In
the race to lure talent to our organizations and make ourselves more
competitive in the global marketplace, we need to make sure we maintain
a careful balance in our teams. Anyone who believes that star talent
alone will lift an organization to top performance need only look to
the Olympics, where teams have failed to bring home the gold in recent
years. This year, this country sent a brand-new Dream Team to Beijing -
some are calling it the Redeem Team, on a mission to redeem the U.S.
reputation as a basketball powerhouse.
Top
basketball players competed in the 2004 Olympics and even in the 2006
World Games, but the teams did not appear. A key ingredient was
missing: the chemistry that smoothly blends a group of stars into a
unified whole. Uneven team play by superstars led U.S. planners to
build a foundation for 2008 that would send an actual team to the
Olympics. The formula included rounding up the superstars (NBA elite),
requiring them to play together in early qualifying matches, and,
finally, making sure both defenders and shooters were part of the mix.
This
is a simple formula and a no-brainer for a coach or team leader. And
yet the Olympian shortcomings of the Dream Teams are but one example of
how heads of organizations repeat the same mistakes when seeking the
success that top team performance leads to. Instead of throwing money
at the problem, they throw talent at it. And they quickly discover that
a bunch of talented people is just a bunch of talented people. Players,
and workers, need a reason for being and a plan for working together to
have the beginnings of a team.
Let's look at some of the key ingredients that go into making up a
team:
Let's
pretend we are advising a team leader who needs to improve the
productivity of a group of talented people. Each one performs well
individually, but they do not function well together. Squabbles push
them off track, and meetings reveal disagreement on even the
fundamental issue of how to work together. The group must complete a
project that requires detailed focus and reaching regular goals along
the path to completion. After meeting for several months, team members
have not produced anything useful.
Using the example of this year's Dream Team, we will help the team leader
assemble
and shape the group into something more than just a group of individuals.
First, we will:
Find the balance.
The
first thing the leader will want to do is discover the strengths and
weaknesses of people making up the group. Assessments that review
employees' strengths and weaknesses will help. The group needs a
mixture of those who immediately grasp the big picture and know how to
create a plan, and those whose strengths lie in checking the fine
details. Additionally, the group requires performers who can help move
the project along at a regular clip so that no one misses a deadline,
and those who are able to hear differences of opinion and build a
verbal bridge between them. In the ideal situation, the team needs to
be in charge of moving itself and taking responsibility for its actions
without a boss hovering nearby. Someone, or several someones, need to
encourage open and lively communication.
Obviously,
it is a rare person who possesses all of these strengths in equal
amounts, although many people will possess some of the necessary
qualities. The more likely scenario is that the team will include
people good at many things and people who excel at a few things. A team
leader wants to ensure that he has the right strengths for the specific
project and a good mix of all necessary qualities.
After assembling our team, we
will:
Share the vision.
A
team must know why it exists. The team leader's job is to ensure that
this knowledge is imparted, described and repeated as often as
necessary to keep key players on track. If the team is just forming
and/or includes new members, top management can show support by
discussing and describing the organization's vision and the team's
specific mission. This is a good time to let members ask questions or
voice doubts, and to treat each concern or idea with respect. This is
an important example to set. If members hear someone making light of
their fears or playing down their ideas, they will be reluctant to
speak up in the future.
Now that the team knows what it is supposed to do, we
will:
Mix carefully for good chemistry.
As
the team leader learned when he was checking the balance of strengths
and skills, everyone is different. That does not mean the differences
will not mix well. In fact, they can play off each other to create
charged discussions, enthusiasm for projects, and spectacular results. It
is essential that team members respect each other's differences and
learn from one another. Becoming best friends at work or doing things
together outside work is not necessary, but they do need to get along
at work. The highest performing teams learn from each other, and the
best team leaders find ways to coach players over the bumps that
conflicts cause and use them to the team's advantage.
Even
when a team is performing beautifully, it will still need coaching.
Disagreements will erupt, or the waters may calm too much for progress
to occur. The coach needs to monitor team balance constantly as members
leave and others come in, and as the mission changes. But if the coach
remembers to build the team on a firm foundation, assembling and
regrouping productive Dream Teams is not an impossible challenge.
Profiles
Advantage is focusing on the five perspectives of the coach. With this
message we have examined three - employee job fit, employee motivation,
and compatibility between the employee and his/her work team. Upcoming
themes will examine:
We hope you are finding the discussion beneficial and are enjoying this
exploration
of the leader/manager as coach.
Jim Sirbasku, CEO
Profiles International
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