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Getting High Performance from Your Teams
by Barbara Pate Glacel
(This is the first of four articles on the Top 10 "Light Bulbs" for Leaders.)
A team, by any other name, is still a team. So what's new? We've heard about and seen self-managed teams, high performing teams, quality circle teams, leaderless teams, cross functional teams, lateral teams.
Enough! Why do we keep talking teams by many different names? Isn't it old hat by now?
Old talk, maybe but certainly not old hat. The performance potential of good teams is so far beyond the performance potential of mere groups of individuals that we must continue to work on and solve the puzzle of teams.
Much of what we know about teams is common sense. Perhaps that is why it is not practiced regularly. While there is no magic formula, there must be conscious and conscientious practice at good teaming. Good teams simply don't happen. Individuals must learn to be good team members and team leaders. Only then do they produce the quality results that teamwork allows.
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Barbara Pate Glacel is CEO of VIMA International, The Leadership Group, in Burke, Va., and co-author with Emile A. Robert, Jr. of "Light Bulbs for Leaders: A Guide Book for Team Learning (John Wiley & Sons 1996). VIMA International focuses on increasing learning and performance by individuals, teams and organizations.
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Team Practice at MITRE
At the MITRE Corp., teaming is consciously taught in all management development programs. As managers progress up the ranks and attend advanced management and leadership training, the idea of the learning team is reinforced and demonstrated over and over. Participants in training programs form into learning teams at the end of the seminar training programs. Their learning is continued long after the seminar through the learning team format.
Ongoing Team Goals
Teams continue to meet together regularly over a several month period with two goals in mind:
- They work on real time corporate projects which will benefit the company.
- They learn how to be good teams.
Their observations about the human team roles and interactions are given as much weight as the results they produce on technical or business problems which affect the company. They concentrate on improving the human systems which account for high performance and quality results from a team.
Through the experience of becoming teams, the managers learn many practical lessons. While these lessons may sound like common sense, they must be learned through experience to be most effective.
Top Team Light Bulbs
Often, it is as if a light bulb dawns on team members, and they ask the obvious question: "Why didn't I see that before?" The top ten light bulbs are a good place for any team to start their own learning and to progress to improved quality in product and process.
Teams start the formation stages over at each meeting.
This means that high performance is never achieved once and for all. Every time team members come together, time must be spent adjusting to the fact that much has happened since the last time the team was together. In fact, members have become different people because of their individual experiences. A brief time spent checking out how each member is and what each member brings to the party saves considerable time later.
A perfect example of this practice is found in the Instructional Systems Association, a professional organization run by an elected board of directors. The board members meet every few months to manage the policy and governance of the association. The first act at every meeting is called the round-up. Each board member tells the others briefly what has happened since last they met, in both a business and personal context. The result of this sharing means that people know each other, care about each other, are invested in one another's successes on a personal level, and therefore they work more easily together and more efficiently when the time comes to buckle down to business.
Any change in team membership means a new beginning of team formation issues.
People are not pegs who fit easily into the same shape left by the predecessor. Because high performance and quality results are based on the interdependence of team members, any change in membership affects the performance of the entire team. When a new member joins the team, formation issues begin again. Trust is reduced, and individuals are not sure how the puzzle fits together with a different shaped piece.
Teaming at Arco Alaska
On the North Slope oil fields of Alaska, teaming at Arco Alaska is difficult because of a one week on and one week off schedule. All jobs are held by two people alternates. Each alternate works seven days on the job (where one lives, eats, relaxes and works in a remote site). Then the employee goes home for seven days while the other alternate works the job. As a consequence, each day, many jobs see the rotation of alternates.
On paper Arco Alaska work groups are divided into two teams but it is rare for all members to be there at one time because change-over days differ for each position. In short, actual team membership is constantly changing. The joke at Arco Alaska is that there are not just the gold and blue teams, there are three teams: the gold, the blue, and the "other" team.
And, of course, whenever a problem arises, it is the fault of the "other" team. With such constant change in membership, high quality performance of true teams is an impossibility.
Honest and real feelings expressed by team members help stimulate new ideas.
Feelings are valuable data. Being in touch with and expressing what is in one's gut makes a person more real. How many times have we heard the very old adage that when one comes to work, feelings and personal problems should be checked at the door? This ingrained old work ethic is a tough one to break, even when one knows better rationally.
Expressing fears, hopes, anger, uncertainty, elation, pain or any other feeling is a first step toward building the trust that a team needs to be high performing. This doesn't mean going back to touchy-feely T-group exercises of the sixties. It means being truthful about who you are and what you bring to the party on any given day. Simply, it means being human.
The idea of expressing feelings also demonstrates that rhetoric is not always reality, and that common sense is not always common practice.
Being "more real" at VIMA International
Recently, in my own firm, VIMA International, we were heavily involved in a number of intense workshops in the United States, while our international work was expanding rapidly. Short deadlines were all too common. In addition, one of our partners was facing serious uncertainty in his personal life, but had not widely shared this information nor the accompanying feelings of concern.
At the conclusion of a workshop, a colleague said to this partner, "You seem to lack some resilience that we have come to depend upon for success." This comment led to wider sharing of the personal traumas, and other team members willingly and expertly picked up the slack. To express the non-work related stresses was a humbling experience; but it was necessary to continue the tradition of high performance.
There is more information and knowledge within a team than is usually revealed.
Information is power and in even the flattest of organizations, there is significant competition for promotions, access, success and/or recognition.
Information may be guarded carefully for fear of someone else using it to individual advantage. Or perhaps more commonly, the information does not seem relevant to share because team members don't understand the big picture. Team members must feel a sense of unity and interdependence among themselves to comfortably share significant information.
Information technology teams at MITRE
MITRE's information technology teams (I-teams) were formed for the specific purpose of sharing information widely across functions and boundaries within the company. The members are senior managers in the company who meet regularly to discuss intellectual and scientific issues which are key to future viability of the company. In the rapidly changing information technology world, such sharing is essential for them to stay ahead of the competition. These I-teams bring together different parts of the organization, find systems effects of actions, policies and projects, and build strong teams who are more willing to share technology as time goes on and trust builds.
When the need for sharing becomes even more important, the foundation for shared trust will already be there.
Responsibility falls on all team members to bring people into discussion and to listen to ideas opposite from their own.
In other words, all members hare responsibility for leadership. In high performing teams, there is limited hierarchy. Members join or are assigned to teams because of the value each can bring to the topic at hand. Therefore, input from all team members is required. When hierarchy, conflict, or style get in the way of individual contributions, any member can and must take responsibility for leading the group to be more open and collaborative.
The Path Not Taken
In a recent meeting of executives in a well-known glass manufacturing company, a detailed discussion was held on the facts, and a decision was about to be reached on a critical issue. One of the directors leaned back with a frown on his face. "What's wrong, George?" asked a peer. His response was a show stopper for the group. George said, "Well, all of the facts point clearly to where we're going, I just don't have a good feeling about the decision. I wish I could be more specific. Since I can't be specific, I should just keep quiet and get on with implementation."
Instead of just pressing on, the group probed, pushed, and reconsidered what they were about to do. In the end, they took a very different action that resulted in much improved performance. To get there, each member had to listen to ideas opposite from one's own and share in the responsibility for leadership.
Some Final Thoughts
The top leadership light bulbs will apply in some manner to every team in every organization. Teams come in assorted shapes and sizes and exist for various purposes. We risk, however, having teams become just another flavor of the month if we don't look at what makes them work, where they work best, and what effort is required to truly gain team commitment, synergy, quality and productivity.
Next: Five more leadership light bulbs to aid in team building.
 Light Bulbs for Leaders: A Guide Book for Team Learning
Courtesy of Article Resource Association
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