we’re going to look at some ideas for introducing an element of fun into the workplace. This list is far from exhaustive but might stimulate your own creativity, enabling you to find ways to make your organisation unique and a great place to work. 

Get Out of the Office

Boredom is one of the biggest causes of productivity lapses. One driver of boredom is when we start to feel that everything is the same. Offices rarely change, meaning your people spend forty or more hours a week in an effectively static environment. Getting away from the office now and again acts as a welcome change for many people, stimulating their senses to take on new information and making their days less routine.

You can accomplish this in many ways. For example, meetings or appraisals could take place in a local restaurant, or even just somewhere else on the premises. You could improve the abilities for your people to work remotely, allowing them to spend days at home to break up their week. 

Sensory Stimulus

When we stimulate our senses, we become more alert. It would be far too costly to change the furniture and redecorate the office every week, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add variety. For example, you could change the artwork on the walls to add new visuals, or you could change the plants seasonally. Different air fresheners can provide people with new scents, or even a change of radio station can add new sounds. 

Switching Projects

Some companies have found great success in keeping their people motivated by temporarily shifting the projects that they are working on. For example, Valve Software, creators of the Half-Life video game series and the online retailer Steam encourage their people to move between teams on occasion. This is intended to help their people stay motivated as it breaks up some of the daily monotony, while also giving them the chance to gain new skills and insights from their peers.

Staying in the tech world, Google encourages each of its developers to spend a little bit of time every day on a personal project. By breaking up the task, the aim is to ensure the developers don’t burn out trying to solve one problem and sustain their motivation levels. 

Celebrate Events With Your People

We spend more time with our colleagues than almost any other people in our lives. Fostering a sense of family can be a huge motivator, and one of the best ways to do this is to celebrate with them. Acknowledging birthdays, anniversaries, personal achievements and other such milestones take only a small amount of time out of the day but can have a massive effect on engagement and productivity.

Don’t just recognise people for what they do, but recognise them because they are part of your team. That recognition can also help to increase loyalty to your organisation and make your workers better advocates for your business. 

Social Events

People are often wary of speaking candidly in the office. Many fear that anything they might say could end up on the record and cause problems down the road. However, if your people are struggling with issues at home, or are experiencing other difficulties then it is something leaders need to know about.

By organising social events, both in and out of the office, you can connect with your people on a more personal level which may make them more willing to open up about problems they are having. Social events can make people relax and feel more ‘at home’ within your organisation, and it provides you with the opportunity to support them when things get tough.

The post The Importance of Fun appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

In this video, we take a close look at People Engagement: What it is, why it’s important and how leaders can improve their engagement levels.

In this short-form presentation, we will cover the following areas:

• Is People Engagement the ‘Holy Grail’ of Leadership?
• What is the Difference Between Engagement and Satisfaction?
• Statistical Analysis of UK Engagement Levels
• Measuring Engagement
• How to Improve Engagement through Reward, Acknowledgement, Communication and Compassion
• Why You Should Celebrate Success
• How to Learn More About Your People and Take an Interest
• Make People Enjoy Coming to Work
• How to Have the Difficult Conversations

Robin Lines Associates offers a variety of Leadership and People Management training programmes, tailored to the needs of your business and focused on delivering realistic, measurable improvements. To learn more, please feel free to Contact Us. We look forward to hearing from you.

The post [Video] Raising the Engagement Bar appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Here’s a rundown of several methods to increase People Engagement in your organisation.
 

Praise

Even a simple ‘thank you’ for a job well done can help boost engagement in your business. People want to feel valued and appreciated. Try and catch people doing a good job and let them know that you value their contribution. Be careful not to over-praise, however, as too much can start to sound disingenuous.
 

Encourage and Develop

Motivation and engagement go hand-in-hand. You can foster a great office atmosphere and culture if you have a plan to encourage and develop people to reach their goals. Show commitment to helping your people reach their full potential by finding out what makes them tick and offering a route to success through training and other activities.
 

Lead By Example

If you want your people to be passionate and enthusiastic, then you need to inject those qualities into everything you do. Strive to produce world-class work and to be an industry leader by never settling for average. Additionally, be helpful and approachable, with an open-door policy so that your people can seek your input and advice. Furthermore, take time to work alongside your people. Don’t be the boss behind the door; muck in and get your hands dirty.
 

Make Your People Love Coming to Work

Dynamic workplaces are exciting workplaces. People who feel like they are doing the ‘same old’ every day become bored with work. Ask yourself whether your workplace is a creative, innovative one? Are the decisions you are making challenging people to be the best versions of themselves? Do not be afraid to give your people a voice and let them speak up. Brainstorming sessions, or even the humble suggestion box, might be the key to your next breakthrough.
 

Develop and Maintain Trust

People work best when there is trust. They want to know that their managers are looking out for their best interests, and trust that the business is heading in the right direction. Additionally, your people will want to know that their concerns will be treated with respect, that their colleagues are as engaged with the work as you need them to be. Regular feedback and mentoring can help build trust, as can treating mistakes as opportunities to learn, not a lecture.
 

Celebrate Success

Whenever something good happens, celebrate it. Make everybody in your department, or at your organisation, a part of those successes. Winning breeds winners, and is a powerful motivator for everyone else. Make use of internal communications or company newsletters to highlight the individuals and groups that have gone above and beyond. Importantly, make everyone feel invested in what the business is doing so that they feel responsible for its future progress.

The post Six Methods to Increase People Engagement appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Overworking leads to stress and physical exhaustion. When you are running yourself ragged on a job, it is not an example of hard work; you are paying the price for mistakes. It could be you have not prioritised your time correctly. Perhaps you underestimated how long the project could take? Whatever the reason, you need to ensure the cycle does not repeat.

A burned-out individual is less creative, less responsive and less enthusiastic. One of the major issues with overworking is that an individual is unable to focus due to fatigue. In turn, they begin to procrastinate and fall farther behind. Soon, they need to push themselves even harder to get the project over the line. How likely is it that they will do a good job?
 

It’s Vital Not to Lead People to Exhaustion

If you are a leader, then it is vital that you understand how pushing yourself too far can have a negative impact because you have a greater responsibility to your people. Burning out your employees is a sure-fire way to lose loyalty, and to impact the productivity of your department or even the company. While some people will relish the occasional hard push to finish a project, you need to avoid developing a culture of high pressure. People will start to leave.

There are several steps you can take to reduce overworking. As we have previously examined, efficient time management and the use of techniques such as Pomodoro allows you to prioritise both tasks and breaks better. Even a few minutes of quiet on a hectic day can re-energise a person.
 

Manage Your Routines

Routines, in general, can help you with organising your day. Starting in the home, you should ensure you are allowing yourself adequate time to relax and sleep. Keep in mind that being overtired has the same effect on your brain as alcohol, and few people would recommend alcohol as a productivity booster! With that in mind, remember that while a drink can be relaxing, alcohol also has a negative impact on the quality of your sleep. If you are heading into a busy week, it is best to stick to soft drinks and set aside the scotch for when you are finished.

Try and avoid taking work home with you and try to make sure your people do not feel obliged to do so. Ensure that when you are out of the office, you have leisure activities to keep your mind off work. A gym membership, a creative outlet or even shooting aliens in a video game can all give your brain a chance to unwind and reboot. We have previously written an article on keeping your work and home life separate that you may find useful.

Above all, learn. Whenever you hit a period of intense work, ask yourself, how did this happen, and could it be avoided? Have you not been keeping your calendar up-to-date? Did you forget to allot rest-days? Have you been sinking time into tasks that could wait? There could be any number of reasons, so it is important you take the time to evaluate what went wrong and how you could fix it for the future.

The post Burning Out Won’t Increase Productivity appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Understand

The first thing to consider is that a lone wolf is generally not trying to be difficult. There can be many reasons why they prefer independent thinking to group thinking. Often, it boils down to have a specific personality type. What others sometimes perceive as stand-offish or hostile is often a highly-driven individual that is goal-focused rather than team-focused.

None of this is to say that a lone wolf cannot be problematic. Some lone wolves do lean towards arrogance, eschewing team-projects because they believe they are better or smarter. Other lone wolves are reluctant to explain their methodologies or help others within the group. When one individual seems to be an outcast among peers, this can have an adverse effect on morale.
 

Managing

Lone wolves often require a delicate touch. While it’s tempting to try and force them to be a team-player, their discomfort with the role might hamper their productivity. Instead, it’s usually beneficial to put a distance between them and the group. Lone wolves tend to be happiest when taking on responsibilities for which they, and they alone, are accountable.

If you’re a hands-on, micromanagement type of leader, you will more likely be frustrated with the lone wolf. Given their tendency to excel when left to their own devices, you might find that they poorly react if they feel they’re under scrutiny. Of course, there is no excuse if they are outright unprofessional and not getting the job done, but if they are producing the desired results, it’s probably best to back off.
 

Nudge, Not Direct

Many lone wolves tend to be creative and enjoy the challenge of finding solutions. They can be a fantastic problem solver and take pride in seeing things others miss. However, this can lead to a tendency to over-think. Although they are goal-oriented enough to find the solution you need, they may begin going off-track at times and require a gentle nudge back on to the right path.

From a team perspective, keeping everyone on-track is vital. You must make sure your independent thinkers remain aligned with the overall team goals. Again, this may require the leader to take an observational role and step in with gentle redirection when necessary. In some cases, it helps to use one of your stronger communicators to act as a bridge between the team and the lone wolf.
 

Make Sure They Are a Lone Wolf

Some people are mistaken as loners when the reality is they’re not good communicators. An introvert personality might not always prefer working alone, but may lack the confidence to speak up. If your group has several dominant personalities, who monopolise the dialogue, then it suppresses the voices of others. Before you assume that your quiet worker is a lone wolf, you should give them opportunities to speak and engage. If they are still reluctant or uncomfortable doing so, then try to have a private word to ask if they have any problems.

If they express no concerns and continue to prefer independent work, then it is very likely they are a lone wolf. If they do voice concerns or do come across as overly shy, then it could be worth looking into courses or programmes designed to improve their confidence and their ability to communicate more effectively.

The post Handling Lone Wolves appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.