known for results.
* with thanks to Patrick Lencioni
Of course, there are exceptions. On a recent school holiday, I made plans to meet with a friend and her kids for coffee (juice for the kids). When she arrived at the coffee shop, she immediately began talking in animated expressions about the great team meeting she had just come from.
“I thought you took the day off to be with the kids,” I said.
“Oh, I did,” she said. “The kids played in the boardroom while we had our meeting. I wouldn’t miss these regular Monday meetings unless it was an emergency. We always have such great discussions and updates about our projects. We’re really moving some exciting projects forward, and we all know that we are better people when we get around each other.”
That was a pretty staggering statement.
So how do you create, develop, and maintain a great team that isn’t just about buzzwords but truly is the real deal? How do you use teamwork to your competitive advantage as a part of your leadership strategy? How do you live out the conviction that your organization and the people in itwill be better as the result of being led by teams?
Create. One of the most significant jobs you have as aleader is the creation of your team. That means you come to work every day and you think about your team. Even with all the other things you have to do, you work hard to keep the formation and development of your team on the front burner at all times. When we commit to a leadership strategy, it drives our thinking, our meetings, and our decisions. That’s easy to see when the strategy involves a direction in which we are heading, but it’s perhaps a little less obvious when it is about the team that we work with every day. But if we don’t make the team a priority, the breakdown begins and teamwork gets left in the heap of yesterday’s buzzwords.
We need to take seriously the people who are on our teams. That sounds obvious, doesn’t it? And it is, but rarely do I come across a team that doesn’t include at least one member who probably shouldn’t be there.
Do you have the right people on your team? That is not a vague, general question, but rather, it is one that you need to ask specifically in regards to each person: Given what I need from this person, is he or she a good fit? Why or why not?
Most of us are afraid to ask that question because any answer less than a resounding yes brings with it clear implications. We either need to work on developing those who don’t fit, or we need to release them. Yep, that releasing part, that’s hard. But while we might not admit it, it is even more difficult to have the wrong person on a team for years and years.
As we have already talked about, there is a big difference between a bad fit and a bad person. Every once in a while, we have to move people off the team because their character and morality is simply so off that they do not lead through the lens of values and have become an obstacle togreat leadership.
In 2007, Internet giant Yahoo! was brought before Congress for providing China’s government with confidential information belonging to a Chinese journalist. I read an article about the hearings, in which California Representative Tom Lantos made this great statement: “Much of this testimony reveals that while technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies.” It really is possible to lead successfully but not lead well. That is a critical distinction for leaders to make.
Leaders who take action and initiative to make sure the right people are in the right places engender trust. Those who don’t, create cynicism and mistrust.
Development is a great and necessary first step, and sometimes that is the ticket. But it’s easy to hide behind “development” in order to avoiding the difficult conversations that could bring clarity to the problem.
And when the emerging clarity is that you need tomove someone off the team, don’t let avoidance set
* with thanks to Patrick Lencioni
Of course, there are exceptions. On a recent school holiday, I made plans to meet with a friend and her kids for coffee (juice for the kids). When she arrived at the coffee shop, she immediately began talking in animated expressions about the great team meeting she had just come from.
“I thought you took the day off to be with the kids,” I said.
“Oh, I did,” she said. “The kids played in the boardroom while we had our meeting. I wouldn’t miss these regular Monday meetings unless it was an emergency. We always have such great discussions and updates about our projects. We’re really moving some exciting projects forward, and we all know that we are better people when we get around each other.”
That was a pretty staggering statement.
So how do you create, develop, and maintain a great team that isn’t just about buzzwords but truly is the real deal? How do you use teamwork to your competitive advantage as a part of your leadership strategy? How do you live out the conviction that your organization and the people in itwill be better as the result of being led by teams?
Create. One of the most significant jobs you have as aleader is the creation of your team. That means you come to work every day and you think about your team. Even with all the other things you have to do, you work hard to keep the formation and development of your team on the front burner at all times. When we commit to a leadership strategy, it drives our thinking, our meetings, and our decisions. That’s easy to see when the strategy involves a direction in which we are heading, but it’s perhaps a little less obvious when it is about the team that we work with every day. But if we don’t make the team a priority, the breakdown begins and teamwork gets left in the heap of yesterday’s buzzwords.
We need to take seriously the people who are on our teams. That sounds obvious, doesn’t it? And it is, but rarely do I come across a team that doesn’t include at least one member who probably shouldn’t be there.
Do you have the right people on your team? That is not a vague, general question, but rather, it is one that you need to ask specifically in regards to each person: Given what I need from this person, is he or she a good fit? Why or why not?
Most of us are afraid to ask that question because any answer less than a resounding yes brings with it clear implications. We either need to work on developing those who don’t fit, or we need to release them. Yep, that releasing part, that’s hard. But while we might not admit it, it is even more difficult to have the wrong person on a team for years and years.
As we have already talked about, there is a big difference between a bad fit and a bad person. Every once in a while, we have to move people off the team because their character and morality is simply so off that they do not lead through the lens of values and have become an obstacle togreat leadership.
In 2007, Internet giant Yahoo! was brought before Congress for providing China’s government with confidential information belonging to a Chinese journalist. I read an article about the hearings, in which California Representative Tom Lantos made this great statement: “Much of this testimony reveals that while technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies.” It really is possible to lead successfully but not lead well. That is a critical distinction for leaders to make.
Leaders who take action and initiative to make sure the right people are in the right places engender trust. Those who don’t, create cynicism and mistrust.
Development is a great and necessary first step, and sometimes that is the ticket. But it’s easy to hide behind “development” in order to avoiding the difficult conversations that could bring clarity to the problem.
And when the emerging clarity is that you need tomove someone off the team, don’t let avoidance set
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