How to build a team

I have just ordered J Richard Hackman’s book “Leading Teams” after reading an interview with him in Harvard Business Review.  In the article he offers five basic conditions leaders should consider if they want to set up and sustain effective teams:

1.  The teams must be real

Everyone must know who is on the team and who is not.  It is the leaders job to make this clear.  It is sometimes a difficult call and JRH talks about a CEO who kept a CFO in his role because he was good at what he did, but would not allow him to join the executive committee because he was a “team destroyer”.  

2.  Teams need a compelling direction

Members need to know, and agree on, what they’re supposed to be doing together.  Unless a leader articulates a clear direction, there is a real risk that different members will pursue different agendas.  Any leader who has worked with a team of strong individuals will attest to this.

3.  Teams need enabling structures

Poorly defined tasks, the wrong members, wishy-washy values and agreed behaviours all lead the team into difficulties.  

4.  Teams need a supportive organisation

The organisational context, including structures, rewards and incentives and access to information must facilitate team work.  Have you ever audited your strategic objectives and reward criteria for congruence.  Are you (for instance) measuring customer support in your performance appraisals but rewarding only New Business enrolment in your financial rewards to staff? 

5.  Teams need expert coaching

Most executive coaches focus on individual performance, which does not significantly improve teamwork.  Teams need coaching as a group in team processes, especially at the beginning, midpoint and end of the project.  But team coaching is a specialist endeavour.  The coach should be able to distinguish between team coaching and facilitation as well as between team coaching and individual coaching. 

JRH finishes the article by commenting that there are cases where collaboration is a hindrance rather than a help.  Part of the leader’s role is to find the most effective applications for individual autonomy and collective action.  Every team needs a deviant.  The person who challenges decisions or the status quo.  But, as he points out, challenging or speaking the truth in a team can be a dangerous role to play.

How to develop team work and communication through team games

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a tribe knew they had to change the way they worked together.  But experience had shown that any fluctuations in their daily operation could cause irreparable damage to their life support systems which in turn would cause wide-spread loss of life.  What could they do?  

At last a hero from the tribe came forward and agreed to undertake the perilous journey to the cavern of the three wise hags…

…The oldest hag said “Go back and assemble your tribe.  They are to pretend they are in a galaxy far, far away on the third rock from their star, called “Sun”.  They are working on machines that organise logic to run the way they live.  The programmes they used to make are no longer way better than anyone else’s.  They must work together to make a plan…”Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away (no not that one), a tribe knew they had to change the way they worked together.  But experience had shown that any fluctuations in their daily operation could cause irreparable damage to their life support systems which in turn would cause wide-spread loss of life.  What could they do?  

At last a hero from the tribe came forward and agreed to undertake the perilous journey to the cavern of the three wise hags…

…The oldest hag said “Go back and assemble your tribe.  They are to pretend they are in a galaxy far, far away on the third rock from their star, called “Sun”.  They are working on machines that organise logic to run the way they live.  The programmes they used to make are no longer way better than anyone else’s.  They must work together to make a plan…”

A place to practice team dynamics

Yes, the hags were using a powerful team building technique to help the team solve their own problems.

Teamwork takes practice. 

In sports, drama and music the best performances only happen as a result of hours and hours of practice.  But to practice new skills and behaviours we need to first let go of those now inappropriate.  And in learning the new, we make mistakes which apart from being embarrassing may cause significant damage to what our organisation is trying to achieve.  Implementing new tools and processes without allowing significant learning can be very destructive.

So how can you create an environment where there is real pressure to deliver but in which members of the team feel free to take risks, generate new ideas and make mistakes from which they can learn?

The best learning environment draws on imagination.  Suspending reality allows participants to engage with new skills, attitudes and behaviours without having to manage the complexity, inertia, history or responsibility of the real organisation process.  Fantasy provides a fresh start and a clear deadline within which participants can focus their energy.  As their motivation to prevail in the scenario increases they will be more willing to try new team oriented attitudes and behaviours.  

There is a band of moderate stress, where optimum learning happens.  Below this learning band, our brains are dull and nothing is absorbed.  Above the band our logic centre is flooded with coping chemicals preventing us from reasoning or learning.  Adjusting the scenario allows the facilitator to keep the team in the learning band: 

- “Oh dear, a virus has blinded the whole team, please put on these blindfolds…”

or

- “One of your scientists has discovered some information that will help you greatly…”

So fantasy games can provide excellent learning opportunities, but how do you go about setting up a game.

How to run a successful team game

Setting up a scenario may include the following steps:

Contract

The facilitator and sponsor understand and agree exactly how the team must benefit from the intervention. 

Design

The game should include the key learning issues without any of the elements from the team reality (send the accounting team on a journey through a dark and dangerous swamp).

Plan

The facilitator should have a clear idea of how the game should unfold, where it could change direction and what the possibilities are.  There must be no logistical surprises.

Test 

The facilitator MUST test each game before using it with a team.  Testing prevents the game from being either too easy or too difficult for the team to complete.

Psychological preparation

The facilitator’s role at the start of the game is that of story teller, creating the drama, the fun and the tension within a safe reassuring environment.

Brief

Here the facilitator gives a concise, clear and crisp setting of the scene, the rules, the roles and the action.

Start the action – handover control to the team

The participants take control and the learning begins.  This is the part where the real team learning happens.  The facilitator tells a story to take the team out of the everyday.  This should balance the playful nature of the games with sufficient pressure to succeed.  From the background, the facilitator should allow the build up of a healthy level of stress for learning, maintaining the tension.  The facilitator may be tempted to give clues.  We usually ask “how” questions when we are not keen to engage our own creativity and intelligence.  And the answer to “how” is “yes” (i.e. get on with it!)

Clearly stop the action

When the task is complete or when a hazardous situation is developing the facilitator signals the end of the game takes back control of the intervention.  

Debrief

This is where it all comes together.  Consultation with the team after the event then allows the team to reflect on the parallels between the imaginary situation and the real world waiting for them back at the office.  There may be a temptation to rush through the debriefing.  But this is where the learnings are bedded down and the team have an opportunity to transfer these learnings to their work environment.

The hero returned and carried out what the hags had suggested.  Pretending to work with “computers”, “customers” and “programmes” helped the team to deal with the real issues facing them as a team without endangering the operation of the gravity-balanced zygomorphic bifibrulators so essential for their survival.  

Life would continue.  

Things would be different but now they knew they would cope with the changes.

How to start strategic planning through workshops and coaching

Are you ready for a strategic plan for your business?  Do you know where to start?  Defining and implementing a strategy is an exciting step for any organisation.  Perhaps you have a great idea that has exploded beyond the capacity of your start-up group.  Or maybe you have all the skills and resources but, especially in the current economic conditions, you just are not getting the attention from the market that should be beating a path to your door.  Is it time to take all that you have and create a foundation of clarity from which to step forward?

A clear strategic plan is powerful tool for success.  When your team have a clear picture of what you do and how you work and where you are headed this can bring great relief and energy.  And when you are all clear on who should do what, there can be no stopping you.  Furthermore, when you all know specifically what you are NOT going to do, you can avoid energy, resource and time draining pitfalls and red-herrings.

Success in goal setting begins with an understanding of the strategic planning process.  It is easy to think that setting strategy is for large corporates, supported by the big five consultancies.  And the jargon itself can be off-putting.  A brief reading of the index in any strategy publication can be quite disheartening.  Perhaps this is not the first time you have considered this approach but, because you have not found out how to start, you have dropped the issue and decided to push on with what you know.

The strategy process begins with a conversation.  A conversation supported by frameworks to raise the right questions.  You know you must do something.  But where are you now and what big issues do you face?  What does the future hold and what do you have to bring you success?  When I help teams with planning conversations I use a structure to cover:

• your offer and how you are perceived in your market
• your processes and what you do to deliver your offer
• the resources you muster to deliver these processes right
• the financial targets they will use to measure success  

This questions form the heart of the strategic plan.  And the plan is guided by a conversation about the purpose of your organisation, where you want to get to (your vision) and how you work together (your values).

Stephen Quirke (that’s me) has been helping clients gain clarity on their plans through coaching and facilitation for more than ten years.  If you would like to find out more about the models I use in conversations to set strategy please have a look at this site.  I can help you through coaching your leadership and by facilitating conversations within in your teams.  To find out more about how you can bring clarity to your current situation and how you can focus the energy of your team on clear goals you can also visit my StrategyWorks website.

strategy – a context for different approaches

Have you ever wondered about all the different approaches to strategy out there? Ever since I have been facilitating strategy workshops I have been looking for a view to pull all of the different views into a single view. Well I have found a good one. I am reading “Strategy Safari” by Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel, who collectively bring massive experience to bear on the question. They define 10 schools of thought which they describe and critique in the book. I am finding this an enjoyable and enriching read. The writers offer a model to relate the 10 schools of thought that I want to share here.

In the centre they show strategy formulation as a black box. This is how most of the schools view the creation process; a mystery or irrelevant.

Only the Cognitive School try to figure out how strategy is formulated, from a psychology perspective, though without much success.

The Positioning School, stepping off a foundation of economics and military history, looks back at historical data which it analyses and feeds into the black box.

The Planning School looks ahead using systems theory and urban planning, but just ahead to schedule strategies created in the box.

The Design School uses a deliberate process, vested in the CEO to create an explicit, simple and clear view of a strategy to be implemented, without recourse to changes from emerging insights.

The Entrepreneurial School looks beyond the immediate to create a unique vision of the future through an intuitive process.

The Learning and Power schools look below, at what underlies strategy, focussing on particulars rather than universals. The Learning School looks on the ground, sometimes in the grassroots for learnings to guide an emerging view of strategy. The Power School looks lower (but not deeper), under rocks or underground into the places organisation don’t usually want to look, at the power and political games.

The Cultural School gazes down from above, enshrouded in clouds of beliefs.

High above all this, the Environmental School looks at the process from an even greater elevation, as in a reversed telescope.

The Configuration School looks at the whole process and categorises the organisation in terms of life-cycle and change process.

I like this model because it creates a context for the strategy material I read.  As I think about it I have a sense that I would like to change it around a little to suit how I implement strategy with my clients.  But first I am reading to integrate the richness of the information behind the model.  I think it would be a good idea for me, in subsequent posts to reflect on my understanding of the key points of each of the ten schools.