From Susan M. Heathfield,
How to Make Teams Effective

• How to Build Powerfully Successful Work Teams

People in every workplace talk about building the team, working as a team, and my team, but few understand how to create the experience of team work or how to develop an effective team. Belonging to a team, in the broadest sense, is a result of feeling part of something larger than yourself. It has a lot to do with your understanding of the mission or objectives of your organization.

In a team-oriented environment, you contribute to the overall success of the organization. You work with fellow members of the organization to produce these results. Even though you have a specific job function and you belong to a specific department, you are unified with other organization members to accomplish the overall objectives. The bigger picture drives your actions; your function exists to serve the bigger picture.

You need to differentiate this overall sense of teamwork from the task of developing an effective intact team that is formed to accomplish a specific goal. People confuse the two team building objectives. This is why so many team building seminars, meetings, retreats and activities are deemed failures by their participants. Leaders failed to define the team they wanted to build. Developing an overall sense of team work is different from building an effective, focused work team when you consider team building approaches.

Twelve Cs for Team Building

Executives, managers and organization staff members universally explore ways to improve business results and profitability. Many view team-based, horizontal, organization structures as the best design for involving all employees in creating business success.

No matter what you call your team-based improvement effort: continuous improvement, total quality, lean manufacturing or self-directed work teams, you are striving to improve results for customers. Few organizations, however, are totally pleased with the results their team improvement efforts produce. If your team improvement efforts are not living up to your expectations, this self-diagnosing checklist may tell you why. Successful team building, that creates effective, focused work teams, requires attention to each of the following.

• Clear Expectations: Has executive leadership clearly communicated its expectations for the team’s performance and expected outcomes? Do team members understand why the team was created? Is the organization demonstrating constancy of purpose in supporting the team with resources of people, time and money? Does the work of the team receive sufficient emphasis as a priority in terms of the time, discussion, attention and interest directed its way by executive leaders?

• Context: Do team members understand why they are participating on the team? Do they understand how the strategy of using teams will help the organization attain its communicated business goals? Can team members define their team’s importance to the accomplishment of corporate goals? Does the team understand where its work fits in the total context of the organization’s goals, principles, vision and values?

• Commitment: Do team members want to participate on the team? Do team members feel the team mission is important? Are members committed to accomplishing the team mission and expected outcomes? Do team members perceive their service as valuable to the organization and to their own careers? Do team members anticipate recognition for their contributions? Do team members expect their skills to grow and develop on the team? Are team members excited and challenged by the team opportunity?

• Competence: Does the team feel that it has the appropriate people participating? (As an example, in a process improvement, is each step of the process represented on the team?) Does the team feel that its members have the knowledge, skill and capability to address the issues for which the team was formed? If not, does the team have access to the help it needs? Does the team feel it has the resources, strategies and support needed to accomplish its mission?

• Charter: Has the team taken its assigned area of responsibility and designed its own mission, vision and strategies to accomplish the mission. Has the team defined and communicated its goals; its anticipated outcomes and contributions; its timelines; and how it will measure both the outcomes of its work and the process the team followed to accomplish their task? Does the leadership team or other coordinating group support what the team has designed?

• Control: Does the team have enough freedom and empowerment to feel the ownership necessary to accomplish its charter? At the same time, do team members clearly understand their boundaries? How far may members go in pursuit of solutions? Are limitations (i.e. monetary and time resources) defined at the beginning of the project before the team experiences barriers and rework?Is the team’s reporting relationship and accountability understood by all members of the organization? Has the organization defined the team’s authority? To make recommendations? To implement its plan? Is there a defined review process so both the team and the organization are consistently aligned in direction and purpose? Do team members hold each other accountable for project timelines, commitments and results? Does the organization have a plan to increase opportunities for self-management among organization members?

• Collaboration: Does the team understand team and group process? Do members understand the stages of group development? Are team members working together effectively interpersonally? Do all team members understand the roles and responsibilities of team members? team leaders? team recorders? Can the team approach problem solving, process improvement, goal setting and measurement jointly? Do team members cooperate to accomplish the team charter? Has the team established group norms or rules of conduct in areas such as conflict resolution, consensus decision making and meeting management? Is the team using an appropriate strategy to accomplish its action plan?

• Communication: Are team members clear about the priority of their tasks? Is there an established method for the teams to give feedback and receive honest performance feedback? Does the organization provide important business information regularly? Do the teams understand the complete context for their existence? Do team members communicate clearly and honestly with each other? Do team members bring diverse opinions to the table? Are necessary conflicts raised and addressed?

• Creative Innovation: Is the organization really interested in change? Does it value creative thinking, unique solutions, and new ideas? Does it reward people who take reasonable risks to make improvements? Or does it reward the people who fit in and maintain the status quo? Does it provide the training, education, access to books and films, and field trips necessary to stimulate new thinking?

• Consequences: Do team members feel responsible and accountable for team achievements? Are rewards and recognition supplied when teams are successful? Is reasonable risk respected and encouraged in the organization? Do team members fear reprisal? Do team members spend their time finger pointing rather than resolving problems? Is the organization designing reward systems that recognize both team and individual performance? Is the organization planning to share gains and increased profitability with team and individual contributors? Can contributors see their impact on increased organization success?

• Coordination: Are teams coordinated by a central leadership team that assists the groups to obtain what they need for success? Have priorities and resource allocation been planned across departments? Do teams understand the concept of the internal customer-the next process, anyone to whom they provide a product or a service? Are cross-functional and multi-department teams common and working together effectively? Is the organization developing a customer-focused process-focused orientation and moving away from traditional departmental thinking?

• Cultural Change: Does the organization recognize that the team-based, collaborative, empowering, enabling organizational culture of the future is different than the traditional, hierarchical organization it may currently be? Is the organization planning to or in the process of changing how it rewards, recognizes, appraises, hires, develops, plans with, motivates and manages the people it employs?Does the organization plan to use failures for learning and support reasonable risk? Does the organization recognize that the more it can change its climate to support teams, the more it will receive in pay back from the work of the teams?

Spend time and attention on each of these twelve tips to ensure your work teams contribute most effectively to your business success. Your team members will love you, your business will soar, and empowered people will “own” and be responsible for their work processes. Can your work life get any better than this?

Written by: Laurie B. Moret, PhD and Dee Gaeddert, PhD

The “war for talent” has focused awareness on the need for leadership at all levels. It has also increased the expectation that executive development investments will pay off visibly and quickly. There can be no doubt that some of these expectations are not being met. While successful executive development engagements take many forms, to be truly effective, they should share one important quality: the participation of highly proactive and engaged leaders.

Leaders do not have to climb ropes or jump off cliffs to learn about themselves in ways that help make them more productive, more efficient, happier, and better qualified to take on new challenges. They do, however, have to take an active approach to selecting and managing development experiences that best fit their needs and their company’s.

Common executive development engagements include:

• Simulated learning experiences that place leaders in situations that replicate challenges they will face;
• Targeted skill building, such as media training tailored to an executive who will be interviewed on TV;
• Individual executive coaching or team-based coaching on a variety of subjects (e.g., specialists in interpersonal relations);
• Stretch assignments designed to provide necessary experience for a future role;
• Targeted assessment and development planning as part of succession planning or career path planning;
• Course work to improve technical and/or soft skills;
• Mentoring programs; and
• Peer networking roundtables.

With such a wide array of development opportunities, it can be difficult to know which one will deliver the right results for the right time. Executives should evaluate their needs and seek an appropriate development opportunity any time they encounter a major professional event: a promotion, a merger or acquisition, a move from headquarters to a line function (or vice versa), or a major shift in job role and responsibilities (e.g., the composition or size of the workforce they lead), to name a few.

There may be other triggering events, such as when leaders question their ability to handle important challenges; or, just as important (and more challenging), when they are perceived to have problems handling an important aspect of their role. If one of those situations is coupled with the loss of a trusted adviser or confidant, seeking development support is all the more important.

The following tips provide some guidance for achieving the best outcome:

Assess the landscape. Some organizations maintain an executive development process and automatically include leaders when they take on new roles. Other companies are less generous. Identify the norm in your company and understand the extent to which your request for development qualifies as a typical practice.

Demonstrate your potential. Anticipate that you may have to build a case for your request by demonstrating your communication skills and business savvy. A convincing case often depends on how self-motivated you are perceived to be. Making an articulate, passionate, and well-supported case for your professional development can help tilt those perceptions in your favor.

Make the business case. While executive development often is expensive, the returns can be sizeable. Several recent studies, for example, identified returns of 500% to 600% on investments in executive coaching. Lay out how the experience will improve your contribution to the organization and how those improvements align with current and future business demands. If you control your own budget, you may simply need to be prepared to articulate to the board or a financial officer how much, and where, money was spent.

The time is now. Don’t wait until your hair is on fire to get help. Regardless of what type of experience you ultimately seek, it is easier to gain financial and interpersonal support when you are addressing a need in advance rather than waiting until the situation is urgent.

Written by:  Harvey Schachter, December 17, 2007 at 6:26 AM EST

January is often a time for offsite meetings aimed at team building and leadership development, but too often the noble intentions get derailed. Stephen Parker, a senior vice-president at BlessingWhite consultancy, highlights six pitfalls

Not prepared

Too often urgency overrides preparation, as a CEO insists on tackling a key issue immediately, often within two weeks.

The HR officials may have been waiting for years to get the executive to invest in her team and are thrilled they have a convert, but the issue gets stapled onto an already overcrowded offsite agenda. The lack of preparation means stakeholders aren’t properly consulted in advance so the facilitator enters blind.

And, oh yes, the sponsor, who desperately wanted the session, has been inaccessible since the original brief meeting.

Don’t Engage Emotionally

Leadership is personal, and must begin with inward reflection.

But that involves risk, for the participants and the facilitator, and needs time for trust to be forged. Too often, the team doesn’t have enough time or will, and just goes through the motions.

Overexuberant CEO

Most offsites begin with the leader urging everyone to “speak up!”

But it’s easy for a CEO to mistake his vehemence for leadership, and fail to keep his forceful personality in check.

“While he believes that he is exhorting everyone to join in with candour, the group hears a threatening ultimatum. Intimidated, they close up, the CEO becomes frustrated, and the situation becomes worse,” Mr. Parker writes in Leadership Excellence.

Awkward Issues Avoided

Few senior leaders consider how their personal qualities or their team’s behaviour might affect performance.

But to be effective, the offsite must discuss the undiscussables – the awkward issues and bad behaviour impeding team effectiveness.

Trendy Triumphs

Excited about the latest business bestseller, the CEO fixates everyone’s attention on that book, and the result is superficial discussion.

Instead, hold a candid discussion of the outcomes you want and the time-tested ways to get there. Don’t ride the waves of trends.

Unreceptive Culture

Leadership development will fail if your culture is not receptive to change. If the culture, for example, punishes risk taking or rewards the same behaviours that need changing, your efforts will be wasted unless those cultural mindsets are altered.