| All Teams need a Leader, but successful Leaders have great Teams |
 Teamwork:
"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision.
The ability to direct individual accomplishment toward organizational
objectives; it is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon
results." To obtain some practical tips on building a strong team, Document Boss approached Graham Whitmarsh, successful President and CEO of Mercury Scheduling Systems inc. a software development company for the airline industry. Graham, whose earlier career included being a specialist submarine warfare officer with the Royal Navy, gave the following insights: Teamwork The cornerstone of success is teamwork. This is recognized in sports, witness at the highest level, well organized, well-drilled and functional teams overcoming opposing "teams" of more talented individuals not playing well together. Ultimately, the truly great sports teams are groups of highly talented individuals melded into well-organized, well-drilled, and functional teams. These Super-teams are always inspired by Leaders (Coaches) whose primary focus is "The Team". The Leader only becomes a great Leader through the success of his team. Corporate life, while often less publicly visible is no different. Running a company is a team effort and in many ways more difficult than running a sports team. In corporate life, resources are always constrained, the organizations diverse and the competition often less well defined. However, the role of the CEO in being responsible for building the team is no different. But a great team is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Building and maintaining a cohesive Leadership Team is a prerequisite to corporate success, no matter which measure you choose. There are many theories about leadership and management. It is potentially simple if you recognize early the role of the Team. Establishing and maintaining the Team is the fundamental and first step to a healthy and successful company. Now we have the need, how can we create a great Team from a group of talented and complimentary individuals? In my 20 years of experience as a team member and Leader, in Sporting, Military and Corporate environments it comes down to five basic building blocks. Which need to be initially established in order, but which can be maintained independently. 1. Build trust 2. Establish productive conflict 3. Provide clarity 4. Hold people accountable 5. Focus on results All five building blocks are inter-related. Here's how it works…it starts with trust, which is actually at the core. Why is trust so important? It makes people feel comfortable when it comes to engaging in productive conflict. Conflict makes decision-making more easily defined, since the Leader knows that he or she has heard the authentic opinions and concerns of those involved. Clear decisions with buy-in, make it easier for a CEO to hold individual's accountable, making results a matter of predictability and planning, not speculation and hope. 1. Build Trust Employees want to see their leaders as human beings, so they can be comfortable being human themselves. In organizations where the Leader is never wrong and never weak, others emulate that behavior. The result is a never-ending posturing exercise, where real dialogue and decision-making die. Leaders who are open to acknowledging their weaknesses and mistakes build rapport and trust with their people. They eliminate much of the politics that exist in many companies. As a result, meetings and interactions between executives do not become positioning exercises, but rather meaningful, progressive and productive. Team members need to feel they can express themselves with the confidence that their views will be respected. Building the level of trust necessary to achieve this is challenging and takes time. A CEO must define a strategy to build trust and rigidly stick to it. Small deviations that undermined trust may never be recovered. There is no how-to formula. The key is to embrace the self-examination that reveals the real issues and keep them open where they can be addressed. Of course, this cannot happen overnight, like so much in life, it is a messy, constant process. "as trust builds you can establish productive conflict" 2. Establish productive conflict Conflict is essential in a healthy organization; many Leaders mistakenly and naively want to preserve harmony. This creates an artificial peace, which suppresses good ideas. Productive conflict involves passionate, ideological discussions, debating, even arguments, around issues that every company must face. Leaders often feel uncomfortable allowing passionate disagreement in meetings because they believe it is an indication of failure on their part to control their teams. So they create unnecessary compromises, which ensure mediocrity, before the issues have been put on the table. Avoiding this may not seem too difficult, but failure to do it will kill good decision-making and creativity. Communication needs to be open; team members must not leave meetings wishing they had said something. The best decisions are made when the experiences from a group of individuals are shared and there is buy-in. The CEO's role is to steer team members away from the negative conflict and keep them talking about issues and topics that are for the good of the organization, not the person. Maintain a "convince or be convinced" approach to every decision and the team will achieve total buy-in. "out of productive conflict will come clarity" 3. Provide Clarity Commitment to a clear vision, mission and values are at the heart of corporate culture. They form the basis for every decision made within a company. Companies often spend time and efforts creating a vision, supported by a mission statement, but overlook values. Values define the people in the organization and the people define the culture. This is critical since every person in the company must hold a small number of common core values. The vision, mission and values must be continuously communicated to create clarity. These combined with the continuous communication of strategies, goals, roles and responsibilities will create a healthy organization. Clarity also involves the way a company makes decisions. Good decisions must meet two criteria; they must be timely and taken on the basis of an appropriate amount of supporting information. Low risk decisions need lower levels of investigation, discussion and scrutiny than critical decisions. As a Leader it is better to be clear about decisions that are made rather than certain. The old adage from the Army has merit, "Any decision is better than no decision at all". If the plans you make in the spirit of creating clarity turn out to be wrong when more information becomes available, change plans and explain why. Taking this risk is much better than causing corporate paralysis. The role of CEO requires skill sets that are often very different to those that propelled executives to the role. Reluctant to abandon skills that have always worked for them, CEO's who hold dearly to their ability to analyze every option, explore every idea, and debate with team members the relative merits risk crossing the line between analysis and paralysis. This can happen long before the executive team realizes the rest of the company has ground to a halt and become demotivated. "with clarity people can be held accountable" 4. Hold people accountable Now with a clear set of goals and expectations team members can be confronted and held accountable. This must be done in a timely manner, confronting individuals' immediately about both performance and behavior. Holding team members accountable will build trust within the group. If individuals and teams expect to be held accountable through having clarity, they will perform at a higher level and exert pier pressure to ensure group goals are met. Accountability creates focus and provides motivation. CEO's who do not hold team members accountable are the first to lose respect, and inevitably the results of their organizations suffer. Individual accountability for behavior is as important as accountability for results. The often unspoken desire to be well liked by subordinates can correspond to hesitation when faced with holding them accountable. The cost of being unwilling to create an awkward situation, or to jeopardize their relationship with a colleague is high. If individuals are not held accountable, results are uncertain at best. Holding people accountable is what makes the CEO's job a lonely one, probably the most isolated role in any organization. "when team members are accountable, the focus will be on results" 5.
Focus on results
"establishing and maintaining a great Team is the fundamental and first step to a healthy and successful company"
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