IN RECENT YEARS, GETTING WORK DONE through teams has become standard practice in many organizations. This is true for a couple of reasons. One reason is synergy. Generally, it has been proven in workplaces that groups make better decisions than an individual working alone. Another reason for having teams is that communications technology and limitless information sources make it unlikely that a manager can know as much as all of the employees. The manager can no longer be the expert. In many fields and occupations, managers have people working for them who have specific expertise far beyond theirs. It is not possible in these instances to tell people what to do. The manager needs to support and guide employees and let them come up with work-related answers.
If you really want your team to succeed and perform at the highest levels possible, you need to build a team dynamic. A team dynamic is the willingness and the ability to work in an interdependent fashion where team members need to rely on other team members to accomplish their work or to achieve the goals of the team. In order to build a team dynamic, the following six factors are essential:
1. Open communication
2. Empowerment
3. Clear roles and responsibilities
4. Goal clarity
5. An effective leader
6. A reward and accountability system for both individual team members and for the entire team
OPEN COMMUNICATION
Consider this scenario: A young manager-to-be accompanied her mentor, an experienced manager, to observe a high-performing team in operation at a manufacturing company. When she first walked into the room, she said to her mentor, “Oh boy, this is a dysfunctional team! Listen to the way they’re arguing with each other.” The mentor replied, “Pay attention, this is actually a great team.”
It took the manager-to-be several minutes to understand what the older manager meant. This team was in conflict. The members were strongly disagreeing with one another on the best way to improve their product. It is often a good sign when this kind of friction exists. A team that cares passionately about its task is very positive. It had open, honest communication. That is a team dynamic!
EMPOWERMENT
You get a strong team dynamic when you empower your team members by giving them the right to make decisions concerning the work they are doing. Of course, you set boundaries of time, money, choices, and so forth. But once you give the team the final power of decisionmaking, you will notice that a confidence, camaraderie, and feeling of strength emerge. Make sure you do not empower teams that are not ready for it. That can be disastrous, and many new managers make this big mistake. They probably do it because they want to get into the good graces of the team. Make sure the team is ready for empowerment or you and the organization will suffer from the consequences of its poor decisions.
CLEAR ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Can you walk up to any one of your team members and have this person clearly define his role and responsibilities on the team? Can you walk up to any one of your team members and have this person clearly define the roles and responsibilities of every other team member, including yourself as the leader? When team members can do this, they know what is expected of them and what is expected of every other team member. They also know on whom they can count for help with their work. All of this leads to an effective team dynamic.
GOAL CLARITY
Does everyone you manage know the goals of both your team and the entire organization? Make sure they do. Keep it simple—ideally down to one sentence for each. Your team’s goal statement could be something like, “Our goal is to provide our internal customers with accurate, timely, and valuable market data at the lowest cost.” This is perfect—it covers it all. Once you have worked with your team to develop your simple goal statement, make sure everyone knows it and has it memorized. You may want to post it in prominent locations, always include it at the top of meeting agendas, or include it below the signature on your internal emails.
When I was in Singapore to train some new managers based on this book I came across an excellent example of an organization with goal clarity. Over the employee entrance to a large hotel in the downtown area was a goal statement that presumably applied to everyone who worked there. In illuminated foot-high letters were four words that made everyone’s task clear: Creating Memorable Hotel Experiences. I applaud the brilliance of such a simple and memorable goal that applies to every member of the team. The corporate website for the organization that operates the hotel identifies those four words as the corporate vision that is applied to their thirty properties on three continents. It is not surprising that the hotel I passed by has impressively high online ratings.
Why is this important? Organizational goal clarity keeps everyone moving in the same direction. It gives them the standard against which they can make decisions and decide on a course of action. The simple standard is whether the decision or outcome they are considering works for or against the goal. If it supports the goal, proceed. If it works against the goal, stop.
Goal clarity facilitates a number of valuable outcomes:
• It allows your people to make more of their own decisions.
• Fewer issues will need to be escalated to you to resolve.
• Decisions will be made more quickly.
• Your organization will be more agile, making it better able to adapt quickly to changes.
• Your organization will be more efficient.
Obviously, your team members will be confronted with situations that are not black-and-white as to whether they support or work against the goal. These will have to be brought to you. But often in their daily efforts, they will be able to make unhindered progress by just using the goal statement as their guide.
Once you’ve settled in and gotten to know your team and its role, work with the team to develop a simple and clear goal statement. It will fuel a much more empowered and entrepreneurial team dynamic.
EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP
Read the following list. Check off the items that you currently do. Develop an action plan for any items not checked. When you are able to check off all the items, you are doing your part in building an effective team dynamic. As leader, you should do the following:
• Set clear goals for each team member and for the team.
• Give clear directions for those who need it.
• Share examples and experiences of your personal successes and mistakes in order to relate to the team.
• Emphasize the positive rather than the negative in your talks with your team.
• Give continual feedback to each team member and to the team—both positive and constructive.
• Use small successes to build team cohesiveness.
• Practice what you say.
• Express your and the organization’s appreciation through rewards, if available.
• Develop a constructive relationship—you and the team are working together toward the same goals.
• Make change happen for the better by encouraging creativity and innovation.
• Encourage self-reliance and professional development.
• Encourage team members to express their views during conflict and share yours with them.
• Help your team see its connection to the larger organization, customers, and the community.
REWARD AND ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM
This last factor for building a strong team dynamic is the responsibility of the organization and the managers working together. Many organizations preach teamwork. You walk around the building and see posters with happy groups of people working and playing together. You read company mission statements and they say something about being the best team. People are assigned to teams, yet teamwork is lacking. Why is this? It is because the organization and its managers do not hold people accountable for working in teams or reward them for it.
If we truly expect people to cooperate with each other for the common good of the organization, we cannot just evaluate them, rate them, or give them performance appraisals solely for their individual contributions. We have to do all of that for their team contributions as well. When team members understand that you are holding them accountable based on how well they perform as team players, they quickly get the message that teams count. It beats those posters! You have to do the same thing with the reward system. That is, reward people for both their individual and team contributions.
Some managers claim that it is not a good practice to reward some team members more than others. They say that you will never have high-performing teams if you do that. Those managers should take a look at the most successful professional sports teams. They have team members who earn more than others based on the roles they play or their achievements. It works, and their team dynamic is likely strong. Look at many successful and effective work teams. You will often find individual team members making higher salaries or getting special rewards for their individual contributions. It works in those situations, and there is a strong team dynamic on those teams as well.