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What The Leader Needs To Know:
Make Your Top Team More Effective
The Opportunity
Your enterprise is too complex and the opportunities too significant
for individuals to drive its success. For years, it has been acknowledged
that teams are a critical structure for executing successful business
strategies. Yet each and every day, money is left on the table in
the form of unrealized innovations, customer loyalty, revenues, profits,
and share price because leaders don't apply what is known about teams.
For example, most "team building" is relegated to a one-shot activity
from building a model airplane to climbing ropes. Think of any team
outside of business and answer one simple question: Would you have
any confidence in that team's performance, if the team invested only
one or two days in building their skills at working together? I can't
think of any situation where the answer wouldn't be a resounding "No!"
But in corporate organizations, where performance isn't about a game,
we often hear: "We can't invest the time in team building. We're under
too much pressure to worry about the soft stuff." Again, whatever
team you enjoy watching - hockey, ballet or symphony orchestra - you
know at the professional level that it's not the technical skill and
talent that make the difference. The critical element for peak performance
involves commitment and pride in a team that has figured out how to
work well together -- working under tremendous pressure, flawlessly
and smoothly. To the extent that when a dancer misses a step, the
entire team "automatically" decides how to improvise without interrupting
the performance - or even letting audience or customer see it ...
You operate in a much tougher arena than most artistic or athletic
performers. If you miss a major opportunity or have a few bad quarters,
before you know it, you can be headed for a lengthy downward spiral
- one from which it may be incredibly difficult to recover.
Assume you see the logic in investing in real team
building. You get the importance of your team being able to work
together - particularly under significant stress. You realize that,
with the level of uncertainty you're facing, your team needs to
be able to assess quickly any situation, consider alternatives,
make a decision, and execute. And that won't happen unless the team
knows how to work together. You still have one significant problem:
There are almost no established processes for building teams over
the longer term.
Enter Martin Mittag. A successful international
banker for decades, Martin recently founded The Wooden Boat Workshop.
Working with leadership development professionals, Martin has created
the ideal process for building executive and professional teams.
Oh, and Martin's a banker; so - of course -- the process is partially
to fully self-funding.
How to Leverage It
Here is what you need to successfully build your team over time.
- Size Your Team To Fit Your Objective
Your formal team has a set
size. That size doesn't fit with all your objectives. If you are
in a creative process, such as developing a new concept, you need
a group of 8 - 10 people. If you're focused on execution then
the ideal size is four. No doubt your team doesn't fit either
size perfectly. The key is to manage the group as an integrated
collection of smaller or larger teams, depending upon specific
objectives. Basically, the key lies in effective, thoughtful use
of sub-committees.
- Define clear expectations of how your team must perform
The rules of teamwork are not a given. Not only do different types
of teams need different rules to be successful - to be competitive,
a specific team needs to follow its own rules. To make your team
really effective, you have to determine exactly what kind of behaviors
will lead to the most competitive outcomes. Depending on your
style and the expectations you want to set for your team, you
can either determine these expectations yourself or involve the
team. But be crystal clear about how the rules will be identified
and adopted. Make sure everybody knows the rules. Most importantly,
make sure the rules are not seen as optional. Again, look at any
successful team: The rules are clear and they are compulsory.
- Articulate a goal that is important and which will create pride in its achievement
"This is taking too much time. But as long as I'm here, I might
as well look like a team player and go along with it." How many
of your team members begin any team building session with an attitude
similar to this? However, the skepticism usually is short-lived
and is abandoned once the exercise begins and people become engaged.
If you're going to stick to the classical one shot - or less elegantly
put "sheep dipping" approach, lack of clarity at the front end
doesn't cost too much. But to ask your team to engage in team
performance practice over time, you need a specific, worthwhile
objective. The process that Mittag and his colleagues have developed
provides this incentive. Here's how it works.
The executive team's goal is to build a wooden boat; it might
be a four-person sailboat or one of a variety of canoes and kayaks.
The boat not only will be seaworthy; it truly becomes a piece
of craftsmanship. Read "The Benefits" section below to see how
this can promote your company, support a charity and be self-funding.
- Embed a process that incorporates the key principles and behaviors of high performing teams.
Here are a few of the principles and behaviors inherent in the
process that Mittag has developed
- Don't focus on mistakes;
focus on the lessons the team can learn from them.
- Perfection isn't important: success is - commitment and momentum are the
keys.
- Think ahead and do all you can to control and anticipate challenges.
- Time spent planning saves time.
- Stretch the team to a challenge it can meet.
- Provide the means to reflect on and coach to both individual and team performance
The project can be accomplished in 2 - 4 hour sessions over a
two to four month period. This typically involves from 20 - 40
hours and might include from 4 to 16 sessions.. The length and
frequency is determined by the team's specific business goals
and expectations of team behavior. During the first, last and
alternate sessions in between, the team is observed and may be
videotaped by a facilitator. At defined intervals, a debriefing
is held. The team's behavior is assessed against required rules
or expectations. Team members are asked to compare their own behavior
in the practice environment to that in the performance environment.
Most importantly, at the end of each facilitated session team
members make a specific, observable commitment to apply the lessons
learned in practice to their business, or performance, behavior.
- Create an environment where the focus is on achievement through teamwork - but also is buffered from day-to-day business pressures.
The pressures on your team vary from quarter to quarter and day
to day. The amount and type of pressure has a very strong influence
on behavior. Mittag's process ensures that the team receives:
- A circuit breaker. During intense periods, taking the team to
the practice field breaks the cycle of the day to day team dynamics.
Until a team is highly accomplished at team behavior, high pressure
over a period of time usually leads to diminished effectiveness.
Often distrust and destructive competitiveness arises among team
members. Taking the team out of the performance environment into
the practice environment, allows members to look at their behavior
and interaction - without having to simultaneously solve major
business challenges.
- Increased adaptation. Because the team-
building process extends over a period of several months, the
team is supported under different conditions. This reinforces
their mandate to learn how to meet expectations even when the
focus shifts to a variety of different business challenges, e.g.
how a team engages in planning is usually quite different from
how it decides to make the quarterly numbers.
- Incorporate recognition and rewards.
Throughout the process developed by Mittag and his colleagues,
there exist a wide range of opportunities to recognize and reward
team members for meeting the behavioral expectations of a high
performing team.
The Benefits
When the boat is completed one of two things can be
done: It can be donated or auctioned off for a charitable organization
such as a camp for children with special needs.
The benefits of these approaches:
- The goal - contributing to a charity - is clearly worthwhile - more so if the team has a role in selecting the charity. Research has shown that executives and professionals who have worthwhile commitments outside of their work roles are better able to perform in high stress environments. This work provides such a commitment.
- Unlike most of the work that executives and professionals do, this work is tangible. It provides an immediate sense of accomplishment and reward.
- Boat building provides public relations opportunities for your team and your company. In today's environment - particularly with the most influential of your customers - it is particularly important to demonstrate your corporate values in action. Here is a chance to do that as you also build your team's performance.
- This work can be partially to fully self-funding. Donating the finished boat to charity has tax benefits. Auctioning off the finished boat can increase this benefit, generating cash to continue funding the process -- to the point where the entire team building process could become self funding. Of course, the value of the public relations impact is pure bonus. . . .
© 2004 Flanagan Consultants, LLC. Terms and Conditions
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