Maximizing the Power of Teams
Maximizing the Power of TeamsGiven the complexities of our world, leaders can no longer lead by expertise alone. They must work with and through others, collaborate, and build partnerships both inside their organization and often with external partners, stakeholders, and communities. When we get it right, teams can have a positive influence that permeates quickly to other teams, teams of teams, networks, and communities. Teamwork becomes the glue that bonds people together around the shared purpose and collectively engages their hearts and minds. They reach for and achieve expectations that are far greater than their single contributions. It’s magical.
Unfortunately, building and achieving the benefits of teamwork, collaboration, and partnerships is complex. It requires ongoing attention to the interplay of your Use-of-Self as the leader or member of the team, network, or community and your relationships with others to get work done to achieve your shared purpose. If we don’t get it right, the reverse of the magic is true. Territoriality, silos, tension, and conflict can quickly spread like a virus and infect teams and the individuals or other teams that they interact with.
Teamwork is an essential ingredient of the LMC Framework and Process. This chapter will delve into how to create and maximize the power of teams, build partnerships, and enhance collaboration across your organization. We will explore the challenges and complexities of building cohesive teams, and look at techniques and strategies to strengthen teamwork, collaboration, and partnerships in the LMC Process.
It would seem unnecessary to answer this question, but I have seen enough organizations fail to maximize the potential of teams, collaborations, and valuable partnerships to solve problems, achieve greater results, and lead meaningful change. For example, do any of these situations sound familiar to you?
If you can relate to any one of these situations, you need to call a STOP to what you are doing and begin taking advantage of the much higher productivity that teams and teams of teams can achieve through collaboration and partnering to lead and manage meaningful change.
In principle, effective leaders have always achieved results working with and through people. But today’s environment demands a far more conscious effort to work through teams, using collaboration and partnership. You may even need to create networks of teams who work collectively at multiple levels within the organization and sometimes even in partnership with external stakeholders and key resources. Leaders today may also need to develop, coach, and provide opportunities for their direct reports, managers, and employees at all levels of the organization to do the same.
This new focus on forming and leveraging teams can be confusing, even if you have led teams in the past. There are now many types of teams at play in our organizations: senior leadership teams, management teams, departmental teams, project teams, cross-company and cross-functional teams, matrixed teams, design teams, transition teams, multicultural teams, multiprofessional and multidisciplinary teams, multinational teams, global teams, virtual teams, closed-ended and open-ended groups, networks, communities of practice, and teams of teams.
Teams can work well and succeed by collaborating with each other, or they can fail by competing against each other. One leader commented to me about the many diverse team cultures that influenced how people worked in teams at his hospital. They had the hallway culture, weekday and weekend staff cultures, military culture, health care professional culture, physician culture, support staff culture, and an “us” (management) versus “them” (everyone else) culture. He was able to create teamwork and collaboration among these groups by focusing on their common purpose to provide the best patient care experience.
In my research, I found that many organizations struggle with creating highly functional, cohesive teams. In chapter 1,I cited the Change Leadership Challenges study that I conducted in 2014 among 2,000 participants. The study revealed that regardless of the participant’s executive level, expertise, or project, the essential factors for success in their organization were teamwork, collaboration, and working in partnership with others. Many of these 2,000 participants said they found it difficult to build cohesive teams that worked well across the organization and were able to collaborate and build partnerships with strategic and political stakeholders. Some participants had difficulty managing conflict and influencing others when they did not have formal authority or power. Others had difficulty working in virtual teams and building relationships online.
In his book Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, team expert Patrick Lencioni states that the true measure of a team is that it accomplishes the results it sets out to achieve. To do that on a consistent, ongoing basis, a team must overcome five dysfunctions: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results.20
Overcoming these challenges is even more complex when we layer on the frequent changes that often occur in the team’s membership. People come and go, others change roles. Such changes can interfere with the team’s development on its journey to overcome those five dysfunctions and become what I call a “cohesive team.”
In my view, cohesive teams are composed of people who
Developing teams to lead meaningful change cannot be a short-term expectation. It is an iterative process that takes place over the course of the entire lifecycle of a team. It requires understanding and attending to the needs of each member as well as to the entire team’s interpersonal and group dynamics as they work together. Team development may need particular attention at various stages of the team’s journey, such as when it is just forming, when it is already working together, and when it is going off track and needs to be aligned. Teams can also benefit from development when members join or leave the team. Development can also be useful and effective when teams need to renew their commitment or be challenged to perform at a higher level to move into the next phase of their journey.
The seven guiding principles of the LMC Framework defined in chapter 3 apply to how we develop cohesive teams and the development programs that we design to support them. Principle 2 (develop and engage people) reminds us that the development of the team needs to be grounded in their real work and be multidimensional by including both formal and informal ways of learning that apply to the individual, team, and other levels in the organization. Principle 3 (build relationships and foster teamwork and collaboration) reinforces that we need to look at cohesive teams as a dynamic human system that is constantly changing and impacted by their interactions with each other and their internal and external environments. Teams are also influenced by their members’ individual Use-of-Self and the impact they each have as they interact.
Developing cohesive teams throughout the organization starts with the top team. It sets the tone and models the mindsets, values, and behaviors of teamwork, collaboration, and partnerships. The top team can have a positive cascading impact that permeates into those managers, supervisors, and employees whom they lead and manage across the organization. If teamwork at the top is not aligned, the opposite is true: it can have a negative cascading impact that can erode trust and create tensions and conflict. These same cascading impacts exist with leaders and teams at other levels of the organization.
We know that change is not a linear process. This also applies to how we develop teams. In my experience, creating cohesive teams and maximizing their power is an art, craft, and science, requiring a multifaceted and multilayered approach. An example of the art of team building is the paradox that one cannot focus on developing the team leader in isolation from the team, nor can one develop the team without paying attention to each member’s impact on the others or on the larger human systems that they work with and in, such as those they partner with and serve. In effect, you need to think in terms of a systemic approach that simultaneously and collectively aims to develop the individuals, their interrelationships, and their group dynamics working together as a team. This complexity of perspectives and thoughtful attention to the entire canvas thus becomes as much an art form as a master artist might employ, stepping back at times to see the big picture or zooming in at other times to look at the details.
An example of the craft of team building is the need to create a healthy team culture that pays attention to the emotional health and well-being of the team while not abandoning its goals. You do this by balancing the expression of emotions that may arise within the team with the practical work that must be done. Neither can be disregarded if both the individual and the team are to thrive, not just survive.
As for the science of team building, cohesive teams also need hard-nosed mechanics to help them be successful. These include things like a team charter, organizational structures, decision-making processes, and tools and supports to advance their work, lead and manage change, and enhance their learning and development. Developing an evaluation process is also critical and should include a needs assessment, a baseline measure of performance, and ways to monitor the individual and the team’s performance throughout the LMC Process. This helps the team understand when and why they are being successful or when they need to correct or adjust their approach.
To launch any change effort with a goal of maximizing the greater power of teams, I recommend forming a design team composed of a mix of internal and external expertise. This could include both internal and external coaches, trainers, consultants, and partners whose role will be to design, monitor, support, and evaluate the team-building efforts. At the same time, I also recommend that once other teams are formed, involving each team to co-develop their own development plan ensures their commitment to the strategies of change laid out by the design team. Each team can thus take part in developing the more specific tactics that are relevant and grounded in their real work, address their needs, and help them achieve meaningful results.
There are many well-researched models of team development and psychometric assessments to formally diagnose and assess individual, team, and organizational development and performance. It is beyond the scope of this book to explain these models, but I do recommend understanding and using one of these team development models and psychometric assessments to provide benchmarking and data points during the change effort. These can help create an objective, shared understanding of the strengths, challenges, and development opportunities to improve individual, leadership, team, and organizational performance. However, these assessments need to consider the context of your workplace and be aligned with your goals and objectives. For this reason, it is valuable to include external experts in the early design team meetings so as to orient its members to the theoretical and psychometric tools that can assist with the team’s development. This knowledge can then be cascaded down to the internal team members who will be co-developing their tactics for the solutions, techniques, and supports that will help them perform at their best.
If you do not hire external resources, it is important to develop your own formal leadership and team assessments and pulse checks to monitor the needs, performance, and impacts of individuals and teams. It is useful to conduct these assessments at several critical milestones along the team’s journey so you can get a sense of whether their development is moving forward or is blocked. At a minimum, here are some questions that are worth asking individual leaders and team members to assess informally how well they are working as a cohesive team to lead meaningful change:
Regardless of whichever theory of group and team development you subscribe to, it can be useful to have a formalized and concrete set of baseline standards for the team’s process, procedures, and interpersonal and team dynamics. In my work with organizations, I have devised ten guidelines for cohesive teamwork. Adopt or adapt them as needed throughout the lifecycle of your team. They can also be used when you need to coordinate teams of teams. Effectively, these guidelines are the basis for what I call a “team charter” that members agree to abide by.
Here is an example of how one leader (who had been a participant in my Change Leadership Essentials program) applied these LMC guidelines in his approach to building a cohesive team in a complex environment.
John (his name has been changed) was a director responsible for developing and installing a new financial management system for his company. The executive management team had authorized him to develop a new system that would streamline, standardize, and integrate the company’s business processes into one system to ensure the financials were tracked and accurate so that the company could grow and deliver plans to the market with confidence.
John assumed the role as project leader to oversee and implement this work. However, he did not have formal authority over the team he was to lead. The company had a matrix structure, so team members working on the project still reported to their functional managers. John’s team also worked with their respective functional and extended teams to provide the necessary inputs and implement the project plans. In addition, John worked with external consultants who provided expertise that the organization did not have internally.
John’s new role was a development move for him and a new leadership challenge. He had to lead this team and a team of teams, plus convince political stakeholders to agree on and commit to a shared vision by influencing and coaching them. At the same time, he was responsible for delivering the system on time and on budget. It was a critical project, and the company’s success depended on it.
John knew this project would require a significant culture shift, not only as they designed and built the system, but also when it was implemented throughout the organization. The planning, accounting, and management team members who were part of the project team had to rethink the way they developed their financial plans and measured outcomes. They were asked to use new software to support a new planning process that would be less flexible and more rigorous. It would also require alignment between some new divisions.
John knew he had to form the right team, build collaboration, and form partnerships to be successful. However, he was not ready for the degree of resistance and lack of teamwork he faced. Firstly, there was co-opitition (cooperation and competition) between the departments. The functional and extended teams were territorial about protecting their resources, including their people and budgets. They also had long-standing relationships with suppliers and partners that they did not want to change. Legacy systems were not being fully used, which indicated greater efficiencies were needed. At the same time, there was an organizational review underway that created uncertainty about future work and job security.
To add to the mix, the external consultants were competing with the internal people. They acted as “the experts” and did not take time to fully understand or respect the internal knowledge and expertise, nor the issues and concerns raised by those internal team members. All in all, this project was highly political, yet the company’s future depended on it. John had a mandate to work together as a team to develop and implement this solution. The plan was the easy part; building a cohesive team was harder.
Here is how John began to handle the challenge. The culture shift required the team to be more transparent about the project plan and expected outcomes. They learned that they needed to communicate more frequently. They also conducted a stakeholder analysis every two weeks to determine who was onside and what else they needed to do to help people have confidence and participate in the project plan. This process helped the team work better together. It also modeled for themselves and the rest of the organization the values and behaviors of teamwork, collaboration, and partnerships between the people on the team and their departments.
They held working sessions focused on change leadership and change management with both the external consultants and their internal teams. This created a common language and opportunities to learn about each member and their expertise, strengths, issues, and concerns. They coached each other and their extended teams. They shared wise practices and communicated about how they were using the diverse knowledge, skill sets, and experiences of the people involved to inform the development of the new system and the process to get them there. Their approach required each of the team members to be a leader of change and, at the same time, manage the plan. This helped break down the silos, created alignment, and strengthened teamwork and collaboration across the organization.
In those sessions, they also developed a Master Change Plan that helped them align the project plan with other initiatives simultaneously underway in the organization. This also helped the project team to get the approvals they needed from various political stakeholders and to make use of the work of other teams such that they reduced costs and time, shared the vision for change, and got support for the project across the entire organization. In the end, John was able to complete the project on time and within budget, which he knew would not have been possible without the degree of teamwork he had been able to assemble.