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Leadership Acumen: Issue 10, July, 2003
© Banff Executive Leadership Inc.
Is
Your "Team" Really Working as a Team?
Introduction:
The concept of "team" is very strong in business today:
- Are you
a Team player?
- Can you
motivate and enhance the performance of your Team?
- Team
success is shared
- Team
failure is accepted by the leader
- Knowledge
and experience sharing throughout the team leads to innovations
and greater value creation
This said,
not all environments actually support team behaviour
- we often reward, recognize and coach individually
- we consistently make heroes out of individuals
- personal expertise and strengths are admired/encouraged
- we don't take the time to foster teamwork
Actually,
none of the above is surprising though it might seem that way.
We use the "team" concept very loosely, and actually
deliver true team behaviour infrequently. And yet, there is
great validity in the workplace and community for structures
other than Teams: Groups, and collections of Individuals.
Individual
contributors form a strong foundation of an organization.
Good people, performing competently the things they are expected
to deliver, to a standard of satisfaction or excellence that
is both self- and supervisor - defined, is a basic necessity
in organizations.
A group
of organized individuals working together in a common environment
or a common project is commonplace. They share information and/or
expertise, divide up the workload and achieve against deadlines,
client expectations and/or parameters set out by the group's
leader/manager.
Teams
share a common purpose or clearly defined goal. Often there
is a minimum competency required to be selected for the team,
and an even higher set of expectations developed from amongst
the other team members. Team members integrate their actions
collaboratively, cover for one another, proactively sense the
needs of one another, and deliver whatever they can to lift-up
the overall success of the team to meet and often exceed objectives.
Every Organization Needs All Three Elements
- Great
Individual contributors
- Groups
interacting and working together to face common challenges
- Teams
defining their own success and pushing the boundaries of excellence
and results in pursuit of a seemingly "stretch'"
ore even "unreasonable" goal.
Every leader
needs to consider the requirements for their organization, and
the time/energy they have to give. The role of the leader is
different in each of the three cases - with different demands
on the leader, and different results opportunities.
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Individuals |
Groups |
Teams |
| Expertise |
Defined
by individual skill sets, knowledge and experience.Expertise
walks out the door when the employee leaves. |
Individual
skills and knowledge can be enhanced by sharing and information
from others in the group.Expertise still leaves with the
employee, with little cross-training or structured knowledge
management; however, some members of the group have elements
transferred as a result of sharing. |
Expertise
is brought together by individual team members, shared,
leveraged, combined into new patterns and innovations.Other
team members' expertise grows and develops new capacity.When
a member leaves, the team retains not only the original
knowledge but the synergies from that expertise within the
team. |
| Motivation |
Self-motivation
and motivation of the supervisor/leader.Motivation to attain/
exceed a standard or pursuit of personal excellence. |
Self-motivation
and that of the leader.Competitive motivation with other
group members.Motivation from working with others on task,
and input from within the group.Leader remains point of
reference for motivation. |
Self-motivation,
plus that of a team-defined goal, produces clear, uplifting,
and sustained "drive".Shared motivation with other
team members, carries each other through the up and down
cycles, and encourages higher levels of commitment. |
| Accountability |
To do the task(s) to the best of their ability, to the supervisor
for achieving individual objectives. |
To
do their task to best of ability. To share information and
provide input to other group members in a co-operative/
proactive manner.To achieve results as expected. |
To
self, to team leader, to other team members.To carry out
their own role and help others maximize their own effectiveness.To
reach or exceed the goal. |
| Goals |
Defined
by supervisor and/or self and/or customer.Within the parameters
of individual performance. |
Larger
than 1 person can attain, group goals can be motivating
as long as external motivators/ rewards are significant
and positive. Defined mainly by leader. |
Facilitated
by leader, team defines own goals, and members share a personal
'stake' or 'ownership'. This drives motivation, and also
keeps the goal foremost in the mind of all team members.Goals
defined are usually higher than in Groups or Individuals. |
| Rewards |
Based
upon individual performance, usually more narrow. |
May
be part of a larger context of group achievement, but usually
distributed individually based on contribution to group.Individuals
may even have different levels of reward based on leader's
perceived value of the team members. |
Can
include both individual and team-wide benefit; however team
must succeed first to trigger individual or shared rewards.Because
the team goals and performance usually holds bigger benefit,
shared rewards are usually higher than individual. |
In
leading a collection of individuals,
the leader must recruit competent people and clarify the expectations
for each person. Often they direct each person's activities
or performance requirements. Each individual's reference point
is back to the leader - for regular clarification, context and
recognition. The leader gets to know each person individually,
their strengths and weaknesses, and challenges them to attain
levels of excellence individually.
This of
course, is very time consuming for the leader, but can be rewarded
by 'the sum of the parts' adding up to excellent contributions
to the organization, clients and community.
Leading
a group requires more from a leader. The individuals
now need to relate to one another, see the overall project/challenge
and the breakdown of roles and responsibilities. As a result,
assembling individuals that can work together effectively is
important. Because they are inter-connected and often depend
on others in the group for information or contributions in order
to do their work, they must co-operate and preferably do so
in a proactive vs. reactive manner.
Here the
leader remains the reference point for each member of the group.
If "good", she/he will see the overall picture and
workings of the different group members and orchestrate inter-connections
as required. While there is some natural motivation that comes
from working together, there is also some natural inter-competitiveness.
The group leader must maintain positive motivation, contain
competitiveness, invite input, and energize the group towards
attaining the leader-defined objectives - on time, on quality,
and within budget. This is demanding leadership/management work,
and can consume 110% of the leader's time in coaching, firefighting,
motivating, "stroking", and connecting.
The payoff
of course, is that a group can take on bigger challenges and
projects, divide and conquer complex tasks and usually perform
at a higher efficiency level than a collection of individuals.
However, groups are inherently risky and vulnerable to shifting
morale and inter competitiveness.
Leading
a Team is a significant step forward over a group. And,
it also requires significant effort up-front from the leader
in both recruiting excellent team members and developing the
environment for a highly impassioned pursuit of a meaningful,
empowering goal.
The leader
must now facilitate the coming together of team members - the
exploration of one another's areas of expertise, talent, insight,
personality, commitment, etc. Next, the leader must "hold"
the environment for team members to define their own vision/goals
(in line with the parameters and challenges made visible by
the leader). This self-definition of goal also requires the
self-definition of team member roles, codes of conduct, commitment,
cross-support and so-on. This "Norming" process is
the major distinguishing difference between a group and a team.
Without
this Norming stage, there is no team - no matter what we might
label them!
Finally,
the team gets on with achieving or surpassing their goals -
they motivate one another, share, dream, invent, co-create and
collaborate together in the process. The role of team leader
now becomes one of coach/mentor, recognizer/champion, clarifier,
resource provider, and sometimes 'blockage eliminator'. The
up-front investment of time and energy and facilitation, plus
the risk-taking in moving to a self-directed team environment,
and the need for a "ramp-up" period before performance
kicks in, is usually rewarded by two things:
- Increased
performance, enhanced achievement, and innovation - greater
than the sum of the parts.
- More
time for the leader to get away from the firefighting and
spend time viewing the bigger picture, plus strategizing for
the future.
Consider
Your Organization Today
Now, think of the organization you lead. What do you have in
place today? What do you want for tomorrow? How might you change
your leadership practices?
As mentioned
earlier, all three approaches are valuable and required in organizations
today. Often we have all three working simultaneously inside
an organization, involving the same people. In other situations,
organizations are marked by one particular style, usually driven
by the approach taken by the senior leaders.
As leaders
however, if we want teams, let's not underestimate what is expected
of us as team leaders. If we are exerting "group management"
or "individual supervision" practices ourselves, let's
not expect team-like behaviours and results from our people.
Alternatively,
if we really do want the "magic" of teams; if we really
subscribe to the potential and pay-off of the team concepts;
then let's tune-up our personal team leadership practices to
better facilitate collaborative, innovative, high-performance
team environments in our workplace.
Banff Executive
Leadership Inc. offers public and customized programming to
improve Board Governance and Executive Leadership Practices.
We also provide coaching and consulting services to Boards and
Executives to help enhance their leadership practices. Please
contact us if we can be of further assistance.
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this article useful, please forward the article's web link to
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