Promoting Teamwork in Your Organization
As a senior leader, you set the tone for teamwork and collaboration for the rest of your organization. Although most employees may not see and talk with senior leaders on a regular basis, research shows that what happens among you and your colleagues somehow finds its way through the organization.
The actions you and other senior leaders take (and don’t take) and the things you say (and don’t say) send signals about whether collaboration is truly valued. If you believe that teamwork is an ingredient for business and personal success, you’ll want to reinforce that message.
The following are a set of 10 senior leader tips for applying the science of teamwork. As you read through them, we encourage you to identify at least a couple that you will emphasize or focus on over the next few months. You might also find it of value to share and discuss the tips with your colleagues on the leadership team. Collectively, which are you doing well and where might additional attention be beneficial?
a. Don’t overuse teams—they can be a great solution, but “Let’s form a team to tackle (or research) that” isn’t the correct answer to every problem.
b. When you create a team, be sure to provide it with the resources it needs to succeed (people, talent, funding). If you are reluctant to dedicate ample resources to a team, you should be asking, “Do we really need that team?”
c. When you create a team, be sure their mission is clear and give them ample authority to accomplish it. If you’ve ever been on a team that has a vague sense of direction or that works on something for a while and later discovers that isn’t what the sponsor intended, you know how frustrating that can be. To avoid this, ask the team to assemble a brief team charter, provide them with redirection as needed, and then give them the authority to do what they need to do.
2. Make “talent” decisions that send the right signals about the value of teamwork.
a. Advocate for the promotion of employees who are personally competent and effective team players.
b. When evaluating talent, continually ask the questions, “Does this person make others around them better or worse?” and “Do they have a legacy of team successes?”
c. Do not put talented individuals who have no interest in or competency for leadership into positions where they are expected to guide teams to success.
3. You get what you tolerate. If you accept toxic or “all about me” employees in your organization, you should expect to see less collaboration.
a. Don’t make excuses for toxic employees—no matter how much revenue they generate or how smart they may be. If almost no one wants to work with someone, that’s an indication that you’ve got a problem.
b. Explore “how” your organizational stars have gotten ahead. Did they do so by stepping on others? Burning out their teams? Claiming all the credit? Are self-serving behaviors viewed as acceptable in your organization?
c. Consider what happens to “knowledge/information hoarders.” When hoarding is rewarded more than sharing (“He’s the only one who knows that, so he must be smart”), people learn not to share what they know unless it is required or will make them look good.
4. You get what you encourage.
a. Promote the value of collaboration—shine a light on instances where collaboration and teamwork have led to business successes. If the stories you tell always feature individual “heroes,” it communicates that “me” is always more important than “we.” Successes are rarely attributable to just one person, even if they appear that way at first glance.
b. Reflect on what you and other senior leaders have done or said (or perhaps didn’t do or say) that sends a message—intentionally or inadvertently—about whether collaboration matters.
c. Walk the talk. People believe much more of what they see than what they hear, so if you want to promote teamwork and collaboration, demonstrate that through your day-to-day actions. At an absolute minimum, be civil. When you need to be tough, do so, but don’t be rude.
5. No badmouthing other senior leadership team members or other units or functions—period.
a. You may think that what is said behind closed doors remains hidden, but somehow it travels through the organization, making it even more difficult for the people below you in the hierarchy to collaborate with their colleagues in other areas.
b. If you have a problem with another senior leader, talk with them directly. Nothing good comes from talking about them to others.
6. Work to create “psychological safety.”
a. You can’t see and know everything, so you need people to be willing to speak up, offer their point of view, seek assistance, provide feedback, ask questions, admit to errors, and share expertise. Psychological safety is what enables people to believe they can do those things without being judged harshly—and is one of the strongest predictors of team effectiveness.
b. A few behaviors can make a big difference—if you admit a mistake, acknowledge you don’t know something, thank people for offering dissenting points of view, and treat errors as opportunities to learn (rather than to punish), then psychological safety will increase. When you “chew out” someone in front of others for admitting a mistake, they all learn not to speak up.
c. Psychological safety starts at the top and permeates an organization—so your behaviors set the stage.
7. Allocate a little time to improve the way your senior leadership team (SLT) works together.
a. When the SLT works well together, your business is more likely to succeed. Plus, it sends the right signal about collaboration to the rest of the organization. Most senior leadership teams don’t work shoulder to shoulder each day, and each SLT member oversees a unique part of the business, so SLT coordination doesn’t happen “naturally.” It requires a little attention.
b. The best teams self-adjust, so allocate 60 minutes at least twice per year, to conduct a SLT debrief. Discuss “How are we working as a team? “What are we doing well?” “What could we do better?” and “What adjustments will we make?” Be sure that the discussion covers teamwork and not just task work. Ask question such as, “How well are we keeping each other informed?” “How useful are our meetings?” “Is it clear who owns certain decisions?” etc.?
c. One simple trick that will improve your meetings is to clarify, for each agenda item, whether the intent is to update the team, seek their input, or make a decision together. We suspect you’ve seen what happens when a team member thinks they are simply going to provide an update and other people start offering “unsolicited” advice or try to “take over” the decision. Clarity of intent helps.
8. Be sure that the members of the SLT are on the “same page.”
a. As previously noted, members of your SLT probably represent different parts of the organization and may not work together on a daily basis. Team members can start to interpret things differently, leading to disconnects. It can be hard for SLT members to maintain a “shared mental model.”
b. Be sure there is a common understanding among your team members about roles and priorities. Would each of you provide the same answer to the questions, “What are our organization’s top priorities right now?” and “Who is responsible for X, Y and Z?” If not, spend time to clarify it.
c. Consider allocating three minutes at the end of each SLT meeting to confirm any decisions or action plans that were made and agree what everyone will communicate to others. When SLT members communicate conflicting messages, it has a ripple effect that makes it harder for those below you to collaborate.
9. Cultivate working relationships that cross functional boundaries and levels.
a. If you only spend time with, and are only seen with, people from your function or who are at your level, it sends a subtle message to others that silos are the norm.
b. Recognize where silos or “fault lines” have formed or may emerge in your organization. Where are the main silos in your organization? Try to be a connector across those borders rather than a gatekeeper. If you can’t be the connector, find someone who can; for example, someone who has had experience in two functional areas can often serve as effective bridge because they “speak both languages.”
10. Insist on a periodic review of organizational practices and policies that can send signals about teamwork.
a. For example, do your performance management and reward practices encourage or inhibit teamwork? Are teamwork skills systematically assessed during the hiring process? Who tends to get choice assignments and promotions in your organization? What messages are conveyed about the value of collaboration during the employee onboarding process? You will find a list of diagnostic questions for examining organizational “conditions” that can influence teamwork in Tool C at the back of the book.