Breakthrough Teams for Breakneck Times: Unlocking the Genius of Creative Collaboration

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered...

Author: Laurie Lamantia | Lisa Gundry

25 downloads 804 Views 682KB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Vice President and Publisher: Cynthia A. Zigmund Editorial Director: Donald J. Hull Senior Acquisitions Editor: Jean Iversen Cook Senior Project Editor: Trey Thoelcke Interior Design: Lucy Jenkins Cover Design: Scott Rattray Design Cover Photo: Beau Regard/Masterfile Typesetting: the dotted i © 2001 by Lisa Gundry and Laurie LaMantia Published by Dearborn Trade, a Kaplan Professional Company All rights reserved. The text of this publication, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America 01

02

03

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gundry, Lisa K., DATEBreakthrough teams for breakneck times : unlocking the genius of creative collaboration / Lisa Gundry, Laurie LaMantia. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-7931-4273-3 (hdbk) 1. Teams in the workplace. 2. Industrial management. I. LaMantia, Laurie. II. Title. HD66 .G86 2001 658.4′036—dc21 2001000682 Dearborn Trade books are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. For more information, please call the special sales department at 800-6219621, ext. 4410, or write to Dearborn Financial Publishing, Inc., 155 N. Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60606-1719.

Praise for Breakthrough Teams for Breakneck Times “If committees were the curse of the machine age, creative teams are the basis for victory in the information age. Breakthrough Teams for Breakneck Times can help any team reach its full potential, by applying the core principles and practical tools in this useful guidebook.” —Rosabeth Moss Kanter Bestselling author of Evolve! Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow “If you believe in the power of teamwork, you will enjoy the ten principles in this book. The authors explore the importance of teams in a refreshing way that is relevant in today’s fast-paced world. They touch concepts that are applicable to leaders and teams in any organization.” —Jack M. Greenberg Chairman and CEO McDonald’s Corporation “I am placing this in my well-referenced creativity tool kit. This book is loaded with recipes for the team seeking a new level of performance and satisfaction. When you mix together the appropriate ingredients (from the book), you are able to provide the most important meal for the creatively starved team—breakfast!” —Gail Tate Project Management Director Lucent Technologies, Inc.

“Success in today’s knowledge economy requires tapping into the creative talents of teams. Breakthrough Teams for Breakneck Times provides managers with simple but innovative tools to optimize team creativity and performance. These are principles that can be applied to project teams assembled together to solve a problem or deliver a client solution or for permanent teams that want to take their performance to the next level.” —Heather Bock, Ph.D. Manager, Executive Management Solutions Team Arthur Andersen “It’s obvious that Laurie and Lisa have practiced innovation in real world business environments as evidenced by their short stories and Tools You Can Use applications. As a person with primary responsibility for strategic development in my organization, I found myself reading and taking a lot of notes.” —George Babish VP of Imagineering and Strategic Development YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago “It is impossible these days for any organization to survive without a dynamic team to nurture and develop any endeavor. This book is a source of inspiration and guidance for the gogetter in all of us.” —George Zaharoff Chairman and Creative Director The Zaharoff Companies

“Collaboration is a thing, collaborating is a process. Collaborating implies involvement and commitment with accountability for tactical implementation and results. It should be a positive experience, which brings out the best in people, and the prerequisite is a positive attitude from all team members. The authors have developed an outstanding set of guidelines to achieve successful results through collaborating. Starting with, if we really want collaboration, we need to get over the mindset of getting people to do what we want them to do.” —Tom Howe Chairman of the Board Jays Foods “The authors pave a pathway for team building that allows for creative collaboration without placing limits on what a team should be. This book provides tremendous insight into building breakthrough teams and should be required reading for team members at all levels.” —Teresa Lovely Manager–Financial Services Interlake Material Handling, Inc. “Collaboration is the essential nature of innovation, and the authors’ ten principles for creative collaboration are clear and powerful. Filled with practical tools and guidance, this book actually gets to the core of working together more effectively.” —Joyce Wycoff Cofounder of the InnovationNetwork

DEDICATION For Peter and Marc, whose love sustains our efforts.

CONTENTS Foreword ix Acknowledgments xiii Preface xvii

GETTING INTO A BREAKTHROUGH FRAME OF MIND 1 DREAM TEAMS What Makes Them Work? 9

PRINCIPLE ONE Come Together for a Meaningful Reason 21

PRINCIPLE TWO Co-Create an Understanding of the Vision 43

PRINCIPLE THREE Choose the Culture You Want 61

PRINCIPLE FOUR Engage in Courageous Speech and Action 89

PRINCIPLE FIVE Cultivate Shared Responsibility and Shared Ownership 107

PRINCIPLE SIX Explore Risk Taking 129

PRINCIPLE SEVEN Govern from Within 145

PRINCIPLE EIGHT Build Resiliency Muscles 171

PRINCIPLE NINE Make Change Happen 193

PRINCIPLE TEN Play and Rejuvenate 213

PUTTING THE PRINCIPLES IN ACTION What You Can Do 227

OUTTAKES Some Parting Thoughts 239 vii

viii

Contents

Resources 247 Endnotes 253 Index 255 About the Authors 263

FOREWORD Jerry Hirshberg

Teams. Teamwork. Teamplay. What do these words immediately inspire? Yeah, yeah, we know. Groupthink. Forced congeniality. Imposed work styles. Saluting the common denominator and submerging yourself in the prevailing consensus. Carrying your load for the greater good. Suppressing any quirky impulses, getting in line and toeing the line, remembering always the solemn Star Trek credo, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.” Along with such equally abused and overused business platitudes as out-of-the-box thinking and customer-driven innovation, the mere mention of teamwork promotes an automatic tuning out. While the term continues to have positive implications when connected with military leadership, factory work, and competitive sports, it hardly seems to suggest a management strategy that fosters intuitive impulses or creative departures. Yet an examination of the history of breakthrough thinking reveals that divergent thought can indeed emerge from certain kinds of teams. Even the romantic notion of the solitary genius laboring in utter isolation is yielding to a more realistic ix

x

Foreword

picture of the myriad ways highly gifted individuals seek out a community of interactive relationships for creative ideation. The authors of this important book have focused on ways that collaboration and teamwork can be used to ignite rather than snuff out original thought. They have broken through the myth that all teams operate according to the same basic rules, and have instead generated a fresh set of strategies concentrated on an all-important end result: ideas. In so doing they have necessarily broadened and redefined what is generally meant by collaboration, leadership, and sound management practices. Conventional teams know precisely where they are headed from the outset, with a clear map of how to get there. They thrive by mastering what has worked in the past. Perhaps the most significant differentiating feature of breakthrough teams, however, is that they cannot possibly know the final form of their labors until they discover it. This places discovery as the prime priority of effective teamwork when breakthroughs are needed. The process of discovery requires a fresh look at everything held sacrosanct in organizational management, from the role and style of meetings to what is meant by leadership. Using what has worked in the past simply will not get us to the future. There is a central and powerful assumption underpinning the ten principles introduced by Dr. Gundry and Ms. LaMantia. It is that creative thought is not the sole province of a handful of uniquely gifted individuals. I share with the authors the belief that all persons given an appropriately conceived and supportive environment have the capacity for innovative thought. This has served as the foundation for my own work both as a creative design executive in industry and as an author of the book I wrote on the subject, The Creative Priority (Harper Business).

Foreword

xi

This is not to say that we can all be creative geniuses, but that we are all born with an innate creative capability. It is a fundamental human survival and learning instinct. For most of us the energy of this instinct is highest during our formative years, but becomes increasingly eroded by the nature of our educational institutions and later by the conforming pressures of our working environments. This has led to the erroneous assumption that, by their very nature, organizations and groups necessarily suppress divergent thinking. It needn’t be so. While ideas are surely born in individual minds, they can be triggered, enhanced, and transformed by human interaction. The pregnant space between minds is where emerging thoughts collide, overlap, contrast, and sometimes juxtapose with one another to form wholly new concepts and directions, ones that might not have formed in isolation. An instinctive awareness of the vibrancy of this space is what draws us to share our notions with select colleagues and friends, to expose the newly emerging precepts to alien perspectives, and to bounce them off one another in order to lend them critical perspective. We do this quite freely, away from work, where it is safe. “One another” is the most significant phrase in the previous paragraph, because it indicates that it is individuals with whom we are drawn to interact, not the faceless and sometimes threatening entity represented by the group. This recognition and focus on the critical importance of individual minds and personalities resonating with each other distinguishes breakthrough teamwork. The process is not consistently consensual or harmonious at every stage, but it is always stimulating and challenging. And it does not require checking your personality, personal perspectives, or instincts at the door. Instead, the working ambiance in such a group thrives on the interaction of a broad variety of approaches, work styles, and philosophies.

xii

Foreword

Awareness that it is not only acceptable, but mandatory to bring one’s whole and true self to the party is what creates a feeling of security. However, most businesses work to avoid the perceived messiness and threats of divergent approaches and procedures. They favor a coolly logical, objective, and consistently aligned mentality in the workplace. But ideation requires more, and the authors have highlighted the equivalent importance of passion, intuition, play (as in playing around with ideas), risk-taking, and even failure. Breakthrough teams cannot be limited to a linear, sequential, dispassionate mode associated (incorrectly) with the celebrated model of the scientific method. Breakthrough teams require whole-brain thinking and the full engagement of individual personalities, with all their innate passions and idiosyncrasies, working in concert with one another. The variety of viewpoints and preferred methodologies are what lend the creative edge to the group. What we are then led to when following the principles of the breakthrough team is not the primacy of the group, but the living, breathing individuals forming it. This book will surely help to dispel all the tired, oppressive notions conjured up by the term teamwork, and reinvest it with a sense of the vivid creative potential so necessary in this era of breathtaking change. Jerry Hirshberg Past President and Founding Director, Nissan Design International Del Mar, California e-mail: [email protected]

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Every book is the result of collaboration, and ours is no exception. Considering the topic on which we are writing, we wouldn’t have it any other way. This book grew out of the ideas of many people we have worked with, taught, and consulted. Our words spring from those ideas, and we are grateful to the colleagues, students, clients, family, and friends who guided us along the journey to creating this book. In expressing our appreciation we will begin where it all started, with Ida Bialik, friend, entrepreneur, national advocate of small business owners, who introduced us to one another several years ago. Our collaboration culminates in this book, and we thank Ida for that long ago call that started it all. We were able to highlight the ten principles that form this book with the experiences of people who allowed us to come into their organizational and, in some cases, personal lives to have a conversation about what collaboration really is. They gave generously of their time and of their minds, and we express our heartfelt thanks to all of them. They bring this book to life. In true collaborative fashion, we name them alphabetically: xiii

xiv

Acknowledgments

Ralph Ardill of Imagination, LTD; Jonathan Booth of Pharmacia; Saul Carliner of Bentley College; Julie Gwaltney, Mary Janninck, Elyse Piper, Peter Secker, and Amy Grau of Enesco Group, Inc.; Jim Grigoriou of the Davstoc Group; Lea Maurer of Lake Forest High School and formerly of the U.S. National Olympic Swimming Team; Dr. Lynne O’Shea of A.T. Kearney and DePaul University; Marsha Serlin of United Scrap Metals; Diggi Thomson of Unilever; Tony Watson of U.S. Alliance Group; Richard Ybarra of Eureka Communities; and Jerry Zelinski of Lucent Technologies. Their stories reflect inspirational leadership and collaboration as it exists in a variety of organizations they represent, and they also demonstrate courage by placing their actions in line with their intentions. We are indebted to them for their stories and for giving many of us something to shoot for! We express our gratitude to Joanna Sprtel Walters, graduate student in DePaul’s MBA program, for her help in the research and transcription of the interviews for this book. She came to us mid-project, and plunged into it with indefatigable spirit. Her capability and generosity in sharing her network of contacts brought us together with Admiral Tony Watson and Lea Maurer, who are among the collaborative team leaders profiled in this book. We owe much to Jean Iversen Cook, Senior Acquisitions Editor at Dearborn, who first believed in our message and encouraged us to turn it into this book. We gratefully acknowledge Trey Thoelcke, our Senior Project Editor, for his skillful help in shaping the final manuscript, and Lucy Jenkins for her inspiring interior design. From Lisa: I wish to thank my colleagues at DePaul, especially the faculty in the Department of Management. I am grateful to work in such a collaborative climate. Many of you have profoundly influenced the way that I work, and I have no

Acknowledgments

xv

doubt that it shows in this book. Special thanks to Jill Kickul, Margaret Posig, Ray Coye, David Drehmer, and Charlie Prather; to Gerhard Plaschka and Leo V. Ryan for giving creativity a home at DePaul; to the teams in organizations with whom I have worked, who are trying to make a difference; and to all my students whose questions, stories, and presence in my classroom have taught me so many lessons over the years. To all of you and others whose conversations with me these past few months helped me focus and do what matters, I owe heartfelt thanks. To Laurie LaMantia who opened me up to what creativity could look like in organizations and in my own life—thank you for creating these pages with me. Finally, this book would never have come to be without the unending support and love of my family. To my husband Peter, thank you for believing in me and for sharing your own creative spirit, keen perception, and sense of humor that keeps my academic life sharp—your love and understanding made this book possible. My sons Dylan and Austin, who daily enact the creative spirit, are always helping me to grow in ways I never dreamed. My parents, Helga and Hal, who came together from different parts of the world, helped me realize the value of different perspectives, hard work, and finding your passion and following it—all of them deserve my love and gratitude. This book is for you. From Laurie: I would like to begin by thanking my husband Marc. Sometimes I find it difficult to put into words how grateful I am for all you give me. Your willingness to support me in finding my wings, your compassion, and your love are wonderful. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to focus on this book, a long-time dream realized. I would like to thank the students with whom I have had the privilege of sharing ideas and concepts. Every time I stand up to teach, I learn so much from you—thank you.

xvi

Acknowledgments

To the Idea Ladies without whom I would never have had the opportunity to learn so much about creative collaboration and myself. I will always be grateful for IdeaVerse and what we created at Lucent. I will forever treasure your mentorship, guidance, love, and friendship my dear friends Angela Just, Chris Steinberg, and Lari Washburn. A special thanks to you Angela, for your generous help reading and editing this book. Creative collaboration is in your blood. I would also like to thank all of the teams and professionals with whom I have had the great pleasure of working. So many excellent people teach me every day. To Lisa Gundry, life’s mystery stirs possibility—you, my friend, have a big spoon. Thank you for seeing something in me to want to create this book together. To the GNO bunch, you are my very special pals, who give me laughter and f-u-n when I need it. Thanks Judy, Lourdes, Michelle, Tammy, and Teresa. To my MAP team, thank you, thank you, thank you. And to my family, business is in our blood. I remember hearing company conversations every Saturday morning since I was young. Mom and Dad, you gave me a wonderful foundation to grow from. Thank you for your love and for providing me so many opportunities to learn. A special thanks to my wonderful sister, Shari, you are a great person, and to my brother Ted, who can do anything he puts his mind to. How do we express our gratitude to the many people who have touched our lives, and generously gave of themselves so we may grow? It is an impossible task but an important one. Thank you to the many people who have shared your special something to make this book come to life.

PREFACE

Do teams work? We are all familiar with the belief that the power of people working together provides output that far surpasses the efforts of any one individual. So why is it most of us have never been a part of a dream team? Do they really exist? And if they do, how did they get this magical ability? Breakthrough Teams for Breakneck Times explores the distinctive qualities of breakthrough teams, and gives you tools to transform your team into one that makes a difference, whether being more productive and innovative, more in touch with the needs of your clients or communities, or enriching the professional and personal lives of the people on the team. The ideas that grew into the pages of this book have come out of years of doing the work that matters most to us— helping individuals and teams find within themselves the creativity and breakthrough thinking they possess to make a real difference. These ideas have become the ten principles you will find in this book. We have designed them for organizations that desire to become more innovative, and for people

xvii

xviii

Preface

who want something more meaningful to come out of the work they do. We all have worked on teams that never seemed to reach the potential they set for themselves. Somehow, something always went wrong. The goals weren’t clear, people weren’t on the team for the same reasons, the leader tried to take the team in a direction that seemed off course, the team became a playing field for all sorts of conflicts (both personal and professional) that plummeted morale and motivation. In short, many teams don’t thrive. They barely survive. So what does a breakthrough team look like? How does it feel to be part of such a team, to lead or change it into becoming breakthrough? How do you form a collective vision, decide how you want to operate together, take courageous action and explore risks, heal when conflicts arise, embrace change, and even play and rejuvenate as a team?

The Ten Power Principles in the Book This book presents ten principles of team collaboration that lead to breakthrough thinking and better innovation. We discuss the power principles behind breakthrough teams: how they form and envision their goals, how they communicate and reach a collective understanding, how they approach problems and opportunities, and how they produce faster and more effectively. One of the key benefits of this book is that the ten principles, along with the exercises, creative team tools, and real team scenarios presented, will engage all of the team members, stimulating greater creativity and productivity. The pressure to be successful as a team is present and mounting. We live and work in breakneck times. Product and service obsolescence rates are on the rise. Every day (or every

Preface

xix

hour in some industries) a new competitor emerges on the scene and tugs at our existing framework. The needs of our customers and clients shift frequently, and in some cases these very markets are disappearing, and we must discover new ones. In short, we need to move faster. If we take the time to build a team in the right way, by doing the right things, we can become breakneck. If, however, we skip over the principles and just get right to work, we might look breakneck, but we will just be doing the wrong things faster! Our point is this: If you want your team to be breakthrough (and this will have a different meaning across businesses, community organizations, and governments), in order to survive and succeed in this breakneck economy, you will need to unlock your team’s potential to collaborate creatively. Collaborating is a skill, and it’s not just for when you are trying to be creative. This book covers fundamental building blocks of team interconnectivity that you can use to get your work done. At the same time, we don’t intend for this to be a recipe book. We cannot give you a formula to make your team more collaborative, creative, or innovative. We can’t give you the recipe for making a difference. We can give you some guidelines and ideas. You must put them to use, experiment with them, modify, change, or chuck them as your situation demands. We would love to be able to give you a formula: When Trent complains then do this, when Trina demands, do this. But we cannot do that with integrity. We are not gurus; we are humans who have worked with teams and seen a few things, but we too are on a discovery path to wholeness and integrity in our teams, our businesses, our classes, families, and friendships. Everything is changing and we are all constantly learning— what good news. Dream teams are highlighted throughout the book, drawing from the worlds of business and industry, performing arts,

xx

Preface

civic and charitable organizations, to showcase a wide spectrum of collaborative teams. We have not exclusively focused on amazing stories of breakthroughs or teams making great differences. This would make it seem there are special people and teams who have “it” and other teams that never can. Every team has a bit of “it”—the magic of breakthroughs, the power of collaboration, the ability to create and innovate, and the ability to make a difference. Through a process of intention and application of these principles, every team can have more of “it.” We hold several beliefs that are reflected throughout this book. You can have great impact in your teams; you can be a thought leader. You have a choice about the type of team player you will be. Everyone wants to see a better world. Therefore everyone has the potential to be an agent for change. In the words of Gandhi, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” The key is finding the things that we have passion for and letting our passions lead the way to change. We also believe everyone is creative, despite the years we or others might have spent telling ourselves that we are not very creative or original. We believe the role of managers and team leaders continues to evolve. We talk of this new role, but you, as leader/ manager need to define this role for yourself. We describe a collaborator as one who paves paths, but you might define it differently. However you define it, we have seen a change in the role of management from owning it all to shared responsibility and shared accountability: a shift from me to we, and from have to to want to. The language is the message. We don’t believe that every team is collaborative all the time. Nor are teams never collaborative. As humans we go through cycles—winter when we are resting, spring when we are preparing to bloom, summer when we are in full bloom, and fall when we are reaping the fruits of our labors. Teams

Preface

xxi

have these cycles too. Try to honor the cycles of your team and respect the need for rest. We cannot always be in our summer or fall. Seasonality is a basic law of nature; work with it and reap the fruits of the way teams (and life) work. It is our hope this book becomes a handbook for you and your team. Make notes in the margins and play with the concepts to make them your own rather than just having a passive read. Unlocking the genius of our teams essentially means we value the genius in ourselves and in other people and then go about making the most of it. Who knows where this will take you? The journey is full of possibilities that can lead to breakthroughs. So let’s get started.

GETTING INTO A BREAKTHROUGH FRAME OF MIND

Before we begin our journey through the principles of creative collaboration, it is important to get ourselves into a breakthrough frame of mind. Here we learn to lay the foundation for breakthrough thinking. When we break through something, it feels like we have popped into a new dimension. It’s as if we are lifted up past the bounds of what we know and expect to a different realm, a whole new world. We see things we missed; we can create from a new way of knowing that was not possible before. It is exciting and amazing. Breakthroughs are like candy; once we have had the taste of one, we want more and more. We might even go on a hunt for breakthroughs, expecting them, demanding them. Yet, breakthroughs are as mysterious as the knowledge they bring. What brings them on? How do we plan for them? Can we make them happen? How do we make them happen more frequently? Can we create an environment that is conducive to breakthroughs? How? There is a magical quality to breakthroughs, and preparing ourselves and creating the conditions for breakthrough is 1

2

Breakthrough Teams for Breakneck Times

what this book is about. The magical quality of a breakthrough does not have to be random. We can create the conditions to facilitate this magical quality, and it is much simpler than we might think. Our thoughts have power, and our words even more. When we speak, our words help create the reality we are experiencing and help shape the reality of our future. Teams have extraordinary power to influence reality because of the number of people involved. If we do not acknowledge the phenomenon of magic and reality creation, then we can never have the breakthrough discussion. So if it is breakthroughs we want, we need to acknowledge the larger forces at play. Can we put ourselves in a breakthrough frame of mind? The answer is “Yes, we can,” and here’s how. 1. First, we need to banish the fear of the breakthrough not happening. Fear creates doubt and worry, and this works against the very thing we strive to create. When we worry that the breakthrough will not happen, we slow the process way down—so don’t worry. Instead, say “I know there is possibility here. I am open to something popping up that I did not expect.” 2. The second step is to release our expectations of what the breakthrough will look like. Our expectations limit us from seeing the breakthrough when it happens and they restrict what can be created. When we fixate on one right answer, we close down the field of infinite possibility and it is from the field of infinite possibility that breakthroughs emerge. Locking in one possibility closes down the creating process. There is nothing wrong with having an idea of what we would like to see happen, but there is a difference between

Getting into a Breakthrough Frame of Mind

3

outlining the needs of the team goal and dictating the way the goal must be achieved. This is why strategic plans are now considered too limiting and ineffective. The problem is that the plan has been taken as gospel and when we do not execute according to plan, it seems we have failed. But plans are only good for the moment in time when they were conceived, primarily because we are not fortunetellers; we do not know what the future holds. The same goes for our financial objectives. It makes sense to create financial goals, but many times we become fixated on meeting those goals and we forget they were targets, wishes. We focus on the number and not what goes into the number or the other needs that were boiled down into the number. Both of these approaches limit what can be created and narrow the field of infinite possibilities by force-fitting our expectations instead of expanding to the possibilities. Now that we have released our fear and worry, and we moved our expectations from one possible outcome, we are ready to continue getting ourselves in a breakthrough frame of mind. 3. The next step is to be receptive and open to the possibilities, and continue planting the seeds for breakthrough. We review the opportunity or problem as we understand it. It also helps to review any data and information we have gathered. 4. Now we can play with possibilities. Begin talking about the envisioned state for the team. Do not be attached to the future state, but discuss what it could look like.

4


Make “Wouldn’t it be great if . . .” statements, which go a long way toward helping us describe what we would like to see when this breakthrough occurs. Be careful to state the optimal outcomes, and spend more time on what we want to see happen, rather than on what we do not want to see happen, because the mind works in a mysterious way: The mind forgets the “not.” It gets lost, and a well-intentioned statement like, “We do not want to disappoint the customer” can be heard as “We want to disappoint the customer.” Better to modify the statement to “The customer will be thrilled by our product.” It sounds simple, but it works. Here’s an example of visioning from a breakthrough state of mind: Pat was envisioning her next career move. She said, “I would like a job where I can work part time and make at least $50,000 a year.” Now let’s look at this and see where it can be improved. First, she did not talk of the type of environment in which she would like to work. What else did she want? What did she really wish to have happen? With what kind of people would she like to work? What type of work did she want to be doing? What talents did she want to grow? Also she dictated a number, $50,000. This did not leave open the possibility for more. A better statement would be, “I would like to make enough so that money is not an object” or “to facilitate covering my needs and my desire to start my singing career.” As for saying she wanted a “part-time job,” it would have been better to note that she was interested in “freedom from having to be somewhere every day and something that took less time” so she could dedicate more time to her singing career.


5

Can you notice the difference? In the former statement, Pat did not talk about what she really wanted. She gave a grocery list instead of an expansive, open-ended statement of what would facilitate her heart’s desires. The same thing happens in teams; we make our grocery list instead of creating from a possibility mentality. 5. After envisioning the possibilities, just let go. Now this is the part where everyone is going to have a significant problem. What do you mean “just let go”? What about the action plan? What about making something happen? We say we just did. We just planted our wishes into the sea of infinite possibility; now let the magic happen. But be on the lookout for things to start moving in some direction. 6. Be on the lookout for synchronicities popping up to move us toward the opportunity or resolve the problem. Then take action. The answers and options will start to come from many places (books, news, our children), but we must be attentive to them. Go with the flow of what is coming to the team. What seems bad might be exactly what is needed to move forward toward the desired reality. Learning to use this process to get into a breakthrough state of mind might seem strange at first—all new things are. With diligence and a little effort, though, our teams are laying the groundwork for breakthrough thinking and action. The following page contains a summary of the breakthrough process for you to copy for the entire team and hang at your desks as a reminder of what you can do to make a difference.

6


“Magic is the ability to create something that is honest and full of wonder. In a nutshell, as kids we used our special gifts to create constant magic. If only we could do that again for our customers, colleagues, employees, and shareholders.” 1 —Dr. Alan Gregerman, Lessons from the Sandbox

Getting into a Breakthrough Frame of Mind Use this process to prepare the team for breakthroughs. 1. Banish any fear of a breakthrough not happening. Don’t worry or think of the reasons why a breakthrough cannot happen. Focus on a successful outcome. Say “I know there is possibility here. I am open to something popping up that I did not expect.” 2. Release your expectations of what the breakthrough will look like. Stay objective and open to many solutions to your opportunity. 3. Review the opportunity or problem as you understand it. It also helps to review any data and information gathered. 4. Talk as a team about the envisioned state. Do not be attached to the future state, but discuss what it could look like. Make “Wouldn’t it be great if . . .” statements. Be careful to state the optimal out-


comes, and spend more time on what you want to see happen. Don’t discuss downsides or play devil’s advocate. Give as much information as possible about the optimal outcome. 5. After envisioning the possibilities, just let go—don’t action plan, etc. 6. Be alert and on the lookout for synchronicities popping up to move the team toward the opportunity or resolve the problem. The answers and options will start to come from many places (books, news, your children), but you must be attentive to them. Then take action.

7

DREAM TEAMS What Makes Them Work?

“There is nothing like dreams to create the future. Utopia today, flesh and blood tomorrow.” —Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

Imagine the possibilities. You are part of a team that sets its vision about what it wants to be and accomplish together. Your fellow team members are recruited not because of their relationships with other team members, nor because they tend to think in similar ways, but specifically for the valuable divergent perspectives they bring to the team. Your team openly and honestly communicates about everything and is on a journey as much as it is headed to a particular destination. Of course it meets its goals; in fact, it probably exceeds most of them. But being part of a dream team is much more than just accomplishing a task or a project. It is an experience of collegiality and flow. Being on a dream team is unlike any group experience you’ve ever had or will have. Our hometown once

9

10


boasted one of the world’s best known dream teams, The Chicago Bulls, six-time winners of the NBA Championship. They set Chicago spinning for several years. But dream teams are not found only on basketball courts. The principles characterizing a dream team are spokes in a wheel, and the following ten chapters introduce you to these principles, upon which you can build a dream team experience. It’s not easy. In fact, to become breakthrough, which we propose is the sine qua non of dream teams, you have to be willing to work as hard as you have ever worked with a group of people. The central point of this book is that you have to take the time to put the team together right if you want to reach that breakthrough product, project, or service. The ten principles will break through to ideas, answers, and solutions. The ten principles will help you on your journey. They are the key dimensions that keep people going in the same direction despite uncertainty, unfriendly organizational cultures, and even human nature. Throughout this book we profile teams and team leaders from a cross-section of organizations and professional experiences. They are teams from manufacturing companies, consumer products firms, community service organizations, design firms, high school athletics, and a host of others. Some of these teams exist within traditional, hierarchical settings while others exist in independent, entrepreneurial firms. The point is to offer examples from a variety of areas, in the hope that you will see your team, or what your team can become. For this introductory chapter we have selected two examples of such teams, to help you envision what is happening when a team reaches this high performance state. Let’s dive in for a look.

Dream Teams: What Makes Them Work?

11

Diggi Thomson of Unilever on “The Passion behind Collaboration”

A

t the time we interviewed him, Diggi Thomson had been with Unilever for eight years, six of them in the United Kingdom, marketing fragrances to 16 to 24 year olds. He is Marketing Manager for Salon Selectives where he spearheaded the relaunch of the product line, a turnaround he describes as “the most successful launch in the history of the universe.” Diggi’s passion is obvious as he tells the story of a brand that slid from being number two in the market to a disappointing number six. The challenge to Diggi and his team was clear: How could they get it right again and what would be the formula for success? The original launch of Salon Selectives in 1987 rapidly led the product line to number two position in the marketplace in 1991 with a 6 percent dollar share of the market. By the beginning of 1999, however, the brand had slid to the number six position and a 4 percent dollar market share. In 2000, they launched a new plan to recapture market share. Their vision was based on the following principles: simplification, unique copy, new fragrance, new packaging, new pricing, and profit. They purposefully created a new advertising idea and creative platform built on abstraction in order to stimulate the creative thought process of the team members. Key words and phrases were: See it, Do it. These words, encouraging customers to create the styles they envision (see it) with these products (do it), eventually became the ad line for the new launch. Diggi attributes the success of the relaunch to the collaborative capabilities of his team. “Creativity and collabora-

12


tive teambuilding is important, as it allows you to improve things, leave a tangible mark, and enjoy yourself as well as use your brain properly.” Salon Selectives broke conventions to become breakthrough. Diggi explains, “Most existing brands answer how. Salon Selectives addresses the fundamental why of its products.” The team turned several myths of hair care products on their ears: “One myth is that inspirations for looks come from other people. In fact, inspirations for looks can come from anywhere. Another myth is that a brand’s role is to help consumers get the look they want. In fact, Salon Selectives’ role is to inspire consumers to think about the look they want, as well as to help them get it.” The 2000 turnaround collaborative effort was comprised of several different teams all working together. Each team had to come together to brainstorm and expand the current brand. Without creativity and collaboration, it would have been nearly impossible to re-engineer the many components that make up a relaunch of any product or service. Concept, design, product names, pack copy, advertising, communications plans, media sell–in, how to get artwork done in two versus six weeks, the trade transition from old to new, and the launch party were all key elements contributing to the new product’s impending success. We asked Diggi to let us in on how he was able to stimulate collaboration among numerous individuals and departments. The following are his reflections and advice on how to achieve real collaboration: • Question thy assumptions. Thinking errors are usually errors of perception, not logic. Diggi believes that assumptions put a subconscious restraint on creativity. You need to ask if your assumptions are valid and show some proof.


13

• Set great expectations. The one thing I commonly say is “Make me nervous” in a positive way. Unless you do, it certainly won’t be brilliant, and it’s unlikely to make consumers say “Wow, that’s different, new, and exciting!” • Great briefs (vision statements) are the basis of the team’s work. They should be simple, clear, focused, and wrapped in inspiring language. The team brief is extremely important. The brief sets up the task and what you hope to accomplish. Bad briefs are vague, with too many ideas. Good briefs are clear, single-minded, short, and inspiring. They should harness the brain’s grappling hooks. In marketing you have to always remember that people might give you two seconds of their time when they are in the shop and there is a small chance they have seen your ad. You’d better be very concise about the essence of what you are about or forget it. I think the truth in that goes beyond packaged goods. Diggi adds that he recently heard a quote from Dee Hock, founder of Visa International: “Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and interesting behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.” • As a team leader, walk the talk, and set the example. Diggi encourages openness and respect for opinions, but people know that idle grousing will not cut it. People on my team buy into the responsibility for thinking about how to get around concerns, not just voicing them. As a team we are talented people, and we have a platform to do our best work. Are we going to step up or step down to it? • Diversity is smart. Diggi believes that the more interesting the input is, the more exciting the output. Diver-

14


•

•

• •

sity of function, thought, experience, race, and nationality is a stimulus that provides more jumping off points for many more interesting linkages and new thoughts. Recognition is fuel. Diggi recounts what team members experience when their process is going well and they reach success: That felt good, and I’ll do it again. There is no limit to how much recognition you can give someone. Publicly and privately recognize all that deserve it. Here we have “Walk the Talk” awards that are given out monthly, and we say something about what the person has done. For example, “We recognize John for his enthusiasm, demonstration of positive attitude, diligence, and overall consistent embodiment of Phoenix Team values and vision.” Communication is glue. Diggi stresses that if you want every member of your team to feel excitement, belonging, and commitment, then formal and informal communication is necessary. He regularly talks things up outside the team so people on the team realize they are being perceived as part of that team and therefore become prouder to belong to it. Attitude is all. According to Diggi, it’s not who or what you are, but your attitude that counts. Passion gets results. Diggi claims he learned from a set designer that we have no excuse not going for fullblown greatness.

Diggi does walk his talk. The vision he follows for himself as team leader and collaborator is manifest in everything about him, from the way he tells the story and the respect and pride he holds for his team, to the everyday actions that symbolize what’s really important. It’s hardly surprising that all


15

this creative collaboration takes place in an organization whose lobby contains two simulated Chicago street signs: the corner of Idea Avenue and Innovation Street. Could this be every dream team’s address? ✴ The following story was told to us by Dr. Lynne O’Shea. She is with A.T. Kearney, the high-value management consulting subsidiary of EDS, and an Executive in Residence faculty member for DePaul University’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. The story illustrates that sometimes dream teams, in this case a virtual team, can seem the stuff of fantasy.

Dr. Lynne O’Shea “It Was like Camelot.com”

T

he School for Management and Strategic Studies (SMSS) was only once in time. With folks called “fellows” instead of “knights.” Camelot arose after the fall of the Roman Legion. SMSS came at the end of the Industrial Age, and was, in fact, a merry band of brave-hearted people who were exploring the frontier of the Information Age. The story begins like this: In 1981, Richard Farson, president of the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute (WBSI) in La Jolla, California, recognized that cyberspace had finally created the opportunity for executives to learn the dramatically changing requirements of leadership, without having to leave their jobs. He conceived a school that would exist in digital space for a decade. The fellows (students) would be taught by a faculty of leading scholars, corporate officers, and political leaders. Fellows and faculty alike would have to learn to use computers for communication in this new cyber-school. Farson’s dream was supported by reality when, in 1981, the price of Apple computers

16


came down to about $5,000. Now executives could buy them, making his breakthrough idea of a non-geographicallyconstrained educational program possible. He would now be able to explore his burning interest in the humanitarian applications of the new on-line conferencing technology. Farson and the WBSI staff undertook the design and recruiting effort that spawned the SMSS. The first executive person to sign on was Douglas Strain, chairman and CEO of ElectroScientific Industries. The first class began in 1982, making it the first program in online distance education. The last class (each lasted 2 years) graduated in 1991. I was part of the class of 1988. Arthurian history, in Britain’s fifth century, recalls the twelve battles during which King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table gained their reputation for invincibility. We engaged in twelve dialogues, each for two years. Everyone found the experience so rewarding that after graduating, no one wanted to leave. So alumni and previous faculty continued to be a part of this growing community. Faculty and fellows began their discussions face to face, continuing online over the next six months before returning to La Jolla for another residential session. Each month they covered a major topic relating to a curriculum that dealt with geopolitics, environment, technology, government relations, management philosophy, and ethics. Remember, this was more than a decade before the emergence of the World Wide Web. In the beginning, it required 32 keystrokes just to sign on. Our ideas traveled at 3,000 baud. Today’s Internet users grow impatient with 56,000 baud. Class sizes varied from three to twenty-three and included military generals, corporate chieftains, and leading academics living life in the fast lane, enabled by Web technologies. For Lynne, however, this was more than non-geographically-constrained education. It was a dream team with partic-


17

ipants drawn from diverse backgrounds, typing on their keyboards deep in the dark of the night in far-flung ports of call, each enabling the other to fast-forward thoughts and ideas into implementation. We asked Lynne what made such a team possible: First, we were first. By that I mean it was the first time such a diverse group had been pulled together. The excitement we felt was exhilarating. Three of our members were astronauts, and when they spoke of seeing “the big blue marble” from space with no artificial boundaries—we felt our experience in SMSS was similar. Second, our thoughts traveled in nanoseconds. Suddenly, synchronous communication could occur with Jorge Semella’s thoughts suddenly jumping onto my screen, with Jorge in Caracas and me in Chicago. Third, we overcame not only time, but space. There were no nation-state boundaries in the way. Fourth, we were being watched. Teams of psychologists and other social scientists followed our every move to see how we were reacting to being in this new information environment. Our classes were watched over by the psychologists, who saw the heart at work as faculty and fellows struggled with very human issues. Finally, and this is the defining moment for me, we could learn, share, and trust because we were not threatened. In real space, one may feel threatened by another’s age, background, or tone of voice. In virtual space, you see word-processed thought. You see, in fact, the mind at work. You can sign-on when you are ready, rather than being called into a class or a meeting at a time when you may not be at your best. It is all part of overcoming space or, more accurately, place. The place other people put you in due to hierarchy or prejudice. A dream team happens when we connect and do not feel distant from one another. Sherry Turkle, another MIT cyberspace educator, believes that Internet experiences help us to

18


develop models of psychological well-being. We are encouraged to think of ourselves as fluid, emergent, decentralized, and flexible. These words that describe the best of an Internet experience also define the best of teams. Think of Gateway Computers, especially the word gateway. Think of going from here to there unencumbered. Our emerging paradigm is relational, not linear. Web-enabled technology is changing the way we think and talk about ourselves: linking, comparing, and connecting. These too are words for the best of teams. To believe that your team is doing something important, something that requires you to be brave, first, flexible, or unencumbered in getting from here to there is to be lifted above (like my astronaut colleagues) boundaries, territories, and then pettiness, color, age, race, or creed. We believed that was happening in our experience together. All told, some 200 people came to this virtual space to collaborate and communicate, at the end of the twentieth century, about what the twentyfirst century might look like for the planet. They came to overcome—time, space, and place. ✴

“To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.” —Anatole France

These stories took us inside two very different dream teams that came together under distinct circumstances and times. But like the many stories of other teams you will encounter throughout this book, they share some common characteristics of teams that perform creative collaboration: • Individual team members have a clear understanding of their abilities, styles, and potential contributions to


•

•

•

•

•

• •

•

19

the team. Each member’s role in the team is defined, yet dynamic. Dream teams are characterized by multidimensional structures, often called networks, hubs, lattices, or wheels. There is a noticeable absence of hierarchy and the traditional power structures that accompany it. They resemble circles but never pyramids. Each team member feels a sense of ownership about the team’s responsibilities, interactions, actions, and consequences. Dream teams are not governed by the myth of collaboration, in which the ideas and actions of a few (either the most powerful team members or the most persuasive) become the entire team’s mode of operating. Team members place their actions in line with their words, without having to be nudged, cajoled, or threatened by the team leader or other members. Accountability is a priority, responsibility, and core competence. Dream teams implicitly trust and believe in their members. No second-guessing, Machiavellian behavior, or cabals can be found in these teams. There is an urgent and meaningful need to be filled by the team, or the team does not exist. The leader’s role moves from owner to collaborator. There is a shift from sole decision maker to shared accountability among team members. Dream teams are often created by leaders and members who have spent time on other dream teams. They won’t settle for anything less.

The next ten chapters present the principles of creative collaboration that can take your team to a breakthrough space

20


and place. Release your team’s creativity from its locked and fully upright position. Let the journey begin . . .

AXIOM . . .

Dream the Possible Team

PRINCIPLE ONE Come Together for a Meaningful Reason

“When people go to work, they shouldn’t have to leave their hearts at home.” —Betty Bender

Principle One helps us to focus on the missing ingredient for most teams—the element of passion, the heartfelt reason for the team’s being. This magical element fuels a team forward when they want to give up and enables them to press on to work together when they would rather not deal with each other. A passionate, meaningful purpose for a team propels it to excellence beyond reason or comprehension, mainly because it is the heart at work. Coming together for a meaningful, heartfelt reason for any team is the bedrock upon which the rest of the team’s initiative and objectives are built. Passion is contagious, and along with meaning it provides the magical quality we seek for breakthrough teams. When teams flounder it is usually because they are in search of, or have not connected to, the important work

21

22


they want to contribute. There is nothing more disheartening and destructive than being assigned a task that is meaningless to the company and to customers. We have all been a part of these teams, which are frustrating to say the least. How do we tap into this mysterious elixir, the passion and heart that drive teams to excellence? Where does it come from? Is it necessary? The answer is simple: Start with a difference in order to make one. This chapter explores the principle of coming together for a meaningful reason. It highlights the necessary components of passion (the desire to make a difference), choice (the freedom to participate or not), diversity (the intent to be well rounded and whole), and fit (the unique contributions of members) when creating a breakthrough team that makes a difference. Let’s take a look at a team that exemplifies the building blocks of choice, passion, diversity, and fit.

Enesco Group, Inc.’s Blue Sky Center for Creativity and Innovation “Time for a Change” Imagine a place with infinite possibilities, unlimited resources, inspirational surroundings, collaborative responses, and effective solutions, a place with infinite capacity. You have the potential to be that place, and we will help you focus clearly on your vision to achieve your ideas and soar beyond the Blue Sky.

S

o begins the credo developed by the founding team of Enesco Group Inc’s Blue Sky Center for Creativity and Innovation established in 1999 at One Enesco Plaza, just down the road from the company’s Itasca, Illinois, headquarters. Enesco

Principle One: Come Together for a Meaningful Reason

23

Group Inc., a leader in the gift and collectibles industry for more than 40 years, is a producer of fine gifts, collectibles, and home décor accessories with many product lines, including the award-winning Precious Moments® collection. Created for all associates, the facility consists of a large, open area decorated with the unexpected: bean bag chairs, artwork by associates, sculptures, the Wall of Imagination (a 24foot wall that gives associates an opportunity to express their creativity), a fish bowl conference room, a cyberspace computer research room, a stereo system, and of course, plenty of books and toys! The idea for the center grew out of a sense that the time was ripe for a change in the climate of the organization. Enesco is best known for their creative and inspirational Precious Moments figurines. As in many organizations in the business of distributing creative products and services, there was an underlying notion that innovation was not what characterized much of the daily professional lives of most employees. It was time to do something that would unleash the imaginations of the corporation. The idea for Blue Sky was the brainchild of Julie Gwaltney, Director of Marketing, who felt that such a concept would not be solely for those who work in creative or product development, but for everyone in the company. Her enthusiasm attracted colleagues Mary Janninck, Vice President of Product Development, Elyse Piper, Director of Corporation Communications, Amy Grau, Director of Training and Development, and Pete Secker, Senior Stylist. Together they formed Blue Sky’s founding team. Key to the success of the team was the notion of choice. Each member chose to be part of this undertaking, realizing full well that making Blue Sky a reality would involve an additional workload. When they talk about their experience in making Blue Sky happen, the founding team members talk of the

24


passion and excitement this project held for them, and how natural it was to come together. Each felt pulled in to the team, drawn by the concept and prospect of making a difference in the company. Elyse Piper explains, “We were driven to the same goal, and we were committed to succeed.” One of the benefits of working on such an extracurricular project was a strong balance of skills and interests among the team members. The team was characterized by an honest and open climate, in which everyone felt energized and supported by the positive intent they hoped to create for the company. The team also knew its risks were few, even though they were developing something completely new. As Mary Janninck noted, “We had nothing to lose.” There was no precedent for the center, and if it didn’t work out, career or personal losses were not very likely. “I’ll take Blue Sky wherever I go,” she adds, underscoring the team’s belief that this project was an experience that changed their lives. The team found high-level support for their endeavor from Jeff Hutsell, then CEO of Enesco. It’s likely that Hutsell saw the value in providing an outlet for all members of the company to contribute ideas. Phase I of Blue Sky rolled out with two components. One was Process Genesis, in which workshops and programs tailored to fit different needs throughout the corporation were designed to develop and foster creativity, and also to develop personal, professional, and team-building skills. The second component was the creation of the Fun Factory. As the Blue Sky team puts it, “Think of the word fun and what comes to mind? Being lively, playing, and a source of merriment and creativity! Add in the word factory and picture collaborating with a diverse team of individuals.” The Fun Factory is designed to help teams manufacture creative ideas, with the goal of generating new ideas and focusing on new product lines, formats, and solutions. It has worked, with the very


25

first team who participated in the program yielding impressive revenues on a new product idea. The Fun Factory consists of a team of seven to ten people who develop new product ideas. The point, Janninck explains, is to dispel the notion that only people in product development can come up with new ideas. So each team is given a mission, such as: to create a new $5 product in five days. Each day, the team must achieve a particular objective, and by the end of the week it presents its idea to an audience. While developing a winning idea for a new product is part of Fun Factory’s goal, even more important is imparting collaborative skills to the teams that pass through it. As Julie Gwaltney notes, “Each team is asked, ‘What did you get out of it?’ And the responses have been overwhelmingly positive!” Janninck adds, “People who have been here for 10 or 15 years admit they never knew what role some of their co-workers played in the company or the value they could contribute.” Amy Grau found that taking part in Fun Factory facilitated understanding of other people’s jobs. “People were taking it (the process) back to their own areas. The tangible result for their efforts was an incredible and unique experience, which was very stimulating. They could see a process form, decisions being made by voting, and something happening. They would gel together as a team.” While the product of Enesco’s Blue Sky team is a creativity center that obviously relies on innovative entrepreneurial minds to build and sustain it, the workings of this collaborative team can be generalized to any team that is trying to make a difference in its environment, no matter what the ultimate product, service, or goal might be. Each member chose to participate in the team, to take the time needed outside his or her daily tasks to devote to the project. Each member then went out and persuaded additional employees to carry out a part of their responsibilities, thereby bringing the passion inherent in

26


Blue Sky to others in the company. Because the team working on Blue Sky was diverse, participants were able to make connections throughout the company. Trust was never a question. Elyse Piper articulated the feeling held by the team by saying, “There was respect and trust for one another. You knew each core team member was sincere, accountable, and would follow through or ask for help.” There was a strong sense of fitting into the team, a pride of belonging to a group that was trying to make a difference. To encourage others to discover the Blue Sky experience and to participate in its offerings, the team enticed members of the company with these words: “Get ready to soar as we embark on this exciting new corporate adventure and help you find the Blue Sky within yourself!” Clearly, this team already has. ✴

“If you focus on results, you will never change. If you focus on change, you will get results.” —Jack Dixon

Where Does Meaning Come From? As we saw from the Blue Sky team, meaning came from wanting to contribute something to the company. The team saw an opportunity to help everyone in the company appreciate their creativity and create new products for the company to offer. Meaning for this team came when an opportunity for change met with a passionate idea. Interestingly enough, meaning can come from anywhere. Usually it is from someone—anyone in the company who sees a problem, situation, or opportunity. A connection is made, a need identified, a complaint raised that ignites a fire in some-


27

one to say, “Yeah, that needs to be worked on.” Often, the team’s igniter is the person who gives a voice to what others already notice and feel. This need or opportunity statement might be enough to create a team around. Meaning can also come from customer conversations, feedback forms, or company mission statements. There are some mission statements that are truly heartfelt and meaningful. They speak to people’s hearts, much like those of Merck and Co., who are in the business of saving lives, or The Body Shop, who have trade-not-aid and no-testing-on-animals policies. These inspire people and help them connect to the real business of the company. They urge associates to connect to the higher purpose of the company and inspire them to ideas and innovations that meaningless missions completely miss. The Enesco Blue Sky credo inspires people beautifully: “Imagine a place with infinite possibilities, unlimited resources, inspirational surroundings, collaborative responses, and effective solutions, a place with infinite capacity. You have the potential to be that place, and we will help you focus clearly on your vision to achieve your ideas and soar beyond the Blue Sky.”

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Meaning • What is the meaningful reason for your team? • What is the compelling need your team is filling? • What is your team doing that is going to make a difference?

28


Meaning comes in different forms for different people. The key to forming a team around meaning is allowing the team to come together on its own—as a kind of self-organizing system where forming feels more like a calling than a demand.

Be Brave of Heart

T

he opening battle scene of the Oscar-winning movie Braveheart highlights the difference in results when people come together for a heartfelt cause or a meaningful reason. The scene finds three rich Lords who have convened an army to protect their land holdings. The army of Scottish men realizes that they were recruited to fight and possibly lose their lives to help the Lords keep their land. One by one, the soldiers begin to leave, deserting the Lords in their quest. In rides William Wallace (Mel Gibson), a man of purpose and passion. He is the informal leader of a Scottish rebellion against the English tyranny. And his reputation for bravery and courage precede him. He rallies the men to fight for their freedom and the freedom of their families. He implores them to reflect on lives lived under the tyranny of the English. Freedom is worth losing their lives for. The point is not lost. Freedom is a meaningful reason to come together, not protecting the land holdings of the upper class. The Scottish army goes on to victory. Connecting to their higher purpose made all the difference to this team. ✴

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” —Antoine de Saint-Exupery


29

The Self-Organizing Team An article in the Wall Street Journal headlined the potential of self-organizing. It noted “self-organization is rapidly becoming a very hot idea, the essence of which is that top-down master plans aren’t the only way to build something big and lasting. Unorganized assemblies of people can create everything from marketplaces to computer systems almost spontaneously, on the fly, from the bottom up.” It further goes on to note “self-organizing systems seem to fit the Internet culture very well. [They don’t] respect traditional hierarchies. It brings expertise from the edges of the networks.”1 Self-organization can work in corporations or anywhere we are willing to relinquish control and let people do what they do naturally— create, solve problems, and contribute their talents. The components that are so exciting about self-organizing systems are those that are needed for teams that make a difference. People are drawn to the organization because of the work it is doing. They have a choice about connecting to it, and they stay because they fill a need within the organism. In self-organizing systems, if the task is not worthwhile, it is dropped. When the task is done, the organism disbands. The Blue Sky team at Enesco was self-organized. They looked to be well rounded and sought out members with the right skills and the right mindset. Ultimately, they provided the company with a valuable resource for helping create new products. They were passionate about making changes in the business by contributing a new way to come up with product ideas and solutions.

30


Connect with Passion Passion is the fuel for innovation. Without passion many ideas would sit languishing on the drawing boards of many inventors. Passion, the drive to make a difference, provides the courage to persist through the implementation of innovation. Two or three people gathered with passion can outperform 50 people with none. Look at entrepreneurs. They are passionate people who have changed markets and taken market share from their much larger corporate competitors. Why? Because these individuals are engaged at a level that is deeply important to them. What they are doing goes beyond a 9-to5 job and becomes something with a meaningful life of its own. Think about the last time you were asked to join a team or group. How did you feel when you were asked? Were you excited by what the group was going to be doing, or were you annoyed at being bothered? Did you feel that you were asked because no one else wanted to do it? Did you try to think of an excuse not to join? Or, did you sigh and concede that you would do it and then hope it would not take up too much of your time as you prepared to make the best of it? The importance of passion cannot be stressed enough. When talking with Enesco and many other teams that have made a real difference, the word passion is used countlessly. If team members are not engaged on a heartfelt level it is unlikely that they will really make a difference.

“Everyone needs to feel that they are doing something that counts, even if it can’t be counted.” —Anonymous


31

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Passion and What Really Matters • What are you personally passionate about? • What is the team doing that really matters most to you? • Why are you part of this team or group? (Be honest: if you had no choice or got cornered into participating, put it down.) • What’s intriguing about it? Is there something specific you are curious about?

Allow for Choice You may be familiar with Tuckman’s2 model of group development that contains five stages through which groups progress: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. But many teams do not get past the storming stage. They get work done, but often fall short of their goals. With less than dazzling performance, the group either continues in this mode of struggling to accomplish their objectives despite in-fighting, lack of shared vision, and members who carry the burden for others who slack, or the group disbands with bad feelings all around. The trouble is, many of these teams really fall into the trap of the Three F’s: they form, flounder, and fail. Often this can be attributed to the lack of having a choice to come together as a team for a meaningful reason. When people can say yes or no to a team (free and clear of judgment) they are taking responsibility for themselves and

32


how they are going to contribute. There is a shift from “have to” to “want to.” Having to do something inherently takes the fun out of it. Having to do something feels like a chore, and much creative energy is lost in the feeling of choicelessness. But when we want to do something it is not a chore. Our energy and vitality engage to make the project a success. That is what we are trying to tap into. If we want to be new, innovative, and better, we need to be willing to let go of projects that are deadening (have to) and replace them with projects that are invigorating (want to). If we can make room for this seemingly chaotic but essentially natural way to organize, we begin to operate in flow with our work instead of in opposition to it. We will find assigning is replaced with inviting, and the stuck feeling is replaced with respect. One of the things that helps attract the best membership is to give potential members the meaningful reason for the team to exist without dictating all of the objectives and goals. On the one hand, it can be frustrating to enter a group and have absolutely no idea about what to do and how to do it. This will keep a team in the starting gate indefinitely. On the other, nothing disappoints team members more than discovering once they have joined that the team leader and/or a few members have already decided everything. The team as a collective needs to co-create the vision and expectations together, such as when and how often the team meets, how responsibilities are assigned, and how the team communicates. Much more on this will be discussed in Principle Two (Co-Create an Understanding of the Vision) and Principle Three (Choose the Culture You Want). Even if information is scant, it can be shared to give potential members the resources possible to help their decision to join. In volunteer organizations, this is one of the most


33

important ingredients to recruiting the right people. People have complete (in almost all situations) choice over where they commit their time and effort. Clearly articulated objectives, needs, and reasons for a team go a long way to ensure success in the nonprofit sector and others that utilize a core of volunteer teams. The choice to join the team is not where our choicemaking ends. This is just the beginning. Even in situations where membership is not a choice, when a manager (or an athletic coach, or a music director, etc.) assigns individuals to teams, people make conscious decisions about how they will participate in the team’s work. Every day we make decisions about what our intentions are going to be and what we can and will contribute to the team. We make choices about our behavior and our role as a team member. As noted in the preface of this book, it is vitally important that each team member owns the responsibility of his or her power of choice.

Jim Grigoriou “Walking across Oceans”

H

ow do two teams of people who have never met personally, who live on separate continents and who belong to different generations form a unified team? Jim Grigoriou, Australian entrepreneur and innovator, believes the answer lies in ensuring that everyone’s personal values and norms are aligned so that critical empathy, and hence connection and trust, will begin to flourish among all team members. An Australian entrepreneurial company led by a serial entrepreneur had an interest in a device that required the experience and guidance of experts who understood the market and sector for the

34


device in the United States, and with whom this firm could collaborate to commercialize the device in the North American market. How do you know when you have found the right people to partner with, even when 12,000 miles of ocean separate you and communication is via phone and electronic mail? One’s gut feelings and inner voice can tell us when people’s philosophies regarding how both business and life should be conducted align harmoniously together, creating the potential for a high-performance team. Jim counsels, “Prior to discussing any possible business arrangements, personal norms and values should be discussed. Having a similar sense of humor and spirit towards work and life often help as well. What bound this team across continents was their desire for the thrill of the chase, the fun we have exploring life and trying to do new things with different people. The compatibility and right chemistry was what enabled this group to form a collaborative team, rather than just a close networking group.” Partners form many entrepreneurial ventures, and Jim asserts that people often know when they have met the right business partners. Due diligence is needed to validate our gut feeling or empathy about the people with whom we are considering to be involved. ✴

“Adventures don’t begin until you get into the forest. That first step is an act of faith.” —Mickey Hart


35

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Choice • Are you ready to own your power of choice—each and every day? • Are you ready to respect other people’s choices? • What are you going to do to own your choice-making power?

Build in Diversity As a self-organizing team, we need to be mindful of the need for all kinds of diversity, not just the traditional definition of diversity, but also the thinking and feeling style diversity. The goal is to create wholeness and well-roundedness within the team. A lop-sided team of only financial people or only extroverts will have difficulty getting things done and will experience myopia. A commitment to being well-rounded and whole will help the team become an effective, balanced system. When most of us become part of a team, one of the first things we want to know is who is on the team. Of course, if we recognize names and have friends in the group, we are more likely to want to join. And why not? We may have already worked with these people, or we might share similar views or work styles and prefer to work with them. If we enjoy other members’ company, we’ll have a better team experience, right? Well, maybe not.

36


In the courses we teach, students are required to complete some of the coursework in small groups. Not surprisingly, when students find this out, it sometimes elicits a collective groan from the class as they recall some not so pleasant group experiences they have had in previous courses. In fact, all of us have had these experiences. We have had to cope with the slackers, the no-shows, the excuses, and all the garbage that prohibits a team from getting its work done well. Once students find that teamwork is required, they are often tempted to sign up and work with students they already know well. This, they feel, is the proverbial spoonful of sugar that will help the nasty medicine of group work go down. However, as we caution students, this is a myth. The more we know people, the more we assume that we think alike. Therefore, we are less likely to question one another’s views, to solicit contradictory opinions, and to evaluate information critically. Also, because we are friends, we are uncomfortable confronting them when we disagree. It is very important for the team to think about what kind of people are needed to make the team well-rounded. Consider the ideal mix of background, experience, thinking style, communication style, and knowledge that the team needs. Teams with diverse thinking and problem-solving styles are more effective at designing and implementing change.

“If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” —General George S. Patton


37

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Diversity • Is the team well-rounded? What kind of people do you need in order to make your team well-rounded? • Are you whole-brained? (Consider assessing this with the Hermann Brain Dominance Inventory, which classifies individuals’ thinking modes into integrators, feelers, organizers, and analyzers.) • Do you have representatives from necessary parts of the business?

Look for Fit The last component of Principle One is looking at the fit that exists between the team’s goals and values, and those of each individual member. We’ve all been appointed to groups for which we have no real attachment or commitment. The political turmoil that can bring a team to failure often begins with members channeling their efforts into power plays and conflicts instead of the team’s work. These members don’t identify with the team or feel they really belong to it and they perceive that their contributions are not valued. Think about it: If we don’t really care much about why we are here in the group, and don’t care that much about what the group is doing, then won’t we spend our creative energy in other directions? Of course, this leaves the field wide open for members who wish to use the team to their own advantage.

38


Some people argue that it does not matter why people join a team as long as the objectives get met. But everything is connected, and people’s motivations can have a significant impact on the success or failure of the team’s endeavors.

HighWire “Using the Wrong Motivation”

A

large multinational company, TechCandyCo. (names have been changed) was looking for ways to move its technology out into the marketplace faster. In order to reduce its time to market, it tried an innovative approach: it assembled teams of business and technology employees to act as “intrapreneurial businesses.” These teams, if successful, would become spin-off businesses and could stand to make large sums of money. Hence, this new area of the company drew very ambitious, talented people from all over the company. It also drew the political animals. One of the first intrapreneurial experiments, HighWire, was watched with executive interest. Because it was such a visible project, it was able to attract the top research, technical, and business professionals in the company. A fine team of people was assembled. From the start, HighWire was mired in political productization, and slow-emerging market issues. One significant problem that plagued HighWire was that it was comprised largely of fast-trackers, associates who were on the corporate fast track. Their intention in becoming part of the team was to get promoted. Now normally it would be considered a good thing having the best working on a project. The issue was that these associates had to be promoted every two years or lose their fast-track status. Soon, it became obvious the main goal of the employee was to get promoted instead of making the product successful.


39

Alliances formed, and these groups began to quibble with each other about who would make the presentation to the executives and who would make the strategic decisions for the business. The bigger picture disappeared and the real need— creating businesses for faster time to market—got lost. Careersurvival mechanisms were replacing objective business decisions. In the end, the possibilities were squandered. HighWire was shelved, and the majority of the team left TechCandyCo. ✴ A whole book could be written on the lessons of HighWire, and probably should be. For now, it suffices to say that one of the key issues undoing HighWire was the self-serving interest of key players. Several of the fast-trackers came on the team just to get visibility and promotion, not necessarily to make a difference with the project as a whole. They were not a good fit.

“It’s not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised; the mosquito is swatted.” —Marie O’Connor

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Fit • What necessary role are you filling on the team? • If you did not show up, could the team get along without you? • Are the members of the team a good fit with one another? • What is missing?

40


TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . Picture This Do you really know what is meaningful and important to the members of your team? Often you think you know, but before you continue with that assumption . . . TRY THIS: Have each member of your team pull a picture from a magazine or newspaper that expresses what is meaningful to that person. Then go around and ask people to share their picture and explain why they selected it. Ask them, if they could make a difference, what would it be and how would they do it? Or, for a variation, have the team try to guess what each picture conveys. The pictures serve as useful props to communicate what team members feel, and this can propel your team’s progress toward its goals.

“Create your future from your future, not your past.” —Werner Erhard

Unlocking Team Genius with Principle One: Come Together for a Meaningful Reason • Establish a meaningful reason for your team. This is the most important building block of a truly breakthrough team that makes a difference.


41

• Choose to participate on the team because you connect to something you find personally meaningful and are passionate about. • Build your team so it is well-rounded and wholebrained. • Recruit team members for their fit to the big picture as well as for their expertise.

AXIOM . . .

Start with a Difference in Order to Make One

PRINCIPLE TWO Co-Create an Understanding of the Vision “Nothing is beneath you if it is in the direction of your life.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everyone on a team needs to know what the team is about and why it exists. What need does it fill? It is hard to believe, but many team members do not collectively understand the purpose of the team. They are on the team because someone assigned them or their boss volunteered them. So it’s not difficult to understand why some people don’t seem to form much of an attachment to the team. They feel more like spectators than players. When people identify their team’s urgent need and real purpose, together, they uncover the real value the team will impart. This is a critical step in ensuring the team is successful and persists through difficult times. If the team has not done this step, it exhibits symptoms like passivity (the “whatever” attitude), nonengagement (“I don’t know”), and disconnection (“Not my problem”). Please don’t skip this step! 43

44


Team members are asked to reflect on what they bring to the team and what their vision is for accomplishing the purpose of the team. It is vital that members participate fully, taking time to mindfully reflect on what is important to them to accomplish. What they bring to the table provides the foundation for collaboration and co-creation. Ultimately there is a shift from “I” to “we,” from “my view” to “our view.”

Creating a Good Team Is Like Creating a Good Soup We are going to use good soup as a metaphor to discuss the concept of co-creating a shared vision. When we make a good soup, we put in all the ingredients and let them steep together. We take carrots, celery, potatoes, broth, and some spices and let them stew. Every ingredient brings its unique qualities and characteristics to the pot: carrots—orange and sweet, celery—crunchy and green. Yummy. Our teams can stew into a wonderful soup also. We begin by bringing our unique perspectives and talents to a team. We blend them with other team members, and then the team has to stew. What usually happens within group visioning sessions is that one or two people have their vision for the team, and everyone else is expected to go along with it. This is like a carrot stew without any other ingredients to make it a healthy broth—not very tasty or inviting. The ones with the vision (boss or team leader) spend a great deal of time getting everyone to go along with it, and some do. Sometimes a vision is not even articulated by anyone. But the vision is too important to ignore or leave to potluck, political maneuvering, or popularity. Think of the richness and fulfillment that comes from a

Principle Two: Co-Create an Understanding of the Vision

45

well-made soup. Think of the richness and fulfillment that comes from team members contributing all of themselves toward a rich and compelling set of actions, and you can begin to see the role of co-creating the vision. In this chapter, we explore how to co-create a shared vision and purpose that incorporates each member’s unique perspectives and abilities, resulting in team cohesion and effectiveness—a good soup. Team members are guided through a process for creating a shared vision that is a synthesis of the members’ collective visions and expertise. Creating shared vision is a process of merging and combining, then deciding and eliminating. Take the time to bring out all the possibilities and individual visions (diverge), give them careful thought, combine them, and merge (converge) perspectives before deciding to eliminate any one. It is important, as a team, to recognize the difference between diverging and converging. Usually when people get together to solve a problem or come up with ideas for something, a few ideas are tossed out, and then everyone jumps into judging and evaluating those ideas. Frustration sets in because none of the ideas is the golden nugget hoped for. And it’s no wonder why. We’ve just prematurely converged, instead of getting all the ideas out. Once out, we can work through the list and ask, “How can we make this idea even better?” Save judgment for later. The same thing should be done when we are developing (or refining) our vision. Everyone comes to the team with different perspectives and has something valuable to contribute. Co-creating a shared vision is a great first step to establishing respect among team members, because we are starting out interested and curious about what each other sees as the purpose. It is the first real symbolic event that helps set the stage for an innovative team environment.

46


Another thing to remember is that as a team stews together, things change and evolve. Be mindful of this fact when people start to get frustrated, when it seems that things keep changing, or when it seems like the team is shooting at a moving target. Some teams are hesitant to even do this step, because they believe it will commit them to a set of actions forever after. That is, they view the vision as something that is set in stone, immutable and static. This couldn’t be further from the truth! Having a vision is what gets the team going and what keeps it going under circumstances that are unanticipated and sometimes even crises. The vision that the team constructs now will probably look different next year or in five years, to reflect internal or external changes to the team. But today the team needs something to get going, so find the map.

Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. —T.S. Eliot from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Envisioning Constructing your vision is one of the most important things you will do as a team, so it’s no surprise that it demands extraordinary attention to the “what can be?” questions: • What can the organization be? • What can the people in the team become?


47

• How can the leader help you get there? • Has the team taken the time to explore and formulate where you want to be? • Is the team on a road that will actually get you where you need to go? As the old saying goes, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.

“Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible.” —Frank Gaines

The ability of the team to do successful envisioning before it embarks on its tasks is crucial. This is true for teams in all contexts, and perhaps especially so for teams that rely on core groups of volunteers and leaders to rally around a central purpose—a purpose that can help or hinder the very survival of the nonprofit organization. Here is an example of one individual, Saul Carliner, who has devoted much of his professional life to teaching others the skills they need to effectively (and dynamically!) lead community organizations.

Saul Carliner “The Passion behind Community Leadership”

C

ommunity organizations, whether civic, religious, cultural, or professional, rely on the work of volunteers led by people who, although they are drawn to this work by their passion, may find they lack the fundamental skills needed to lead suc-

48


cessfully. Saul Carliner is an impassioned leader who has spent much of his professional and personal life helping community leaders nationwide do the important work that they have come together for. An Assistant Professor of English at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts, Saul has spent many years developing workshops, classes, and materials for community leadership programs. He has mentored prospective volunteer leaders, developed a conference that trains and motivates community volunteers, and coordinated programs for a business leadership project in Atlanta. Most recently, he has developed a comprehensive curriculum for a training program that supports community members in the transition from an initial volunteer to a community leadership role. As early as 1993, when he was conducting workshops on strategic evaluation for the Nonprofit Resource Center in Atlanta, Saul recognized some fundamental issues confronting volunteers who work for nonprofit organizations. He explains, “Volunteers come in and want to make a big impression on people. Yet leadership development programs are scared to death to teach the basics that these new volunteer leaders need. The volunteers want to get right to work on the issues, but instead get one of two things: either a discussion of values—which are important but aren’t much help in teaching a novice newsletter editor about compiling an editorial schedule or mastering a desktop publishing program. Or, they get a data dump (usually several boxes with unorganized files) that is equally frustrating. So many volunteers don’t know what they are doing with their work and time.” He also warns leaders about setting expectations that are too high. A recent study found that 55 percent of members in these organizations only want to be dues-paying members. Given that fewer than half of the members of community


49

groups in most instances are not actively involved, how can a leader achieve collaboration with the rest of the membership? Community leaders have a strong influence on whether their organization ever reaches its objectives. Why do some of these groups never seem to become truly collaborative? Saul notes that a pitfall in many civic, religious, and other community groups is that leaders (or one or more of the members) sometimes force an agenda about something that is important to them and that is not necessarily related to the stated mission of the organization. They make the assumption that everyone shares that passion, when it may not be true. So how can leaders be sure that there is a shared vision in going forward? One of Saul’s recommendations is to bring in an outside facilitator, who will not be seen as representing one particular viewpoint. Additionally, “leaders should get everyone together in the same room, and tell them that they will not walk out without achieving their goal. Don’t give them the option of not succeeding.” This builds a mindset of success, he says, that really works. “Use a brainstorming technique. Ask everyone what constituency they represent and what they think of the issues.” “As the leader, I sometimes say nothing to influence a particular direction.” To build an environment of collaboration, it can help to personally invite volunteers, and to help them understand what the work is. “Leaders should communicate the bottom line of what they want to achieve, but not the means of getting there. Leave it up to the volunteers to work together, they’ll form a greater respect for the process.” Saul reflects that by enabling everyone to say what he or she thinks, the team finds there is usually not as wide a gap between constituencies as everyone thinks there is. This strategy worked very well for the Minneapolis Jewish Federation, one organization with whom Saul has worked. “I was asked to

50


help the organization rewrite its mission statement and the process was an example of collaborative community leadership.” They took a few months to come up with the mission statement. Like other organizations, values alignment was a challenge because their constituencies did not have a uniform attitude about what the organization should be. What are the risks to leaders of community organizations? “As the top leader, sometimes you’re just a guide. You do want to have an idea about how to get the mission accomplished. But, that’s your private knowledge. You are a coach to teammates working with them to develop their own plans for implementing programs. When people develop ideas on their own, they feel a sense of ownership in the program and are more committed to its success.” Sometimes the expectations that members of these organizations have for their leaders are unrealistic. Saul cautions: “Volunteer leaders in the community are expected to have the tact of a career diplomat, the business sense of a CEO in a Fortune 500 corporation, and the vision of a prophet!” However, there are some things that leaders can do to get the skills and knowledge they need to guide these organizations effectively. Saul emphasizes that leaders need to start with the basics: “Know how to run a meeting. Have an agenda, and always end the meeting with a debriefing on how the meeting went. That’s 75 percent of a really successful meeting. Give good follow-up, including a record of key decisions that were made. Briefly summarize decisions made and the key points of view presented in the conversation without providing a verbatim transcription (which people won’t read and don’t need). Make a list of what the team agreed to and when each person agreed to do it. Tell people when they are doing a good job.”


51

Saul Carliner is taking his passion to the Web. He is currently designing a Web site for community leaders that will contain how-to instructions, worksheets, and many other resources for volunteers in each key leadership role in community organizations, such as newsletter editor, membership manager, program manager, and financial officer. Helping people work together for a common purpose is the key to the survival of these organizations, and with Saul’s vision for leadership development the communities they serve will also thrive. ✴

“Some people only see what is. They never see what can be.” —Albert Einstein

The Envisioning Process Stories such as Saul’s are very motivating and make us want to get started visioning with our teams. In this next section, we put these ideas into action by giving you a process any team can use to co-create its vision.

Step 1: Personal Reflection The envisioning process starts with the intent to spend time individually reflecting on what we see the purpose of the team to be, what we find meaningful about what the team is going to do, and so on. This vital first step gives us time and space to reflect on what we think is important. Taking time to personally reflect on what we bring to the table and what we think needs to be accomplished helps us be more of a contributor when we get into the team to work. We are grounded

52


in our viewpoint, based on our past experiences (organizations for which we’ve worked), the positions we hold (VP of Marketing, sales director, or fundraiser), and of course all of the personal and background information we bring to the table. The goal of the first step is to understand our viewpoint. Metaphors and visual language are excellent ways to convey ideas and concepts—they give us language for things we feel and see but to which we cannot quite put into words. In the case of visioning, the use of metaphor can help others get a picture of what we are seeing—like the “good soup” metaphor. We can all relate to the making and eating of good soup. The use of metaphor helps us tap into the universal language of picture and experience. It also helps us to tap into our “beyond logic” knowing—the stuff we know but don’t know we know. Intuition is a good example of this. We’ve used a few examples of metaphors in this chapter to illustrate our points: good soup, spring-cleaning our closet, and the vision as a map. The assignment? It’s five years from now. You are a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Write an article about a hot successful team that everyone wants to know about. You guessed it; it’s your team! Write your story profiling this team. Your story should answer the following ten questions: 1. What was the opportunity/problem your team faced when it started? 2. What needed improvement? 3. What obstacles did you and the team overcome? (What stood in the way of your progress?) 4. How did you know you were on the right track? 5. What did you become known for? 6. What difference did the team make?


53

7. What where you really passionate about? 8. What talents/abilities did you personally want to contribute? 9. What is it like to work on your successful team now? How do you interact? Can you give an analogy to best describe the way your team operates today? What about when you started? 10. What is the one piece of advice you wish you had when you started five years ago? Dream, play, get large, go for broke . . . don’t limit yourself to what the team has accomplished today. This is the time to get down all your wishes and desires: for the team, for yourself, for your organization, and for your clients and communities. Let your only limitations be your own creativity and imagination.

“You are now at a crossroads. This is your opportunity to make the most important decision you will ever make. Forget your past. Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now? Don’t think about who you have been. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become? Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully.” —Anthony Robbins

Step 2: Convene the Team Begin by giving everyone a chance to share their stories or personal reflections (to the level they feel comfortable). If they feel like reading the whole story or fully describing their metaphors, make time for that. Note: this process may take a

54


day or two, but it is worth the time spent. Also take frequent breaks—every hour take a stretch break or go for a quick walk (no cell phones or voice mail—relax). The goal of the second step is to understand each other’s viewpoints. Then we can meld and merge these perspectives to make the soup of our collective vision and purpose. When a team member is done, try to capture the details of their descriptions on flip charts with the following titles: • • • • • • • • • •

Opportunity/problem Needs improvement Obstacles Signs we are on the right track We will become known for Difference made Meaning Talents Team operating characteristics Piece of advice

After this exercise, the team will have vital data. The contents are the indicators of how the team will progress toward its goals. Use this important data to evaluate team progress. This data should be used and valued equally along with any quantitative data collected: return on investment (ROI), economic value added (EVA), net present value (NPV). Here is what the team will have: • What we are trying to do = Chart “Opportunity/ problem” • What to change = Chart “Needs improvement” • What can trip us up = Chart “Obstacles”


55

• • • • •

Data = Chart “Signs we are on the right track” What we will do = Chart “We will become known for” Customer needs = Chart “Difference made” Individual needs = Chart “Personally meaningful” What we bring to the table as a team = Chart “Personal talents” • How we will operate = Chart “Team operating characteristics” • What we will keep in mind = Chart “Piece of advice” Once everyone has had a chance to share his or her stories (visions), take a break. Then come back and talk over each list. Go back and refine the lists to make them more comprehensive (if needed). Try not to eliminate items. Our experience with some teams is that too much time is spent trying to wordsmith a statement. Don’t fall into this trap. Instead, focus your energy on the message behind the statement, and put sticky notes on the vision statement that can be pulled off and changed when needed.

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . The Elevator Test The elevator test was created by Geoffrey Moore, from his book Crossing the Chasm. The elevator test helps you to think about how you would tell someone about the product or service you provide (what it is you do) in the time it takes to get to your floor in an elevator. Your statement should communicate quickly and clearly the purpose of your product/service in the following form:

56


• • • • • •

For . . . (the target customer) Who wants . . . (the key need) The . . . (name of your product/service) That . . . (what do you provide) Unlike . . . (competitive product and key benefit) Our product . . . (competitive advantage)

“We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.” —Omar Nelson Bradley

Making the Process Work: Setting Some Important Ground Rules There are some fundamental ground rules that go into the co-creating vision process. Remember the importance of: • Valuing the contribution of each member • Trusting that this group of people has something to give to each other and the whole (trusting the group wisdom) • Creating an environment conducive to powerful teaming • Listening to one another’s perspectives • Letting go of defending your position • Realizing this is not about coming to consensus—it is about finding a way that works


57

Tips for Working through This Process • Use a “wild card,” or someone unfamiliar with your team’s mission. The fresh perspective can be very stimulating as well as shocking, because we all take what we do and what it means for granted. Does someone unfamiliar with your mission really know what you mean? • If the team is large, do this process in subgroups and then come together and share with the larger team. • Get an outside facilitator. • If you are going to try to facilitate the team yourself, verbally change hats from participant to facilitator. For example, when you want to say something, alert people: “I am changing hats to facilitator because I want us to note the time we have left.” Or “I want to change hats and throw something in as a team member—I feel we need to include XYZ.” This helps the team to feel you are being a responsible facilitator and not using the power of the pen to push through your points of view. Even if the team does not want to do this visioning work, we should do this process just for ourselves. Write up the article and create the elevator test statement.

What to Watch Out For • People who think they have tried something like this and failed. They will make the case that this is a waste of time. • Rushing through this process too quickly. Don’t be fooled into thinking this process goes fast. It takes time, but it is worth it.

58


• Feeling pressured to start working without first cocreating the vision. • Accepting the vision that you create as the set-in-stone statements that will carry you forward until the disbandment of your team. From time to time question the vision, revisit the process, and ask the hard questions about whether the vision is still working for you and your team. The central point we make throughout this book is that if we really want to become a breakthrough team, we can’t just do it at breakneck speed. Don’t cut out the important work of building the team, or we will simply do the wrong things faster and more efficiently! Being breakneck but not breakthrough is just taking the fast road to failure.

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . Give Me Five Have each person do the following: On an index card, write • Five things the team should be thinking about or doing right now. • Five things that team members can do to help each other get there. • Five things that concern each member about the way the team is doing things. • Five things each member wants to see happen if the team does things right. • Five things we think our customers would say about us.


59

“No vision and you perish; No Ideal, and you’re lost; Your heart must ever cherish Some faith at any cost. Some hope, some dream to cling to, Some rainbow in the sky, Some melody to sing to, Some service that is high.” —Harriet Du Autermont

Unlocking Team Genius with Principle Two: Co-Create an Understanding of the Vision • Take the time to do visioning work. • Be careful not to make your vision the same as your mission. Here’s the difference: • Mission Statement: What we are good at doing today. • Vision Statement: What we hope to accomplish in the future. This includes what we are not yet doing that we had better be doing tomorrow. • Diverge on all that the team wants to see happen. • Converge to identify: • Why the team exists • What you want to be • Who you are and how you are going to work together • What is your desired outcome • How you are going to achieve your objectives • What you need to do

AXIOM . . .

Start with the Right Foundation to Build on Solid Ground

PRINCIPLE THREE Choose the Culture You Want

“Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.” —Alan Keightley

The culture of an organization is its mark of distinction. It’s a complex social process that includes observable and tangible elements, such as how people dress and the way offices are decorated; patterns of behavior, such as the degree of informality among group members; and implicit values of the group, such as professional growth. It is the glue that holds the group together. If a culture is strong, each member understands what he or she is to do and how to work together. There exists a level of comfort and understanding of what it means to belong to the group. But in many instances culture is taken for granted. People come into the team with preconceived notions of how a team should work together, or the team inherits the culture

61

62


and operating norms of the larger organization. Most teams do not stop to talk about these preconceived notions, or the kind of operating environment they would like to work in. They just get to work. One signal that a team has just inherited its culture is that working on the team feels like every other team to which we belong! There are no differences in the way people act or what they feel is important for this particular project. The team might just as well be substituted with any other. There is no mark of distinction. As you might expect, this is anathema for any team, much less any organization that wants to be more innovative. It is vital for teams to realize that they do not have to adopt ways of operating that do not fit what they are trying to do. We can decide for ourselves what our culture can and should be. But first, diagnose the one that exists if the team has been working for a while. This chapter introduces the principle of choosing the culture you want. Its focus is helping teams shape their own way of doing things. Any team can avoid the pitfalls of a weak culture or becoming so entrenched that no one can influence any change in the way things work. As we begin to think about creating the kind of culture or team environment we want, the following four key points will help us create a collaborative culture: 1. Don’t just inherit the team culture from the larger organization—take mindful action to create and choose the culture. Don’t leave the culture to happenstance. 2. Intend to co-create the culture as a team and not let any one person or manager have a greater say in the culture than the team members. 3. Work to incorporate collaborative team characteristics into the team culture.

Principle Three: Choose the Culture You Want

63

4. Create a team credo, a set of fundamental beliefs and values, that spells out the team values, role expectations, and appropriate behaviors by which the team agrees to abide. Don’t just inherit the culture or leave its development to chance. Take time to assess what behaviors and characteristics the team has been imbued with from the larger organization. Keep what works and eliminate what doesn’t.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Disinheriting the Old Culture • Have you chosen your culture? (Hint: How different is it from previous team cultures to which you’ve belonged?) • What positive elements of the larger organization culture have you inherited? • What negative elements of the larger organization culture have you inherited? • What would you like to change, eliminate, or keep from the larger organization? • Ask people who are new to your team: • What do you notice most about this team? • Does the team remind you of anything? • Is it similar or different to ones you belonged to before (in this organization or others)? How? • What seems interesting to you (that is, weird or unusual)? • What’s the one thing you would really like to know about the way we do things? • What things would you change if you could?

64


Intend to Create the Culture as a Team The culture of a team or an organization is by definition a shared construct. It is nearly impossible, and also selfdefeating, for a leader to decide what the culture should be and then enforce it. It may appear to be what the leader wants on the surface, but if the entire team doesn’t buy into it, it will never be a strong one.

Participative Manager or Dictator?

S

amantha is a manager in new product development in a medical products manufacturing company. She has been with the company for 14 years, and has assumed leadership of many project teams bringing together sales engineers, marketers, designers, and customer service reps. At each project start-up, she shares with the group her vision statement with explicit goals and objectives for the team. She carefully explains to the group at a series of project kick-off meetings exactly where they will need to be at each of the milestones. She often brings in t-shirts, pins, and other accessories communicating the overall vision of the project. To her credit, she listens to questions and input by team members, many with whom she has never worked before, or even met. So far, so good. As the project gets underway, Samantha regularly contacts each team member two to three times a week to check up on how things are going. The problem is she finds it irresistible to tell her team members exactly how they should be carrying out their responsibilities, and she makes sure they do it this way. Before long, many team members find it’s easier to just do what she wants, even if they could devise a more cre-


65

ative, effective way of completing their work. Even though they are asked for input, Samantha ignores it. Further, the customer service representatives feel that their goals for maintaining client relationships are given short shrift in the team’s overall goals. Before too long, Samantha’s style leaves the team feeling alienated, micromanaged, and dissatisfied. As experienced professionals, they feel misplaced within this culture. Some go out of their way to avoid her; others resign themselves to the path of least resistance and become yes-people until the project ends. A few others sneak around and get things done the way they believe works best. Many eventually refuse to be assigned to another team headed by Samantha. ✴ While a leader cannot mandate a culture, there is everything a leader can do to reinforce and support what the culture is about. Team leaders and managers are symbolic representations of the culture. If leaders expect honesty and openness among team members, they must be honest and open themselves. If leaders want the team to share information, they must demonstrate by sharing what they know, intuitively or based on fact. If leaders expect creativity and unusual approaches to problem solving, they must demonstrate a willingness to listen to new ideas and respect nontraditional ideas and approaches. The culture disintegrates quickly when lip service is paid to values and norms, while the leader makes it clear that something else is more desirable. The late W.L. Gore, founder of W.L. Gore Associates, Inc. (known for GORE-TEX® fabrics) used to urge managers to throw out their traditional, hierarchical organizational structures in favor of what he called the informal organization. People, he was fond of saying, delight in going around the for-

66


mal way of doing things. They will find the most efficient way, and stick to that, even if the formal chart dictates that they should go another route. Acknowledge the organization that operates informally, Gore maintained, and you have the most effective and innovative organization design. The team must own how it goes about its work. Values and goals set by one person are less likely to get the buy-in of the majority. Bringing different perspectives into the team will increase the chance that you will get creative, spontaneous, and fresh ideas. You can’t collaborate if you don’t set up the culture to collaborate. This means that the goals and actions emerging from the team are team-based, not imposed from outside or above the team.

“Conform and be dull.” —J. Frank Doble

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Co-Creating the Culture • Is the team leader or manager setting the culture for your team? How? • Has the team had conversations about what you value and how you act together? • If you asked each team member to describe the team culture in one or two sentences, would everyone’s response be the same?


67

Work to Incorporate Collaborative Team Characteristics into the Culture When we are interested in building a culture for creative collaboration, we become aware of the characteristics of such a culture. These characteristics are a bit different than our traditional corporate environments. Interestingly enough, the characteristics that make a culture collaborative are also those that make it healthy, fun, enjoyable, and respectful. The means create the end. We feel like we are building toward something, where the means are supporting the end and the end is supporting the means. Let’s take a look at a meeting at ProTech to see how a collaborative team operates.

ProTech “A Model Collaborative Team Culture”

I

t’s a Tuesday morning at ProTech Enterprises (a pseudonym), and a group of six is gathered at a small conference table on the second floor of the art deco building it occupies. Voices are animated as the six people converse. Occasionally, one member of the group jumps up in response to what another person said, walks over to a white board on the wall, and draws a picture or writes a brief phrase. Laughter emanates from the room. Noticeably absent are stacks of paper, briefcases, or portfolios. Present are colored markers on the table, assorted props, including pieces of the product, a wind-up toy, and a book of poster prints brought in by members of the group. The group seems engrossed in what each person is saying, and hardly seems to notice when the team leader enters the room and sits down at the table. They acknowledge her with a

68


warm greeting, but continue their conversation as before. About ten minutes later, one person asks the leader a question. Before answering, the leader asks the rest of the group whether any of them have ideas or input related to the question. Another member of the group speaks for a couple minutes, and then the leader begins to talk. A few minutes later, laughter again erupts among the entire group. The leader gets up and leaves the conference room for a previously committed meeting. The group resumes its conversation, this time going around one by one as each person adds a thought or an idea to the conversation. To an outsider observing this gathering, this team can be characterized by several qualities: the team members seem to be really listening to one another. They are paying attention to one another; no one has his or her head buried in notes, charts, binders, or other distracting papers. In fact, no one is writing much of anything individually. Whenever the group wants to capture a thought or an idea, someone gets up and draws or writes it on the white board for all to see. Did you notice that toys were present in the room? What happened when the team leader walked in? The team did not adjust what it was doing or pause in its conversation. How did the leader interact with the group? Not much like a traditional manager. In fact, if you didn’t know she was the leader, you likely would have thought she was a team member who stopped in for a few minutes to chat. We also see that the conversation does not seem to be carried on mainly by one or two members. Everyone participates. ✴


69

“A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.” —Albert Einstein

The intention to integrate collaborative characteristics into our culture helps create an environment for creativity and innovation. The characteristics of a collaborative culture are the same characteristics we find ourselves wishing for every time we say, “I don’t like the way we operate together, why can’t it be more like. . . .” We know what the characteristics are; the answers are inside of our teammates and ourselves— pull them out. The story above illustrates only a small sampling of the characteristics we crave in our teams and organizations. The respectful interactions, laughter, play, genuine listening, appreciation of each other, desire to tap into the group intelligence, joy, collegiality, effectiveness, integrity, support, service, and empowerment all result from a belief that these are possible and then action to make them a reality. For the rest of this section, we discuss additional characteristics and behaviors that a team can incorporate into their credo to foster a collaborative environment. When we commit to integrating these behaviors into our daily interactions, we support the team in becoming respectful and effective. These behaviors are especially powerful when mindfully applied in meetings. They help create a safe space, making it possible to discuss difficult topics or bring up the “elephant in the room” that is impeding team progress. Members know they will not be attacked because everyone is committed to self-regulation and responsible participation.

70


TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . Mind Dump Have you ever sat through a meeting and realized at the end that you do not have the faintest notion of what went on or what was decided? You were off thinking of the gazillion things you had to do, so you were never really present. TRY THIS . . . before you start your meetings, ask everyone to take a moment and drain their brains. Take out a piece of paper and get down all the things you have on your mind that you need to do . . . everything, from “pick up a gallon of milk” to “call Frank about the presentation.” Then put the paper into your pocket. This helps you know you have a list of your thoughts in a safe place and now you can pay attention.

The following is a sampling of collaborating behaviors we can incorporate in our daily routine. Ultimately, as we become more and more committed to listening, communicating, and collaborating, our team environment transforms. • • • • • •

Agree that what is said in the room stays in the room Be a responsible participant Detach from the outcome Be open to possibilities Listen with an ear of curiosity versus animosity Listen generously


• • • • • • •

71

Have a we versus me mentality Help one another Eliminate killer phrases Slow down the conversation Evaluate judiciously Stay objective Think systemically

Agree That What Is Said in the Room Stays in the Room This also means respectable, responsible recollection when reporting to others who were not in the room. Things said in the context of the meeting (especially when brainstorming) may seem out of place in the context of everyday work, where the nonattending receiver has not experienced the details of the situation and conversation.

Be a Responsible Participant This involves being as honest and forthcoming as we can, in as objective a manner as possible. It means not accusing others, speaking when we have something meaningful to contribute, and remaining silent when we don’t. Remember the higher point of the meeting (it is not to make us look eloquent or smart).

Detach from the Outcome No one can predict the future, but in fact that is what we are trying to do when we expect a certain outcome. What is,

72


is. Here we let go of our expectations about what should be done and allow the group wisdom to create what can be done. The adage to remember is “We don’t always get what we want, but we (the team) get what we need.” Things unfold for a reason—we might not be privy to it just yet. Trust there is a larger universal process at play working with the team to create what is needed.

Be Open to Possibilities The beauty of a team is that the collective creation is greater than the output of any one person, or “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Therefore, as participants we need to be open to ideas and outcomes that we did not expect. By being open to possibilities, we make room for breakthroughs.

Listen with an Ear of Curiosity versus Animosity Listen to someone as if you have never heard her before— as someone with something important to say. If she is a responsible participant, she will not be speaking when she does not have something valuable to contribute. Listening also means hearing subtle messages someone is trying to offer. In a meeting between radio personality peers, one of the junior announcers was speaking with veteran announcers. Jeff was speaking of some of the fears he had about the job. The veterans brushed him off by saying “You can do it, don’t worry.” But this did nothing to help Jeff. Better for the veterans to have listened and heard his concerns and then responded with “How can we help?” or “Is there anything we can share?”


73

We are not gladiators. Meetings are not a space for sparring and debating (which seem to mark the tone of many meetings) but an opportunity to get things done and resolve issues.

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . Space Out You’re trying to focus, really. It’s just that listening takes lots of concentration and sometimes your mind wanders while someone is talking, or the speaker says something that gives you an idea and you are off in your own thoughts and not paying attention any longer. Instead of spacing out, and missing the rest of what the speaker is saying . . . TRY THIS . . . draw a line down the right side of your note page. Let this be the space where you keep track of the “out” thoughts that popped into your mind while listening to the speaker. These out thoughts can contain nuggets of gold or they just might be reminders like “Don’t forget to pick up dinner.” Either way, keeping track of the ideas and things that popped into your mind in a special space on your paper frees you to concentrate on the meeting at hand.

Listen Generously Much of the time, we listen with an ear toward assessing if the other person is on board with our agenda or point. This is not generous listening. Generous listening means we set

74


aside our agenda, needs, and expectations to try to hear what the other person is saying—not what we are interpreting or hearing through our personal filters, but what the person really intends to communicate. Inevitably, there are times when individuals feel very strongly about something they know or see. If they are practicing courageous action, they will keep bringing the topic up and people might be getting a bit annoyed. Here, the team needs to take time out and listen to the person. Get curious, ask open-ended questions (not defensive questions), and let the person talk until he feels heard. In all likelihood, the team will benefit greatly from listening to the person, and the person will feel he has given what he needed to give to the team.

Have a We versus Me Mentality Every team member would do well to remember the Three Musketeers’ model: “One for all and all for one.” Every member is important and vital to the whole. When one fails, the whole is lesser for it. Create a sense of interconnectedness by encouraging one another. When there is success, collectively share in what was accomplished through the team efforts. When there is failure, rally to find a fix versus finding someone to blame.

Help One Another The collective is the team. It is not “us against them” or “me against her.” Collaboration is connectedness resulting in effectiveness. If we don’t have the intention to help out our teammates then we are not supporting one another, which results in a lack of teamwork. We can help each other by sup-


75

porting a team member when he is making a point, contributing our own knowledge or following up on his point. We also help when we respect the speaker by listening generously and not whispering side comments. Sometimes, we help by courageously asking team members who are not monitoring their speech or taking too much air-time, to please be mindful of our credo (discussed in the next section of this chapter).

Eliminate Killer Phrases These are the things we say either in jest or in seriousness that shut down possibilities and ideas. Comments like “That will never work,” “We already tried that,” “We don’t have the money,” “Yeah, right,” or the ever blunt “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” indicate to people that they should not take risks or say anything that is not extremely well thought out. Some teams will adamantly say they value respect, openness, and risk-taking, but then when a new idea is raised, it’s treated much in the same way our immune systems treat a foreign body, like a virus or bacteria—it’s annihilated! By monitoring our speech, we wisely contribute to a respectful work environment.

Slow Down the Conversation The average meeting conversation goes at the speed of light. The conversations are fast and furious. The problem with this speed is people who are comfortable with fast-paced discussions excel—but others just get left out. The fast pace of conversation can also leave out people of different cultures. Slowing down the conversation helps people be better listeners—because they are not listening with one ear and try-

76


ing to figure out how to get in their point with the other. It helps them be better participants—because they can decide if what they have to say is important enough to verbalize. And it helps them be better collaborators—because they know they have the time later to make their point. Now they can attend to the point of the current speaker.

Evaluate Judiciously Webster’s definition of judgment is assessment. When we judge we are listening to what someone is saying and assessing if it fits within our frame of reference. When we judge, we could be evaluating what someone is saying to see if we agree, or we might just be looking for fault in what she is saying to shoot down her logic. Judgment must be used with great care. Team members are there for their unique contributions. If we are judging to see if they think like us, we are missing the richness of having them as team members. We need to be conscious of how we are listening. Are we really listening, or are we judging? Listening means we are trying to understand the person’s point without putting our overlay on it. Judging is okay, bouncing what we think off of what they think, but then we need to use this assessment to build on the ideas and concepts, not tear them down.

Stay Objective Once our idea is put out into the group, it needs to become part of the collective. We need to find the courage to


77

not be so attached to our ideas that they have to be executed exactly as we conceived them. A benefit of being on a team is that the group can build on an idea to make it richer and more effective. The group also needs to have restraint so that it does not totally erode the idea or embellish it to the point that the original concept is lost. When we are attached to our ideas and ways of doing things, we push and push and push. If the team has taken the time to listen and has genuinely tried to incorporate our ideas and concepts, then it is time for us to stop and reflect. Am I balancing me in light of the we? Is it time for this idea or that? Am I pushing at the expense of the greater plan for my own personal satisfaction and gain? Am I taking the whole into account? I have heard from the whole and have seen them working to listen and incorporate my thoughts. Perhaps it’s time for me to respect the we and balance my needs with the needs of the collective.

Think Systemically System thinking is making decisions that take the whole system into account. System thinking is different from just looking at the consequences of an action, because sometimes the consequences are not assessed from the bigger picture. Systemic decision making is choosing actions that have considered the needs and issues of the larger system, not on the IQ or clout of the person offering them. On a personal level, we shift from my needs, my ideas, my way, to what is best for the whole. How do we evolve the ideas so that they optimize our goals, and work for our system?

78


BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Incorporating Collaborative Characteristics • What is collaborative to you? • What is collaborative to your team? • How will you know when you’re operating collaboratively? • What other collaborative characteristics and behaviors do you think are important to a breakthrough team?

Determine the Team Credo Together We go about making creative collaboration a reality by defining what we value, and then deciding how we are going to operate together based on our values. A culture is founded on values, which are the bedrock of the team’s interactions. Taking the time to discuss these values provides a team with the groundwork for building successful products, creating new market plans, and accomplishing any other business endeavor. The team’s credo is composed of two components: a statement of values and a list of operating guidelines. The credo spells out the values, role expectations, and appropriate behaviors by which the team agrees to abide. This does not mean that the team is restricted to a prescribed set of actions, limiting creativity and flexibility. It does mean that team members have set up their organization together—each member having a clear picture of what the team is about (Principle Two: Co-creating the Vision).


79

The list of operating guidelines describes how team members will conduct themselves. It is a set of interaction principles describing how they will operate together. Ideally, principles are a direct reflection of the values. Why is a credo needed? Close your eyes and think about the last time you were gathered with a group of people. What happened? Typically, four different people come in with four different agendas, or one person is generating ideas while the other is shooting them down with statements like: “That’ll never work,” or “The boss will never go for it.” Yes, but what about . . . ? What bubblehead thought that one up? We’ve never done it this way before,” and on and on. These phrases and other frustrating behaviors can really hurt the morale of the team, but they are very much a part of team culture for many of us. A team credo along with the communication processes and team governing guidelines discussed in Principle Seven (Govern from Within) will help teams overcome these troublesome habits. Ultimately, the credo is additional qualitative data for the team to use when “e-valuating” itself (a process we will discuss later in this chapter). The process of developing a credo will enable the team to feel they are contributing value on many levels. When team members feel they are doing valuable work, the success or failure of the endeavor does not become the only measure of contribution or progress.

Creating the Team Credo Step One: Personal Exploration of Values and Operating Behaviors Begin by asking everyone to spend some time in the quiet of their own space and think about what is important to them.

80


You probably have a good start because of the work you have done with co-creating the vision work (Principle Two). In this step people determine what is important personally, interpersonally, business-wise, and customer-wise—anything is fair game. Once you have personally explored what is important, prioritize your list. Personal Reflections • It is important to me that as a team we . . . • When it comes to teamwork, I really value . . . • When it comes to customer satisfaction, I really value . . . • In difficult times, I really value . . . • Important values I think we need to hold as a team are . . . • I think it is important we all agree to . . . • One thing that I am most frustrated by in teams is . . . • In team meetings, I think it is important we . . . • I want to be a part of a team that operates like . . . Remember to review your thoughts about collaborative characteristics and eradicating cultural holdovers from the larger organization.

Step Two: Create a Statement of Values Once people have had personal reflection time, gather the team members and have the discussion of what is important— what do we value? Give everyone time to share their personal reflections. Don’t skimp on this part of the process. Take the time to diverge and hear all possible values from each person. Then the team can converge (select) the master list of values.


81

The discussion of values can be quite revealing because it gets down to fundamentals. Many times what people value is not even included in the qualitative and quantitative data gathered to assess performance. This discussion will yield a set of values as unique as the people on the team. As every team is different, so will be its set of values. What we have seen over and over is that a team usually comes up with a set of values that is very practical and sensible, while being meaningful and deep. The values range from trust, honesty, doing good, and having free time to meeting commitments, getting repeat customers, providing a needed service, and making money.

Step Three: Create the List of Operating Guidelines Here the team creates a list of any and all possible operating guidelines. These are the operating principles you agree to hold when working together, in meetings, one-on-one, with customers, or with the rest of the organization. Give yourselves permission to diverge on all of the possibilities before converging on the master list everyone agrees to. At this stage do not worry how to measure the values, just take the time to have heartfelt conversation. Also remember, these are not written in stone; as a team evolves and changes, the values and operating guidelines change and evolve too. However, this list will get you off to a great start. In the end of this process, the team will have constructed a list of values and guidelines that it agrees it will monitor and work to uphold—this is your team credo. Remember, as the team gets to know each other and the day to day routine sets in, be ready to change and modify the

82


credo. It needs to be a living, organic document—not something that we stick on a 3x5 card and shove into a file folder. Here are some ideas for keeping your credo alive and memorable: • Make and distribute posters (that the team has designed, of course). • Celebrate team members that do something special to live the credo (and publish it in a newsletter or other electronic announcements). The key to reinforcing a culture is to make heroes of people who embody it. • And, as the team gets more comfortable with one another, use Koosh Balls®, paper wads, or squirt guns to gently remind someone when they breach the covenants of the credo.

E-valuation—How Are We Doing on What We Value? As the team owns its goals, so too, must it own its evaluation of them. What we want to create is an “e-valuation”1 system that values what really matters—to the team, to the company, to the customers. E-valuation flows from valuation, thus the reason for developing a credo. The credo gives us data for e-valuation. A collaborative team needs a system that gives team members feedback on how they are doing—individually and collectively, while counting what really counts. It answers the question “How are we doing on what we value?” Commit to having monthly or quarterly discussions on how everyone feels the team is doing against the values. Now


83

is the time to value how we are doing on what we value. Here, a silent ballot is a good idea. Each person takes the values and assigns a number from 1 to 5 (with 5 signifying “We are doing a great job putting this value into action” and 1 being “Needs lots of work”). Someone tabulates the totals and shows the overall results. This provides an overview of the team perception of how things are going. Note: Each person should also rate herself privately so that she is taking personal responsibility for her actions and contributions. You might want to adjourn after this and say to everyone—“We see the results, we are committed to these values so we will find ways to make changes and keep getting better. We trust we will work this.” Or you can work some values in that meeting. Commit to working with only one or two of the values per meeting. Work with the one that got the highest mark and the one that got the lowest mark. Begin with the one that got the highest—“How can we do even better on this one?” Then the lowest—“What is one thing we can do to improve this one?”

“If an organization wishes to benefit from its own creative potential, it must be prepared to value the vagaries of the immeasurable as well as the certainties of the measurable.” —Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball

A Note on Rewards Evaluation leads us to the notion of rewards. Long understood as a critical piece of team management, nothing can

84


obliterate the culture for collaborative teamwork more than an inadequate or inappropriate reward system. Nothing undermines collaboration and team play like certain types of rewards. Mostly because traditional rewards are still given for individual effort rather than team effort and they are given from someone (a manager) to someone on the team, creating the perception that the team member’s performance met with the manager’s expectations. Alfie Kohn, in his book Punished by Rewards 2 makes the case that rewards, or pay-for-performance, undermines creativity and possibility. Primarily because the pay-for-performance system creates a limiting system, where the receiver is trying to figure out what the reward giver expects—therefore undermining out-o-box thinking and doing for fear of not meeting expectations. Pay-for-performance creates a kind of “Pavlov’s dog” scenario, where the motivation to do something comes from something external, which does nothing to increase internal motivation and drive. We are not recommending that you chuck the reward system you have, nor do we want to get into a long-winded discussion of the merits of any system. We do want to highlight concepts that foster and encourage collaboration versus discouraging it. It is a matter of moving motivation from rewards (external motivation) to values (internal motivation). It is also a matter of including some type of team reward along with the usual individual ones. This can go a long way toward eliminating that universal frustration felt when performance evaluation time rolls along and individual efforts are singled out at the expense of teamwork (despite what we said at the start about teamwork). No wonder the excitement about working on yet another team quickly flies out the window. One more point about rewards: If a monetary or other type of reward is to be given, the lump should be given to the


85

entire team. Then, everyone on the team should agree on how it will be disseminated. It might be based on the team’s collective perception of each individual’s contribution to the values (discussed previously), it might be based on contribution, or it might be equally disseminated. Whatever the plan, it should be discussed at the beginning of the project or well in advance of compensation time.

“Creativity flows in the direction of rewards.” —Harold McAlindon

The following exercise was described to us by Kim Moldofsky, founder of Positive Impact, Inc.3 We have used it as an icebreaker for teams who are meeting for the first time, in groups of executives or faculty who come together from different parts of the organization, for groups of high-schoolers attending an entrepreneurship camp, and in our MBA classes. People love it, and it serves as stage-setting to getting the kind of culture you want for your team.

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . The Five Finger Contract When you bring a group of people together for the first time, or even when you are about to start a new project: TRY THIS . . . Have the team stand in a circle, so that each person can spread his or her arms and reach another person. Ask everyone to hold up one hand (left or right—it doesn’t mat-

86


ter). Have everyone make a fist, then go through the following five steps: 1. “We’re going to pledge the five finger contract to each other. Everyone raise their pinkie (little) finger. This finger represents safety. Just as we want to protect everyone’s physical safety, we also want to ensure emotional safety. What are some ways we can do that? (Pause, and wait for a couple of suggestions, like “Let’s not embarrass each other, or make fun of other people”.) 2. Next say, “Now hold out your ring finger” (everyone will have two fingers extended). “This finger represents commitment. How might we show commitment to each other?” Again, ask for suggestions. 3. “The middle finger represents respect” (or, you can ask people what it means when someone “gives them the finger” to show your point). “How can we pledge respect to one another?” Here people will offer such ideas as, “Don’t belittle others’ opinions” and “trust one another.” 4. “The pointer finger stands for accountability. Before we point it at other people, we have to turn it in on ourselves. What are some ways we can be accountable to each other?” Here people might offer ideas such as, “Show up!” and “Do what you say you will do.” 5. “Finally, the thumb represents ‘thumbs up’ for a good time! We want to have fun.” Now that everyone is standing with their five fingers raised: “We’ll go around the circle and pledge the contract to each other. Everyone will ‘high five’ the person standing next to them while saying his or her name.” For example, Lisa turns to Laurie and slaps her hand in a high five and says, “Lisa.” Laurie turns to the person standing next to her, high fives


87

his hand while saying “Laurie,” and so on. Go around the circle. Everyone will have fun with this exercise, and you’ll have set the tone for how the team expects every person to act.

“Act boldly and unseen forces will come to your aid.” —Dorothea Brande

Unlocking Team Genius with Principle Three: Choose the Culture You Want • Don’t accept the culture as it’s handed to you. • Take the time to decide together your values and operating principles. Make these your team credo. • E-valuate: Judge your team’s progress based on your values and a system view of what’s important, not just on short-term numbers.

AXIOM . . .

Choose the Culture You Want and Then Live It

PRINCIPLE FOUR Engage in Courageous Speech and Action

“I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” —Woody Allen

Why a chapter on courage? Because teamwork is courageous work. We are connecting to people and learning about each other. There are so many layers of interaction at play that getting the work done seems to end up being the least of our worries. This principle explores the personal responsibility each of us shares as a contributing team member. It is vital that each team member makes a commitment to courageous speech and action by (1) making a commitment to spend time understanding their personal internal compass and guide posts, and then (2) committing to act upon these on behalf of themselves and the team.

89

90


It’s about Integrity Courageous speech and action does not mean saving babies from burning buildings. Courageous speech and action is highly personal and very individual. What is courageous for one might not be courageous for another. The key is to be internally driven and define what is your personal compass and follow that—following your heart and internal compass is integrity. What is the difference between acting with integrity and acting with courage? Acting with integrity is taking actions that are in alignment with our internal compass and personal convictions, codes of conduct, and self-determined values. Acting with courage is acting with integrity even when it might not be vogue to do so.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Actions of Integrity • What is your code of conduct? • Do you believe you take courageous action? • Can you honestly say people see you as a person of integrity? • When do you find it most difficult to act with courage?

“When a defining moment comes along, you can do one of two things. Define the moment, or let the moment define you.” —From the movie Tin Cup

Principle Four: Engage in Courageous Speech and Action

91

TOOLS YOU CAN USE . . . Clue Please So you have an inkling that you are unaware in some area of your life. You realize that there are things you don’t know and wonder how to find out more about them. Before you continue on clueless . . . TRY THIS . . . Pull a picture out of a magazine—any picture. Pick one that “sparkles” to you. Then use your nondominant hand to write yourself a message. Ask the picture to speak to you or ask the subject of the picture to give you a message. Write this message with your nondominant hand. It will be weird, but you will probably get something really meaty and helpful. OR TRY THIS . . . Take a question that is stumping you and let your nonlogical brain answer it. Take a statement like “I find it most difficult to act with courage when . . .” and write yourself a message using your nondominant hand. You might be surprised by what you find out.

“The best way out is always through.” —Robert Frost

92


Our Actions Shout Who We Are Courage is something that comes from deep inside of us. It is an inner strength and personal integrity that shines like a beacon for all to see. A boss had a poster in her office which read “I cannot hear what you are saying because who you are is shouting so loudly at me.” Who we are shouts to people, telling them what we are made of. Who we are is not defined by how we dress or the job we have. It is defined by the way we conduct ourselves on a day-to-day basis. If pictures are worth a thousand words then courageous actions are worth a million bucks. What are you shouting at your team members? Are you saying you are a hard worker but are constantly taking off a half-hour early three times a week for this or that very important reason? Do you keep your commitments, or is there always some reason you cannot? Do you say you hate wasting resources but spend the company money on wasteful trips? We have all been around people who say one thing and do another. This is a very expensive trait—acting incongruently undermines our credibility and perceived personal worth.

“Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.” —Winston Churchill

Action Accounting Steven Covey talks about building our “emotional bank account”—this is the concept of action over time. When we act


93

with integrity over and over and are consistent with our commitments our actions establish the type of person we are. The analogy Covey uses is that we build an emotional bank account where acting with integrity and considerate behavior make deposits into our account. This account can be drawn upon in those inevitable times when we make a mistake or have a lapse in judgment. The bigger the mistake is, the larger the withdrawal. Spending time understanding our personal code of conduct and how we want to conduct ourselves in all parts of our life (when people are looking and when they are not) helps significantly reduce the number of withdrawals.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Healthy Accounting • Are your actions congruous with your speech? • Do you make daily contributions in the emotional bank accounts you hold with all the people in your life? • What actions in your life continuously cause you to make withdrawals on your emotional bank accounts?

“Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold, but so does a hard-boiled egg.” —Anonymous

94


Courageous Actions in Our Teams The following is a sampling of the times when courageous speech and action make deposits into our team bank account and build our confidence. These actions shout good things about us to our team members. We cannot cover all of the times courageous speech and action are needed, so use this as a starter list and add to it as you and the team see fit. When we are forming together as a team and we are getting to know one another, sharing our hopes and dreams, when we are doing our visioning work— we need to be courageous to say what we see and what we want to have happen. We also need to be courageous to put our expectations on hold while others speak their vision. Opening up to our fellow team members can be very difficult—especially if we have been hurt in a team situation in the past. If we don’t share what we see and want, our teammates will not be able to take our viewpoints into consideration. We are not contributing fully and therefore a piece of the puzzle is missing. People are not mind readers. When we give the team the benefit of our perspective we give important necessary information. When we are called on to trust our teammates and their abilities. We cannot control everything. It is scary to need others to accomplish something. We can do our best to influence and communicate, but there comes a point when we have to let go and trust in the collective. This can be very courageous


95

for many. Additionally, saying what you mean and doing what you say does wonders for building trust among team members. If we don’t trust, people become defensive. They are constantly trying to justify and prove their value. This is energy wasted. For every thought that goes toward proof and defense is a thought lost that could have been applied to problem solving and invention. When we need to speak truthfully. In order to speak the truth, we need to take time to reflect on how we feel and what we are seeing. Personal reflection and listening to our intuition is an important first step in courageous speech. Next, we need to speak from our personal point of view (using “I” statements). Here, we provide our truth in nonjudgmental, objective statements. This is an artform and takes much practice, but with dedication on your part, speaking your truth can become a great gift to many. There are also times when we find we need to talk about the unspeakable or things that are getting in the way of progress but which no one wants to address. These “unspeakables” might be stifling team progress and will continue to do so until someone speaks up. Telling our truth and speaking up versus keeping the peace helps to contribute to an effective work environment. If we don’t speak our truth and instead go with the flow, we are withholding vital information, which can result in serious consequences for the team and for us. It may lead the team down a wasteful path. In addition, when we do not muster the

96


courage to speak our truth we send a destructive message to our subconscious that we are not courageous. Thus we erode our self-worth. When we need to act with integrity in spite of peer pressure to fudge numbers or engage in other smoke-and-mirrors behavior. My father used to say he could sleep at night because his actions did not keep him up worrying. Use this litmus test along with your internal code of conduct to do the unpopular but right thing. If we don’t stay our course, we are easily manipulated and pushed around. Being weak-willed, we are an easy target for people with unhealthy agendas. In the end, people are accountable for their actions. When we keep our promises even though we would rather be out playing golf. Or when we work hard even though the people around us don’t. Be your own personal barometer, set your standards not based on external stimuli but based on your internally determined standards. If we don’t keep our promises, we make withdrawals from our team bank account and undermine our credibility. We jeopardize the careers and goals of the people of the team. Every person is vital because they are doing something necessary. When they do not uphold their commitments the system suffers. When we need to address a problem or issue directly with a particular team member. Going to the person we are having difficulty with instead of


97

going to “big-daddy boss” is mature behavior. Finding the courage to address the person in an objective way, without confronting, and being curious instead of accusatory is very wise. If we don’t treat our colleagues with respect, we undermine the interpersonal bond. There is nothing worse than being blind-sided by a boss reprimanding you for something you were not really aware of, because your colleague did not have the courage to discuss it with you first. However, if a colleague does have the courage to speak their truth to you, do not get defensive and angry. They are giving you information. Try to take it in that vein and thank them for the courage to give you valuable feedback. When we are challenged to return to working the old way versus this new collaborative way. We will be questioned about how this stuff could actually work—no traditional team leader responsibilities, shared responsibility, choice, self-regulating— baloney, they will say. Traditional individualistic and bureaucratic ways are how we are used to working; they are familiar and comfortable. But choosing to collaborate and use the concepts and tools in this book is quite different. It is like we are using a vastly different set of mental muscles: trust over control, collaboration over hierarchy, co-creation over one vision, choice over mandates, communication over expectation, and courage over indifference. Others might be threatened by these new ways or are not ready for them, and they might make you feel you are being unrealistic that these kinds of things could work in business. But don’t let their

98


fears and unwillingness to change stop you from this necessary business evolution. If we don’t change the way we do business, we will be missing out on the most valuable resource any company has: the talent, creativity and wisdom inside of each and every person in its employ. When we employ “we-mentality” over “me-mentality.” Collaboration means we have made a commitment to work together for a greater good. We need to put our ego on hold and our need to look bright and talented on the back burner for the team to make progress. We need to think of the whole with the same level of importance as ourselves. We have all experienced times when someone talks too long or engages in self-aggrandizing behavior that takes the wind out of the team’s sails. If we don’t make the transition from me to we mentality, our teams will always be plagued by the need for one-upmanship and self-preservation. The energy spent in internal jousting could have better been spent meeting project deadlines and serving customers. When we need to own our actions versus finding a scapegoat to blame. “No excuses sir” is the response of a cadet at West Point to a charge from an officer. Own your actions and their consequences.1 If we don’t own our actions, we end up defending and blaming. Defending and blaming are energy suckers which create an unhealthy team environment.


99

When we value what is valuable and use new data to count what counts. Traditional data does not always give us the whole picture. It gives us a sense of how we are doing financially but not much else. When we courageously look for qualitative data, we are taking a broader, systemic view to evaluating our progress. Data like how are we doing with respect to our credo, or creating a team environment that supports unlocking talents and passions. We might be pushed for the traditional data, but not stopping there and looking for and valuing all the data is important to business transformation. If we don’t look for and value nontraditional data we miss out on valuable information about our progress and accomplishments as a team, as individuals, and as a company. This additional data helps us value the process as much as the product. Valuing how we work as much as what we have accomplished makes it much easier to facilitate constant change, renewal, and progress. When we need to be open and continually learning, and not have the answers all the time. If we aren’t open to learning, we become closed-minded and stale. We start to smell like a musty closet in need of some fresh air. The fresh air is growth and new input. Don’t let the need to be expert in your field keep you from the fresh air of change, growth, learning, and new experiences. When we need to contribute our uniqueness and passion. You are huge—you contain multitudes (Walt Whitman). You are huge and are here to con-

100


tribute your special talents and unique gifts. It might not seem there is opportunity for you to do it where you work, but if you are there—there is a reason. Never hide your light under a bushel basket. If we don’t contribute our gifts and talents they begin to atrophy and wither. We start to lose track of them, and before we know it, we think we do not have anything of value to give. This is not true. Keep your passions and uniqueness alive by tapping into them and applying them every day! When we treat our managers as equals and cocreators, not overfocusing on their opinions, expectations, and ideas. Managers are people too. They have an important role to play, but so do you. Giving your power away to your manager is destructive and not collaborative. Participate fully. If we don’t contribute as an equal, we create imbalance in the system. Businesses need adults owning their power of choice and responsibility. Giving away your power of discernment and truth to your boss is very unhealthy and unwise.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . More Courageous Action • Other courageous actions you need to take are . . . • Courageous actions your team needs to take are . . .


101

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” —Eleanor Roosevelt

People who have built their own businesses often recount the courage they drew from within themselves to face a host of psychological, financial, and even physical risks. Fully trusting those you have hired, acting with integrity, meeting challenges, and cultivating a “we-mentality” are just some of the courageous behaviors observable in the entrepreneur whose story is told below. Finding the courage to do the right things is not only for the early days of a new venture when everything is new and untried. In fact, the drive to survive and give something back can be carried on in the company’s philosophy for decades, spilling over from the way changes are approached to the difference that the business can make in the larger community. Here’s how Marsha Serlin’s entrepreneurial philosophy led to business and community innovations.

Marsha Serlin “Courageous Entrepreneurial Leadership in Action”

M

arsha Serlin is the founder and president of United Scrap Metals, located in Cicero, Illinois. She established the firm in 1978 as an independent, privately held scrap metal recycler. Marsha grew the business from an initial $200 investment to one of metropolitan Chicago’s largest and fastest growing full-service recyclers. United is recognized as an energetic and innovative company in the scrap metal industry. As an entrepreneur, she has had the opportunity to take her organization through many changes. During a bear market in

102


the industry, for example, everything seemed to be going in the wrong direction. To motivate her organization to embrace change, she recalls telling them: “Staying and learning how to fix this company will be like getting your MBA, focusing on profitability and the bottom line. We were able to put together a board of directors and get the help we needed to fix our problems. Our entire industry was on the verge of collapse. By enlisting the help of better leaders than me, and people who understood how to professionally manage the company, United Scrap Metals was able to survive. We were able to evolve from the experience. I took managers and told them that they would learn something that they’d never learned before, and they would never have to repeat the performance because they’d get so good at it!” Marsha’s efforts have paid off extraordinarily: In 1996, United was named the National Small Business Subcontractor of the Year. Also in 1996, it was judged by Arthur Andersen to be the Best Business Practices Enterprise for Customer Satisfaction. Marsha herself was selected as a finalist for Ernst & Young’s 1997 Entrepreneur of the Year Award and received the 1997 Grant Thorton Executive Woman of the Year Award. In 1998, United was given the Outstanding Recycling Business Award by the Illinois Recycling Association. We asked Marsha how she inspires people to change when she thinks they’re drowning? She responds, “Through leadership and knowing that you are not the only one who knows the answers. My managers are the experts in their fields, and I allow them to be that without micromanaging them. Everyone thinks he or she can fix things, but sometimes, they don’t have the right answers. The management team is very excited about all of the changes that have taken place, that they are responsible for the results of the company. Everyone contributes and everyone shares. Leadership is by example.”


103

Marsha’s leadership style was formed through her early experiences building the company. “In the beginning it was survival. I had three other jobs and occupations. It was a matter of doing whatever I could to get money for my family. It was always about the money and bottom line. I would buy metal and sell it the next day. I drove the trucks, did the bookkeeping, and was involved in virtually every part of the business.” She founded the company in 1978, and in 1981 moved to Cicero. She opened the retail center there. The company provided good community service, and through that she says she learned much about community and the people that were most unfortunate. The company made a contribution to society. People could pay for their room for a night with the cans they collected. When it got cold, Marsha would pay for some locals in a hotel, who were her poorest customers. Today, as a leader in her community, she feels it’s important to give back to those who are less fortunate. She has developed community programs and is an active participant in charitable organizations. “I feel it’s my responsibility and I try to get other companies in the community to give back. It’s not a question of whether you should, but rather it’s the right thing to do. You don’t have to talk about it. Just get the job done! Never say that you can’t do something. There are too many excuses in our lives. Too many women feel there are limited opportunities. If I hadn’t had the experience of having no money, I wouldn’t have realized all of the things that I have accomplished. I don’t feel I have any great gift, or that I’m exceptional. My life has made it possible for me to go as far as I’ve gone.” Marsha believes that risk-taking is a very important component of action for change: “We’re all so afraid to risk and fail. It’s the fear of failure that drives me everyday. It motivates

104


me and keeps me moving so I don’t take anything for granted. Through this journey, I never thought there was anything I really couldn’t do.” She reflects that she is now considered the go-to person: “If you want to get something done, see Marsha.” She counsels others to always think about how you can do it better, and that you can empower others to do a great job. “Things become what you believe. Self-reaffirmation is very important. It’s not about whether you are an A student; the world is run by C students who are used to failure, and aren’t used to the A. They know how to deal with adversity. They are flexible and try harder. Some of our great leaders are not necessarily the people that got the best grades. The most successful people are the ones that have had to focus on getting the job done and are the most persistent. Find the opportunity in each setback, and make certain that you go beyond what people expect.” Indeed Marsha Serlin has gone beyond expectations. Her business has reached exceptional performance and growth, and she gives back to the community through programming, collaborating with other businesses, and mentoring young women. By helping others to find their courage to embrace risks and take action, she hopes they’ll become better at tapping the resources of other people for mutual benefit. ✴

“Creative achievement is the boldest achievement of the mind, an adventure that takes its hero simultaneously to the rim of knowledge and the limits of propriety. Its pleasure is not the comfort of the safe harbor, but the thrill of the reaching sail.” —Robert Grudin, The Grace of Great Things


105

Unlocking Team Genius with Principle Four: Engage in Courageous Speech and Action • Align your convictions and values so that you act with integrity. • Determine your intentions before you act so your results meet expectations. • Take an audit of your action accounting: are you overdrawn? Where could you use some deposits? • Conduct an audit of the team’s actions. How often do you really speak truthfully, trust one another, keep the promises you make to the team, and address problems directly?

AXIOM . . .

Courageous Action Is Empowering Behavior

PRINCIPLE FIVE Cultivate Shared Responsibility and Shared Ownership “Two are better than one—when the two are working as one.” —Coach K.1

The essence of Principle Five, cultivate shared responsibility, is that dream teams have more of an entrepreneurial mindset than bureaucratic ones. The team collectively owns the outcome. You would never hear “It’s not my job” from a team member who has embraced shared ownership, nor would you find one person doing the lion’s share of the work. When teams embrace shared ownership, everyone feels responsible for meeting objectives and executing the vision. Team members act like owners of a business, sharing responsibility, taking risks to make the project a success. The team leaders or managers do not shoulder the majority of the pressure for success or the pain of failure—nor do they reap the majority of the rewards. Shared means shared—shared responsibility, shared accountability, shared upsides, shared downsides, and shared decision making. 107

108


In this chapter, we will discuss the entrepreneurial behaviors and actions team members are embracing (risk taking, ownership, independent thinking, and system thinking) and will highlight the bureaucratic behaviors and mindsets that limit the team’s effectiveness while eating away at its collaborative fiber.

Cultivate an Entrepreneurial Mindset How many teams within large organizations really view themselves as small business owners? How many are given the latitude to do what it takes to make their business successful? How many take the risk to create the latitude to operate as a small business within the larger business? As team members, we need to rise above the corporate traditions to emerge as a powerful collective. We need to take control of our destiny by acting like owners of a business, not just some person hired to do a job. If we want a breakthrough team, this is an important principle to embrace.

Solidify as a Team by Acting Like a Business Essentially every team needs to think of itself as a living, breathing entity with purpose. The benefit of the team approaching its purpose as a business enables it to have a mindset different from traditional teams. Instead of wasting valuable time trying to figure out what they should be doing, team members create their own destiny by deciding what they want to be doing. While others are stuck in bureaucratic red tape, they are rising above it to get things done and make things happen.

Principle Five: Cultivate Shared Responsibility and Shared Ownership

109

“When we have begun to take charge of our lives, to own ourselves, there is no longer any need to ask permission of someone.” —George O’Neil

Solidstate “A Team That Acted Like a Business within a Business”

S

olidstate (a pseudonym), a small team inside a large Fortune 100 company, was funded to facilitate change within the associates of the company. An executive funded the team to make change happen. Traditionally, a team would go about this task by spending lots of time with the executive to understand what he wanted to see happen. They would have regular updates with the executive to make sure they were on track and would make adjustments accordingly. Also, the team would probably use the executive’s name freely to garner credibility and get compliance. But that is not exactly what this team did. Instead, they approached their task as one would approach starting a business, looking to the executive as an advisor, a member of their board of directors. From the start, Solidstate had a “we are starting our own business” mentality. They created a mission statement and brand identity. They even had business cards made up with the business name in the look and feel of their brand. They approached the company associates not as other employees, but as customers. Every internal associate was a potential customer and was treated as such.

110


Solidstate did not go around telling associates that they needed to change or that Solidstate was there to facilitate that change in the name of the executive. Solidstate saw themselves as support for associates. Solidstate became the helpful hands in the company, where teams and individuals could go for help, ideas, training, and the latest in change management. Solidstate was very successful growing their business. After the first year, they had connected to over 1,000 associates in the company. They had delivered over 200 different changestimulating events and sessions. They were on their way to becoming an internal resource that facilitated change, but they did it in a way that was respectful of the company associates, giving associates the choice to use the services rather than forcing them to use the services as mandated by the executive. They had an entrepreneurial mindset from the very beginning, and it facilitated their success. ✴

Cultivate Owner Mentality If we have joined the team for a meaningful reason, we are there because we want to be. But working on something we are interested in is only part of success. Taking ownership and responsibility is really what is needed. We realize this is our business and we are going to act like it, doing what we need to do to move forward. This mindset is fundamentally different than that of traditional teams. Usually, traditional teams come together and meet and meet and meet. There are one or two people there with real passion, and the rest are there for varying reasons, from coercion to “apple-polishing.” These teams rarely make a difference. The entrepreneurial mindset is replaced with “Tell me what my action item is so I can get on to my real work.”


111

It seems that in corporate America we send conflicting messages about how much empowerment and proactivity we really want people to take. On one hand, we want people to take responsibility and be proactive, but on the other, we want this proactivity to fit within certain guidelines; e.g., doing what the boss wants. Teams that have entrepreneurial mindsets act as if this is their business and take risks to make the endeavor a success. If they are passionate about what they are doing, they might seem like rogues because they act out of the norm to get things done—but isn’t this what is needed? We want passionate people working smart towards making the business successful.

Provide a Needed Service to the Organization/ Customers That Is the Best It Can Possibly Be Entrepreneurs believe that the services or products they provide are the best around. They go into business knowing they can provide a product or service as no one else can. They see a need and go fill it. To approach the project with anything less than the mindset of “They need what we’ve got!” or “This will be the best we have ever done!” or “We’re going to kick some ass!” is to miss out on the passion a team needs to be successful. How many teams approach what they are doing with this type of passion? How many teams believe they are providing a necessary service or that they are filling a need? Moreover, how many take pride in the service they are giving? Using the collective creativity and ingenuity to provide people something that is valuable is a worthwhile use of a team’s time and energy—tap into it.

112


Don’t Ask for Permission Find ways around conventional time-consuming processes to be successful. Entrepreneurs are known for breaking any rules that stand in the way of realizing their vision. Teams that have embraced an entrepreneurial mindset are ready to take risks to succeed. Many teams fall prey to the “We have always done it this way” mentality of the company. They get bogged down in the quagmire of the bureaucracy: getting approvals, presenting to layer upon layer of management, focusing internally rather than on customers. Their energy gets spent dealing with bureaucratic red tape versus creating what is needed.

Taking Ownership with HighSpeed

A

new product introduction team was charged with moving their product, HighSpeed, out into the marketplace. The corporate system they worked within had a process of courting the sales teams to get them to agree to sell the new product. If the sales teams did not think the product had promise, they would not pick it up. This process fell short when new fledging products could not promise very high current-year revenue or direct application to the current customer base. HighSpeed was not picked up. The new product team was frustrated and voiced their complaints that the system was not supportive of bringing new innovative products out. But instead of throwing their hands up and giving up, this team went out and hired commissioned salespeople, essentially risksharing with them. This team had an entrepreneurial mindset. They worked around the traditional corporate processes to make progress. They went from begging salespeople who had


113

many other products to push, to having a dedicated sales force. Their sales doubled the next year.

“A creative culture cannot flourish in an autocratic environment.” —John Kao, Jamming

TOOLS YOU CAN USE . . . Idea Interview Why is it that some people get their ideas implemented and others don’t? Are the ones who take the most air time getting their ideas through? Do you have an idea but wonder if you should even bother? Before you just chuck it . . . TRY THIS . . . Ask someone to interview you about the idea in the next team meeting. They assume the role of reporter doing a news story and attempt to get all the facts (as many as you have). They need to get an understanding of the history of the opportunity, your background, what brought you to the idea, what your vision of the future of the idea is, etc. Now that the idea has had a full hearing it might garner some energy. Modification: If you are not comfortable being interviewed in front of the team . . . TRY THIS . . . describe your idea to a colleague in as much detail as you can give and then ask your colleague to present it to the group. The key here is your colleague needs to present it as if it were their idea. This will give your idea fresh perspective and will give you at least one other person who has tried on the idea.

114


Let’s take a look at a leader who supports corporate venture teams in developing their entrepreneurial mindset every day— Jerry Zielinski.

Jerry Zielinski “Paving the Way for Entrepreneurship at Lucent Technologies”

J

erry’s passion is corporate venturing. Be it acquisitions, joint ventures, or new corporate ventures he has done them all over his 30-year tenure for Lucent Technologies/AT&T. Jerry is a master at guiding new venture teams to develop their business savvy and entrepreneurial muscle. It seems his approach for success is simple—combine a business plan with milestones that gauge progress with the intention to approach every team/venture differently based on the specifics of what the team is and what it is trying to accomplish. Every venture is unique and requires him to work with it in a way that the team needs versus a corporate defined standard or formula. Instead of trying to change that team into what he might initially feel it should be, he lets it grow and evolve into what it needs to be. He offers guidance and wisdom but never forces or demands compliance. “Every person should have a tolerance for ambiguity as part of their job description.” He describes his mindset as one of walking into a new room. Each new room (new venture team) has a unique environment created by the team and what it is trying to accomplish. He assesses his role anew every day by asking himself “What is it the team needs of me today?” This is because every day his role changes. Some days the team needs him to be a filter, sharing with them what the corporation needs, but not overwhelming them in the process. Some days the team needs a buffer, keep-


115

ing the needs of the corporation at bay while the team focuses. Other days the team needs a translator, conveying their mission and vision to corporate managers in the common language of the company leadership. There is a difference between corporate projects and intrapreneurship. Corporate projects, especially those that are extensions of the current business, are more straightforward, needing little or no change to current processes. There is more comfort, and the tasks tend to be better defined and based more on fact. Team member roles have more definition. For the intrapreneur, little is fact and most decisions are based on assumptions which are continually subject to change as the new project unfolds. Ambiguity is an everyday reality, and roles change as the business needs change. Every venture is different, and the way it operates is different. Jerry sees his role as part bridge, balancing the needs of the core business (Lucent) with the realities of the new venture. In every case, Jerry works with the team to find unique measures of success that match the team’s mission to the company’s needs. For some teams a measure of success might be new acquisition prospects in the pipeline, but for others it might be new clients. Jerry adds, “Don’t judge an artist by craftsman’s standards or critique a craftsman from an art critic’s perspective.” The measures of success are based on what makes sense for the team, their current reality, and their future, as well as the expectations and needs of the larger organization they feed. He also actively finds ways to be a respected member of the team with a necessary role, contributing something the team needs. For some teams it’s a business strategy; for others it is translating what the team is passionate about into corporate objectives; for others it might be negotiation strategies. Whatever the case, he provides a valuable contribution and is

116


always considered a vital co-creating member of the team, even though usually he is not formally a full-time member. When asked for his advice on developing collaborative entrepreneurial teams, he gives the following: • Recognize a team for what it is and what it is trying to accomplish to achieve multiplier effect, and then one plus one will be greater than two. • Let the tasks evolve as the whole team works to achieve its goal • Value what the team values and then find value for yourself (e.g., This is what I am proud of) What should we be on the look out for? “Avoid overdefining expectations, saying this is exactly what I expect at a time too far into the future. Don’t walk into a situation with a formula—‘You do this and I’ll do this.’ It gets you the same rate of progress for current projects but discourages new thinking. Formulas limit innovation.” ✴ When a team is passionate about what it is doing, the team will roll. There are things the managers/leaders can do to facilitate the team’s success: • Pave the way for the team • Keep corporate antibodies at bay • Participate as a co-creator

Pave the Way It is a lucky team indeed that can focus on their task and not have to do dog-and-pony shows and/or deal with the


117

corporate political bureaucracy. Luckier yet is a team who has a leader who understands what the team is trying to accomplish and facilitates getting the support, resources, and time the team needs. This leader is paving the way for their success. She is carving out space and buying the team a precious resource—time to focus.

Keep Corporate Antibodies at Bay Every company has them, the people, processes, and policies that stand in the way of innovation, creativity, and change. They come in to eliminate things that don’t seem to fit into the system. There are always going to be people who do not really understand what the team is doing or will not like how the team is going about accomplishing its goals. A leader who understands the entrepreneurial approach of a team will find ways to keep these antibodies away. These leaders are able to speak the language of the antibody. The leader is able to describe the team and its purpose in a way that the antibody can relate to. This leader also has found high-level allies who are sympathetic to the team’s cause and uses the allies’ names as one would use a “Get out of jail free” card in Monopoly. A leader who paves the way might know short cuts in getting through the red tape. (Authors’ note: we cannot wait for the day when this is not needed, but it would be remiss of us not to acknowledge our current political reality.) BUT . . . you do not have to be a political animal to pave the way for a team. Sometimes the best thing you can do is believe in the team and genuinely embrace what it is doing. Then speak from your heart about the purpose of the team— people will get it. The leader’s belief in the team goes a long way towards helping others believe in the team too.

118


Participate as a Co-creator There is nothing more affirming than to have a leader participate with the team as an equal. When a manager contributes her talents and time as part of the team it is a wonderful thing. And as we have seen, the leader gets to shift from being responsible for everything to balanced ownership and balanced contribution. It is also here where a leader can participate in the team goals—not in an authoritative way, but in a collaborative way to move the team forward. Collaborating as a member of the team can help you as the leader to feel genuinely connected to the team. This will make it easier to pave the way, and keep antibodies at bay.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . An Entrepreneurial Mindset • • • • • • • • •

As a team, do you have an identity? How can you solidify into a unit? Who are your customers? What do they wish they had? Do you feel like owners of your business? Do you have owner mentality? Do you feel like the owner of a business your team is creating? Why or why not? How can your team cultivate more of an owner mentality? Are you doing something you feel is needed? Are you doing the best work you can? As a team, are you providing a needed “kick ass” service/ product? Where do you get stuck by convention?


119

• What risks are you willing to take to make a difference? • Is the team getting stuck by convention? How can you break out of the box? • What bureaucracy is the team trapped by? How can you work around it, over it, through it?

“Problems cannot be solved by thinking within the framework in which the problems were created.” —Albert Einstein

Cultivating Shared Responsibility Let’s begin with a case study to illustrate the cultivation of shared responsibility.

Shake’em Up, Inc. “A Futile Exercise in Mandating Change”

S

hake’em Up (a pseudonym) had been doing things the same way for several years. They saw their market share eroding and customers not coming back. They knew something needed to be done. So they hired a change management consulting group to come in and help shake things up. The change management group was told (by corporate) about the current processes and procedures each division was using to support and maintain customers. The consultants were then instructed to come up with new processes to retain current customers. After the consultant spent a great deal of time working on the new procedures and had the approval of corporate, they began to roll out the new processes to the divisions.

120


But the division personnel did not want to hear of these new processes. They were not consulted and felt their processes were just fine. Even though they were being told by corporate and the consultants that things had to change, they balked. The division managers, in essence, told the consultants they would not be using the new processes because the processes did not apply to their division. Corporate and the consultants regrouped. They decided to put together a task force comprised of a representative team of people from across the company who understood each division’s processes. This task force would cull out the best of what each division did well and create a metaprocess that all divisions agreed they would implement. ✴ Let’s analyze this story and see what we can learn. First let’s be quite blunt here—if we really want collaboration, we need to get over the mindset of getting people to do what we want them to do. At Shake’em Up, corporate expected people to do what they wanted them to do. This type of mindset undermines shared responsibility. It makes one responsible and the rest servants to one person’s (or entity’s) objectives. People are not machines; they have brains and want to be respected as intelligent, capable contributors. Next, the divisions were angry that the processes were pushed on them. People in the divisions were not consulted or valued about what they knew and what they did well. Thus they did not feel they were part of the change process or that they had a voice in the changes. This brings us to the next aspect of creating shared responsibility—team members need to know they have a say in what is going to happen and how it happens. People don’t have to always get their way, but they need to be heard and respected. As managers, we need to be open to people sharing their concerns and issues. We also need to be ready to let the objec-


121

tives be modified so that the team members feel they have participated. If we do not create an atmosphere for this to happen, we ultimately end up paying a very high price: being responsible for something that is not fully our responsibility—the team’s output. The team’s output is the team’s responsibility, so make it clear that is what is expected. Allow the team to struggle with all the issues and aspects of the objective until they feel connected to it and own it. A third aspect of cultivating shared responsibility is choice. People need to feel they have a choice in doing the things they are asked to do. They need to feel respected, and they need to know they can say no and not be penalized. When we assume people will do something and do it our way, we disrespect them. Ignoring someone’s basic right to choose is disrespectful. Even though not outwardly obvious, over time disrespect undermines the overall organizational environment, creating power struggles and rifts instead of collaboration and cohesiveness. Fourth, shared responsibility is much easier when Principle One is adhered to—come together for a meaningful reason. When the team has a meaningful reason for being, people will be intrinsically motivated (internally driven) to be responsible for their actions. They care about what the team is out to accomplish and care that the task at hand is done right. Shake’em Up would have been better served by spending some time with the divisions understanding the cause of the market share erosion and ascertaining the meaningful reason (the real need) for the changes. And lastly, corporate had a need for speed. They wanted to roll out the change processes quickly. The result was frustration, disrespect, unused output, and one year of lost time, efforts, and money—and no collaboration. Ultimately, everyone had to go back to the beginning and lay the foundation, communicate about what was needed by corporate, and what was and was not working in the field.

122


The lesson here is clear, take the time to cultivate shared responsibility and shared ownership. At Shake’em Up, the need for speed usurped the need to build shared responsibility and shared ownership—ultimately costing millions of dollars in time and money. This underscores one of the basic precepts of this book— working at breakneck speed before we have done the breakthrough work is expensive and demoralizing. In short, it is the wrong way to proceed. Shared responsibility is cultivated. It grows from the intention to have collaboration and to have the best of the best from people. Often, it seems cultivating shared responsibility takes too much time or isn’t fast enough—better to just tell people what to do and save all that time of talking and integrating different opinions. But sometimes we just have to start slow to get faster later. In the beginning, when we are laying the ground work for change or collaboration, we have to put in time to make it grow. What we put our attention to thrives, and what we take our attention from withers. Put in the time up front; we can make fast progress later because the foundation is there and it is solid.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Shared Responsibility • Does the team feel it has a choice in what it is being asked to do? • Do you feel you have a choice in doing the things you are asked to do? • Do you feel you have a say in what is going to happen? • Does the team feel it has a say in what is going to happen?


123

“We have a Bill of Rights. What we need is a Bill of Responsibilities.” —Bill Maher

Personal Responsibility—Owning Our Role in the Team Personal responsibility is about us: our actions and our choices. It is the internal motivation that guides how we will conduct ourselves. As team members, we are responsible for our output.

Jenna: Owning Her Role?

J

enna is a salesperson in a small business. She has been with the company since its early years and therefore has seniority. She is a nice woman, affable and interesting. Now in charge of some of the larger company accounts, Jenna is demanding more. She wants more money and more respect— because she feels she is shouldering the bulk of the accounts. The way the company system is set up, ten other people support Jenna. The support staff fields incoming inquiries, sends out brochures and supplemental information, and performs a large host of other support activities that enable Jenna and the other salespeople to do their job. But Jenna does not see that, she assumes only she is critical to the whole and has the attitude to show it. She expects that she is to have veto power over policies and procedures because of her status—she wants to be the top dog. The truth is, upon review Jenna’s sales performance is not stellar. She has not brought in the majority of new accounts,

124


nor has she been instrumental in increasing the company market share. In essence, Jenna’s reality does not match her mental mythology. Jenna’s manager is frustrated. “Jenna’s superior attitude is unfounded. She does not acknowledge the fact that there are ten other people supporting her in her job. Nor is she willing to acknowledge the reality of her performance. I have showed her the facts, and we have set performance standards that she has not met, but still she persists. The bottom line is she will not be here next month.” ✴ Jenna is teaching us many things here. Let’s look at her behavior and actions and not how her boss is handling the situation. Many of us want to say it is her boss’s responsibility to get her in line, but we beg to differ. It is only her boss’s responsibility to inform her of how he sees her performance based on the business and team objectives. Jenna is responsible for making the changes within herself. Jenna is responsible for herself and her actions. What are some things we can learn from Jenna and responsibility as a team member? Jenna is not acknowledging the team effort that is going into making her job possible. If it were not for the ten support people, Jenna would not be able to focus on her job. She would be running around like crazy. She has a traditional belief that support or administrative jobs are not as important as the bread-winner job. This attitude is deadly, because not valuing the efforts of other team members is a sure-fire way to lose their support. It is deadly to the business, because if the support team decided to


125

“go on virtual strike” to sabotage Jenna, the customers and business would suffer also. Point: Administrative jobs are as important to the whole as sales, executive, and management jobs. Work to see them as equally important and contributing to the fabric of the business.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . System Thinking • Who are all the people you are dependent on to get your job done? Are they and their jobs less important than yours? Why? • What happens when they are not around? • Do you see administrative jobs as important to the whole as sales, executive, and management jobs?

Jenna is not taking responsibility for her performance. She is not looking objectively at the situation, and she is not willing to do the hard work of looking at herself critically. She is unwilling to make changes in herself even though she has been told her performance is not meeting the expected standard. Yet she persists, secure in the perceived fact that she is indispensable. Point—We need to have the courage to look objectively at our attitudes and our performance. Do not blame others or the system; own your role in what is taking place.

126


BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Objectivity • Are you looking objectively at yourself? Your attitudes? Your performance? • Where could you use some adjustment? Some help? • What is your role in creating your situation at work? Are there any places you are not taking responsibility?

Jenna is not taking responsibility for her own growth. Because of her performance mythology she is not willing to use the processes and procedures in place. Nor is she willing to take training to improve herself and her situation. Point—Always be on the lookout to become a better person and contributor. Get as much training and education as you can.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Growth • Are you taking responsibility for your personal growth? • What are areas that you would like to grow in? • What education or training would enable you to be a better contributor in your current job?


127

Jenna is not listening to what her manager is trying to show her. She is protecting her erroneous beliefs and is not open to the learning that is being offered to her. Point—Listen when others are trying to tell you something. Sometimes we do not want to hear the feedback we are getting because it does not mesh with our internal beliefs—or we do not respect the source. But if someone is taking the time to give us feedback, take it in and listen. It is worth hearing and doing something with.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . More Growth • Do you listen when others are trying to tell you something? • Do you really value feedback?

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . Mind-Meld Has your team ever been stuck giving the same old answers to pressing, recurring problems? TRY THIS . . . ask everyone to think of a character: their mother, Bill Gates, Madonna, Forrest Gump. Then ask team members to “mind-meld” with that character, taking on the persona of that character and becoming that person. Now pose the problem again, but this time people give ideas

128


based on what they think their character would say. Madonna might give you a no-nonsense answer that you would have never dreamed of.

“Responsibility is what awaits outside the Eden of creativity.” —Nadine Gordimer

Unlocking Team Genius with Principle Five: Cultivate Shared Responsibility and Shared Ownership • Treat your team like a business. Act like entrepreneurs. • Don’t get stymied by tradition. Break away from the way things have always been and question precedent; create a new way of operating. • Be self-determining and take control of your actions.

AXIOM . . .

Act Like a Business to Stay in Business

PRINCIPLE SIX Explore Risk Taking

“If you stay put, you won’t stay around. You have to keep innovating, keep generating fresh ideas. Without risks, you cannot grow.” —Josie Natori, The Natori Company

One of the most frequent struggles teams experience is overcoming the barriers and obstacles that get in the way of meeting objectives and achieving the vision. Striking down or working through these barriers requires risk. Our colleague Charles W. Prather calls risk taking “the great wall of innovation,” because the failure to put something into action, to do something new, can often be attributed to the fear of taking risks. Risks are what stop most good ideas (and idea generators) in their tracks. Risks separate passion from action. When we think back to a time in our lives when we didn’t follow our intuition, when we held back from saying or doing something we knew would work or be right for us, it can probably be traced to our fear of risk. 129

130


In this chapter, we will explore what keeps teams from taking risks that can lead to breakthrough results. The first step is to define the fear, and then to tackle what matters most— both of which are important aspects of creating a climate of experimentation, where risk taking becomes the modus operandi rather than an unusual occurrence.

Define the Fear Often teams are reluctant to face down the fears of taking risks because the risks seem amorphous and difficult to name. But naming the aspects of the risk that are causing concern is the first step in breaking it down into manageable pieces, thus helping to mitigate the risk. Chances are, it just appears larger than life. “Omne ignotum pro magnifico est”—we have great notions of everything unknown to us (from Tacitus, Agricola). Remember learning to ride a bike? Do you recall your thoughts? Or maybe you’ve recently taught your child to ride a bike and vividly recall what they said! “Only two wheels. I need balance. The bike is so big. I will fall.” Being able to ride the two-wheeler seemed impossible. We were frightened to do it, but usually with the helping hands of mom or dad we got up there and rode. The more we rode the better and better we got. Before we learned how to do it, we were frightened—but how many of us are frightened of getting on a bike now? That which we have not experienced or done before seems to be insurmountably difficult, maybe impossible. Much of risk taking has this component working on us. So what about the risk seems impossible to overcome? What do we feel we just can’t do? Another fear nested in risk taking is that of dire consequences—we fear the worst will happen. We might fail to meet

Principle Six: Explore Risk Taking

131

the targeted goal, and we will lose money. Or we will make a mistake, or worse, a dumb mistake that is caught and ridiculed by others. But if we can get those fears out on the table, we can work to overcome them. Get down the worst-case scenarios and list all the dire consequences of taking the risk. Sometimes just the act of writing the fears down on paper and seeing them dissolves them.

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . Worst Case Scenario Fear is just another excuse to be jolted out of sleep with another “worst possible result imaginable” on your new product rollout. Before you consider prescription sleeping pills . . . TRY THIS . . . Take a sheet of paper and put the following phrase in the middle of it: “Wouldn’t it be awful if . . .” Then write anything you can think of that could happen if you took the action you are contemplating. Next, classify them. • Which seem very likely to happen? • Which seem more remote? • Which ones are pure fantasy? Sorting out the risks helps you put each in perspective, and then you can work on reducing the risk for only the ones that are likely to happen. Chances are, your list will be much shorter than you think!

132


TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . “But Why”? “Why” is not just a three-letter word your toddler asks incessantly; it is also an inquiry that can shed some light on your risky situation. Asking why can give you some insight on what is really holding you back and help you to see whether the attributes of the risk are really what you think they are. TRY THIS . . . Construct a “Why?” chart. This tool is known as root cause analysis. Here’s an example: Problem: We’re having trouble moving forward on this project. Why? Because two team members haven’t done what they were supposed to do by today. Why didn’t they do it? They didn’t finish their discussion with the vendors. Why didn’t they finish their discussion? They said they didn’t know the right questions to ask. Why didn’t they ask the right questions? We didn’t finish discussing what information we need from the vendors. Action: Schedule time to formulate questions. You can see that asking a nested “why” of yourself or the team at least three times can help you dig deeper into the real problem. The risk of not completing the project in time can be greatly reduced, now that you know you have to turn your attention to figuring out the information you need from vendors. You can see that other solutions, such as pressuring people to speed up or calling the vendors


133

yourself would have only compounded the problem and added to your risk!

The definition of risk is the possibility of loss or danger. Something is at stake, making the concept of taking a risk feel very serious. The losses can range from worrying about losing our job or not closing the deal to not knowing what will happen for certain or losing our image with the team. Again, naming what we could potentially lose helps us see what is really at stake. What are we willing to live with and what is an unacceptable loss? There is a concept in negotiations called BATNA (the best alternative we have to a negotiated agreement).1 In preparing for any negotiation, we need to have assessed the worst acceptable outcome and our bottom lines. But more importantly we need to understand what will we do in the event of not coming to an agreement. The concept of a BATNA helps us know our fallback plan. So too in risk taking: What will we do if we do not take the risk? What will we have to continue to live with? What losses are we able to deal with?

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” —Henry Ford

Is There Really Resistance? Fears also come in the form of resistance. Sometimes we are up for the risk, but we have some resistance to certain aspects of it. Try identifying where the resistance is coming from.

134


BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Identifying Resistance Sometimes resistance is coming from not understanding the situation fully. • Is there more information or data that can be gathered to help shed light on the situation? • Are there other experts or people who have been in a similar situation that could help or give some advice? Sometimes resistance comes from knowing you will have a negative effect on other stakeholders (other teams, other managers, customers, your neighborhood or community). • Talk with the other stakeholders and give them a headsup as to what you are thinking. This will help them prepare and give you valuable feedback about the risk you are about to undertake. Sometimes we have constructed imagined risks that are not really issues. • Separate real risk issues from imagined risk issues by communicating honestly and listening with respect, then going through and naming the fears and obstacles. Other times we do not feel connected to the team’s purpose or goals and therefore do not feel strongly about risking anything for the team or what it is doing.


135

In all cases, there is truth in resistance. The members of our team have good reason for their resistance. Therefore, it is important to stop and take the time to listen to the concerns of each team member. They might know something we don’t. So pay attention to their resistance and listen one another’s reasons. Then we can work together to overcome them. The bottom line is communication, and our collective intelligence will be a great resource in taking an effective, well-executed risk. Here is the story of Olympic gold medalist and swim coach Lea Maurer, and how she turned around a swim team by getting the members to embrace risk and giving them the permission to fail. Here is what happened.

Lea Maurer “Teaching Risk”

A

s an athlete, Lea Maurer has a global perspective. Lea was always exposed to the highest level. Even if she wasn’t at the highest level yet, she was never afraid to dream that big. She never wanted to feel like a big fish in a small pond. The people to whom she was exposed and who helped to train her always moved the bar higher for her to keep striving for more. Lea was never satisfied with merely achieving her goals, but was able to continually redefine them to strive to reach her own personal best and take it as far as it would go. And go she did, all the way to the Olympic games: Lea won a bronze medal in the 100 meter backstroke and a gold in the medley relay. Lea describes what it felt like to be a part of the U.S. Olympic Team in Barcelona: “The entire experience was as close to utopia as I’ve ever felt. Instead of looking at big moments in my life during this monumental step, I was able to look at the little things in

136


everyday life as if they were snapshots flashing before my eyes. In Barcelona, my life flashed before me one snapshot at a time. It was a time that I will treasure forever.” So how does she see her role as coach and leader to her swimming students at Lake Forest High School in Illinois? Lea responds, “To be an optimistic dreamer and to teach them that they can achieve their goals. Each one of us has gifts—with a lot of hard work and dedication, we can reach our potential and see goals turn into accomplishments. We can be good, all-around people—whether that’s in the pool, academics or just life.” “I tell them to go forth with alacrity, speed, and enthusiasm, and be brave. Have the courage to put yourself on the line and don’t be afraid of failure! Know that you’ll be in a supportive environment that fosters growth and allows you to fail, pick yourself up, and learn from it!” What advice would Lea give to aspiring mentors and leaders? “Show your human side. Let kids realize that even the people that they emulate and place on pedestals are human. They have fears and doubts and even problems. When asking someone to do things, practice what you preach. If you expect people to treat you with respect and integrity, then you must also treat them with respect and integrity.” Lea hopes to make a difference in the lives of kids she teaches and coaches by instilling good values, confidence in their ability to do things in life, and encouraging them to celebrate their efforts and allow themselves to feel empowered by it even if they’ve merely come close. She wants to teach them to be ambitious with their goals. Evaluate yourself and look at your own personal strengths and weaknesses. When she first started coaching, she had all of her swimmers sit around in a circle and rate how they thought they did that practice. She was amazed that 95 percent of them rated


137

themselves as a 10. This was a striking indication of their inner satisfaction with their performance and their inability to dream bigger and expect more out of themselves. The swimmer’s goal times were only tenths of a second faster as opposed to seconds faster. She wanted them to reach deeper and to dare to go further. So many of her students were afraid of failure. She had to change that mindset and get them to believe in themselves. She wanted them to thrive on the competition for competition’s sake. She had to institute a philosophical change in their inner belief of what they were capable of and just how far they could go. And she was successful. A little at a time, the women’s team came around. Lea touches directly on the notion of taking risks and what can be gained when she states, “Recognize that failure is a part of success.” Some of the biggest failures have led to even bigger success stories. She recounts an inspirational story: “Last winter, the Lake Forest High School’s men’s swimming team was in rough shape. They actually looked like the Bad News Bears. The team was very young and inexperienced— they had just graduated over eight seniors the year before. There were even snickers on the pool deck: ‘How did you get these thugs to swim?’ That was the beginning of the season. “I began by doing drills and teaching them the fundamentals, quickly. The most important thing that I instilled in that men’s team was that they needed to continually strive to improve and have fun—the rest would just fall into place. “After each race, the inexperienced swimmers would ask, ‘Coach, what can I do better?’ Each meet was another step in the right direction. After a lot of hard work, they were able to qualify several swimmers for the Illinois High School State Meet. “The beginning of the state meet didn’t go so well. In the first couple of events, the swimmers turned in disappointing performances. It was beginning to bring down the rest of

138


the team. I took the team and called a time out. I paused the momentum of the meet and took them all aside. I reminded them that it was just a 25-yard pool—the same thing that they always swam in. I reminded them to focus on having fun and getting the job done. I didn’t even mention to the team that they were in the hunt for a trophy. “The team was able to turn things around. The swimmers didn’t focus on the trophy, but rather on what I had taught them. The team was able to get third in the 100 fly, seventh in the 200, third in the 500, second in the 100 backstroke and sixth in the 400 free relay, clinching third place and a trophy. “This was a defining moment not only for the young swimmers but also for me. This young team began as a group of individuals (and really nonswimmers—some of the key team members were football players in the off-season and just happened to try swimming) and finished the season as a team of swimmers.” ✴ Lea Maurer’s story is uplifting. One of the direct consequences of her coaching gifts is that she is preparing these kids to embrace the risks they face, in the pool or elsewhere in their lives, and find the courage to do what it takes to reach their goals. Even if they don’t get there the first time, the habit will be set.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Dealing with Fears • What about taking this risk seems overwhelming and impossible (larger than life)?


139

• What is/are the worst thing(s) that could happen if you and the team took this risk? • What is at stake? What could the team lose? What are you willing to live with? What is unacceptable? • What effect will the risk taking have on other teams, departments, or on the customer? • What is your alternative to taking the risks? What is your risk BATNA?

Being risk-embracing does not mean throwing caution to the wind or just taking risk for risk’s sake. Nor does it mean following our own call to the detriment of the company or other people and teams. It means deciding, together, what we will do as it relates to the system as a whole. Embracing risk means we are able to look at our fears and the areas that are causing our resistance and work to overcome them either through action or a mental shift. Once we have a list of fears and concerns, we can work to overcome them. By tackling what matters most with respect to the risk and to the concerns voiced, we begin to make the risk more manageable and real.

“Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.” —Ducharme’s Precept

Create a Climate of Exploration A climate of exploration unlocks the genius of creative collaboration because people are playing with possibilities ver-

140


sus fearing the consequences of mistakes. In fact, most commercial successes occur at the third stage of development (it very much does take three strikes ’til you’re out). But most teams in organizations aren’t allowed (or don’t permit themselves) more than one good college try. Becoming riskembracing means learning from the mistake and making it better. It means trying again and again. It’s no surprise that many breakthrough ideas, and thus highly profitable products and services, came out of teams with a climate of exploration. An organization with a climate of exploration operates differently than a company whose associates must be right.

“The problem is not how to get new innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out.” —Dee Hock, Founder of Visa

Feel the Difference between “What If, Inc.” and “Get It Right, Co.” What follows are two stories of fictional companies. They mean to contrast the differences between a company environment that encourages exploration and risk taking and one that is more concerned with getting it right.

What If, Inc. At What If, Inc. people can play with possibilities. They are experimenting with what can be, and they do not get bogged down by expectations and having to get things exactly right at the start. They are in a learning mode everyday, applying what they know to see what they can create. Mistakes are consid-


141

ered options that did not work the expected way. But everyone is well aware of the 3M glue that did not work as expected and became the famous Post-It® note glue. The world is their oyster, and they are not sure what will come out of their experiments but that is okay, because every experiment leads to more learning and more inquiry. What If, Inc. employees believe in exploration and know that experimentation gives them permission and space to try new things and have a “let’s see” mentality. They know in what direction they are headed and have freedom to sail the best course to get there.

Get It Right, Co. Down the road at Get It Right, Co. there are experts working to get it right. They know everything about their jobs, and they are considered gurus. They have the answers, and they have a reputation to protect. At Get It Right people know there are two approaches to everything: right and wrong. If they get it wrong there are dire consequences. They feel the “Tyranny of the OR”2—having to choose between two things you are not sure of and making one right. Everything is black or white— no room for gray or play here. Mistakes are bad, hopefully buried not to be found. Thus, mistakes are never discussed or used as the valuable learning that they are. At Get It Right, Co. people are stressed out. In fact, during the Y2K conversion, a department head was heard saying to the project team leader “If you mess this conversion up, it’s your job.” The threat affected the entire department’s activities, and many decided to leave Get It Right, Co. Having to get it right the first time has them afraid to take any risks, thus censoring all kinds of possibilities. They are given directions and are expected to execute flawlessly.

142


This might seem a bit strong, but the point should be made that risk taking requires an organizational environment willing to explore and learn.

“Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open. You’re able to benefit from the unique viewpoints of others without being crippled by your own judgment.” —Ralph Marston

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . A Climate for Risk Taking • Is your team “What If, Inc.” or “Get It Right, Co.”? What makes it so? • How can you create a climate of experimentation? • What characteristics and behaviors are necessary for a climate of experimentation? • How can your team learn from what you do well? • What can you do to mine the learning from mistakes? How could you redefine the term mistake?

“Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast. In the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.” —Ovid


143

Unlocking Team Genius with Principle Six: Explore Risk Taking • • • •

Look at risk taking as exploration versus expectation. Give yourself permission to fail. Break down the risk into manageable pieces. Tackle what matters most one step at a time.

AXIOM . . .

Without Risks, You Cannot Grow

PRINCIPLE SEVEN Govern from Within

“In union there is strength.” —Aesop

Take charge of your destiny. Collaborative teams take the responsibility of governing themselves. The team works to create standards and ways of operating that enable them to act like a small business within the larger business. Not only do they take responsibility for their actions and outcomes, but they monitor and regulate themselves and their performance—they govern themselves as a team. Taking the initiative to govern from within helps the team become self-determining and self-directed. It is not at the whim and caprice of outside forces. Investing in a solid foundation of comprehensive governing skills such as collaborative decision making, problem solving, brainstorming, meeting management, and other team-management tools, the team becomes a well-run entity.

145

146


This chapter begins by going inside an organization, Imagination, Ltd., where teams govern from within by creating a methodology for teamwork. It then discusses a collaborative decision-making process that engages every team member and taps into the collective wisdom. We will see that in order for teams to effectively govern themselves, they need to learn the skills and processes that facilitate team collaboration. Next, a holistic learning curriculum is outlined which, if adopted, will enable any team to evolve collaboratively. Finally, each team member is asked to commit to self-governance. When members of a team commit to manage themselves, they make a commitment to doing significant introspective work. This way they move toward self-understanding and personal growth. Governing from within begins with a full commitment from everyone to want to be collaborative—to be team players. It also demands a healthy curiosity to really understand other people’s ways of operating. Here is the story of how teamwork works at Imagination, Ltd., an organization that places as much importance on the ways in which its teams collaborate as it does on achieving innovative business solutions.

Doing “Inspiring Work That Works” Teamwork at Imagination, Ltd.

I

magination is a 22-year old design and communications firm headquartered in London. Its name speaks of its commitment to creative, multidisciplinary collaboration among a diverse group of professionals who come together to design and deliver innovative projects. Some of these projects include the lighting for Disney’s two cruise ships, Magic and Wonder, two sizable exhibits for Britain’s Millennium Dome, and a

Principle Seven: Govern from Within

147

“world class, world first” brand centre for Guinness in Dublin, Ireland. Imagination’s projects include all varieties of design work, from graphic design to new product introductions. Ralph Ardill is Imagination’s Director of Marketing and Strategic Planning. He shared with us his philosophy of teamwork, and the key factors to which Imagination attributes its success. The core of the teamwork process at Imagination involves meeting and iterating as one through all the steps in the process, rather than having each member of the team doing one step of the process independently. This is a significant difference from the way most teams get things done, and it keeps things from slipping through cracks. Prior to coming to Imagination, Ralph worked in a management consulting firm and the fashion and music industries in work environments he describes as ranging from anarchic to very formalized. From these experiences, he derived one truism: “Teamwork to an individual is like change. You have to want to do it; you have to want to be in a team. This is seen in team sports versus solo sports. When you drill down into problems within teams, you come across people who are not team players, who shouldn’t be in teams. They are real mavericks. And then lots of time gets spent encouraging them to be more of a team player.” Ralph believes that it is “a healthy curiosity and a willingness to understand and communicate with other people that makes teams work.” He explains: “Graphic designers can be at one extreme, never wanting to work for a company and wanting to spend their whole time designing typeface. The graphic designer who fits in here at Imagination is one who, rather than retreating into the subject, is very interested in taking the subject into other areas. When we interview graphic designers, if one is talking about how he stays home design-

148


ing digital typefaces, and another is fascinated about the potential of graphics online or projected onto buildings, guess whom we hire? We hire the naturally curious collaborator.” “Some people may have never been stimulated in their previous work, and don’t know it’s what they want. But they do have a healthy curiosity. This is just like traveling. Some people can be dropped anywhere with a passport and a backpack and are able to find their way to a hostel and a bar. They will survive and thrive. There are others you could drop in the next state, and they’ll panic. Some things you just can’t teach. Some people are exploratory. Underpinning all of Imagination’s teams is that we’re all pretty curious about what each other does. Curiosity enables each member to develop a minimum level of understanding of each other’s roles that you need to get a job done properly.” How then, does having a healthy curiosity translate into a better project for a team? Ralph poses the following example: “If you’re an architect and you have a healthy curiosity about film, then you start to learn about the film process and what it takes to make a film. Similarly, the filmmaker will understand that it takes five years to make a building. This understanding can help any project as the steps from concept to delivery are navigated. “I look for collaborators whose natural instinct is to be curious. I can then use that curiosity in a project. It’s the entry ticket. I don’t need an architect to know how to make a film, but if an architect understands the basic process, they develop a respect (for the other aspects of the project), and out of that respect comes trust, and then the team-building.” Ralph advises teams to develop a risk-relishing culture. Put a team of people together who have a healthy curiosity of one another and turn it into communication and understanding of one another.


149

The culture of Imagination has been described as an art collage, a medieval round table, an idea factory, and an Arab Bazaar. Ralph notes that when new people come in, they are surprised by the lack of formal systems. Of course there are basic systems (financial, for example) that are in place, but there is not one way of doing projects. “We are a risk-relishing company that encourages freedom of speech. You’ve got to be able to ask for help, and to know your limitations.” How does Ralph Ardill view his own role at Imagination? “I could get a phone call now, and I could pull 20 people together in the morning and we’d be off on a project. I see myself as project conductor, coaching a team along. The leadership emerges in different ways. We don’t assign a leader to a project. The writer or technical director may take the lead. It’s not a situation where if you have the job title then you run the projects.” Imagination has little hierarchy. There are no job titles on business cards. “We live for ideas. People come here to develop their personal portfolios of projects. We are a projectfocused company. We turn everything into projects. We have our own special way, an Imagination way of doing things.” Ralph’s belief that teamwork is the work of Imagination is reflected deeply in his statement, “The hardest thing to design is not the solution, but the team structure and its methodology.” He refers to the company’s story and spread in Fast Company’s April 2000 issue and how the article affected people. He says that people read it and think, “Wow, I want to do that.” The pictures in the story seduce people. But it’s only half the story. “I want to tell them that the reason that solution or result happened is because we spent as much time at the front end, thinking of the design of the team and the process, as we did designing the solutions.” Ralph notes there are hundreds of businesses that all have the same ideas out there. He recalls, “When I was in college,

150


the mantra that we learned was, ‘The medium is the message.’ Now, it’s the methodology that is the message. The way you go about doing something often says more about you than what it is you do. It’s the difference between delivering a vision and failing. It’s as creative to design the methodology and process for the project team as it is to design buildings and sculpture.” The focus on the process starts with the way briefs (the client need or project mission statement) are constructed. Ralph notes that a brief “can come from the boss or a client. There are three ways to look at it: as a set of instructions, as a barrier, or as a symptom. Many of us are used to getting instructions. But, when you go off and simply do what you’re told, you get resentment (thus the brief turns into a barrier). Creative people want white paper (information). So whether it’s a one-liner or one page, I tell people to have a read, then ask, ‘Why the brief? Why is it written?’ It’s like a runny nose, a symptom of a cause. When you get to the cause you get to a completely different project. A lot of breakthrough work comes through a brief that might be given by a client, that we’ve deconstructed to get to the real problem.” This approach helps to avoid the traditional, linear process that bogs down most teams. For example, in some organizations, teams or individuals become adept at throwing the project over the wall. “The account people meet the client and bring back the brief. They give it to the strategic guys who turn it into agency briefs. Then it’s given to the creative director who gives it to the team, and then it gets handed back to the account people who bring it back to the client, who then says, ‘We don’t like red. Can we have green?’ and back it goes through the line. It’s a very de-motivating way to work.” Ralph cautions that a pitfall for many teams lies in the movement from one project phase to another: “It all falls


151

down where the interface is. These are the weak links. When you move from concept to detailed design, from design to production, or from production to delivery. Whatever the process, there are stages, and the joints between the stages are where things fall apart, due to lack of understanding and lack of communication. “Our response at Imagination is to assemble the minimum number of people to take responsibility for the conception and delivery of the solution to the problem. We’re like a family. We bring everybody together: the designers, the production, financial, and client servers, and until everybody around the table is happy, we don’t move onto the next step of the project.” Another pitfall Ralph mentions that many teams in other organizations face when they proceed in a linear fashion is that everyone (separated by area) does their work in isolation, and then six months later the technical production person comes around at the back end and says it can’t be done. This is why the methodology is so critical to collaboration. Getting everyone on board early is a major factor in the ability to innovate. Ralph feels that when people get things late, they are not primed to be entrepreneurial. Ralph characterizes Imagination as doing “inspiring work that works.” He reflects: “We do inspirational work, but not if it doesn’t deliver. Companies can do inspirational work that doesn’t work, or they can do work that works but that’s not inspirational. Either way you don’t have a business. You either become an artist, or you become a commodity.” His advice for how to create teams that do inspiring work that works? “Instill in people a strong desire to do work that works, and take responsibility and ownership not just for your bit, but be part of the whole process and feel ownership in the success of what we’re doing.” Imagination is known for

152


hiring and training project site staff or even putting their own staff at a customer location to make the project work, as they did for the Journey Zone inside Britain’s Millennium Dome. Ralph agrees that it seems simple in principle. “It’s not difficult to get different people together with different skill sets and say this is what we want to do by this time next year, and how are we going to do it? Most people love to work like that. When people complain at home to their husbands or wives it’s because there’s no way for them to grow, and after a while that desire gets kicked out of them. Their improvisational and social skills are fine in the evening, and then the next day in the office they are so different. They’ve become two-dimensional. “There’s a bizarre desire of companies to control, to micromanage and have everything in its place and in a box. Shake your business and allow it to become a bit random. All you’re doing is acknowledging what’s happening in the real world, and it’s a good thing to give out to your employees.” Ralph concedes that sometimes “when you think of all the people working with you, all the projects, all the big names and budgets, you just freeze. But when you can think of yourself as the conductor, someone with whom orchestra members are capable of playing without, you see yourself in a different role. The conductor sets the tempo and rhythm and provides motivation to keep it moving along, providing focus. “I’m often asked, ‘How do you arbitrate? How do you settle disagreements? Who calls the shots?’ I’ve found that rarely do three or four people disagree. Common sense prevails when they understand each other’s jobs. When everybody disagrees about the right way to move forward, that says to me there’s a lot of ignorance in the room. At Imagination, it feels like a family. We have arguments, but we want to collaborate and make the effort to build the relationships. To deliver


153

their ambitions, our people have to rely on integrating a holistic team. What they want to do requires teamwork. We tell our clients that consumers today have a quest for timeless values. Many people fear buying anything because when they get it home it’s redundant. There’s a new product on the shelf. We look for things that are timeless. There’s an emphasis on values, on community and family, and people look for that in their place of work.” ✴ Imagination realizes the importance of making collaboration a priority. They spend a significant amount of time hiring curious collaborators, and focusing on assembling end-to-end teams that learn and communicate together from the start. The processes and procedures the team uses are given as much focus and up-front planning as the output and ultimate solution. Imagination is an excellent example of a company who lays the groundwork for collaboration before jumping in to solve the problem. One significant aspect of laying the groundwork for collaboration is learning and using team-collaborating processes. These processes support the team in governing itself from within.

Collaborative Decision Making Decision-making processes are critical to governing from within. The traditional decision-making process (where the boss decides in a vacuum) is not how collaborative teams make decisions. Processes need to be reflective of collective responsibility and shared ownership. As we saw in Imagination, Ltd., people who belong to successful collaborative teams have a desire to take part in the whole process, to feel ownership in

154


what the team is doing. Team decision processes must first and foremost be objective—taking personalities and power plays out, and incorporating a view toward the whole as the primary criterion. In this section, we are going to describe a collaborative decision-making process that supports a respectful team environment. This process helps to engage every team member and tap into the group wisdom, instead of allowing one person to make the decision. A sense of ownership emerges among all members because they have input into what the team will do. Finally, it provides the entire team with information and data regarding decisions that are made.

Collaborative Decision-Making Process What follows are the steps a team can use to work through a decision. It is not necessary to make all decisions this way, but it definitely should be used for decisions that affect the entire team. Another use for this process is when team members, responsible for certain areas of the project, want to get a sense of what the team thinks before they make the final decision. In any case, it is important to use this process and have the team get very good at it. Practice it, so when the big decisions are needed, the team is ready and comfortable with the process. 1. Begin with someone bringing up a topic for which a decision or plan of action is needed. 2. Then the person who brings up the topic describes all he or she knows about the issues, background, urgent need(s), long-term impact, etc.


155

3. Next, others who have information describe what they know about the issue, putting as much information on the table as possible to aid assessment of the real issue/problem/opportunity the team is dealing with. 4. After all of the information is out, the team devises the opportunity/problem statement that needs a decision. Here, take the time to make sure you have identified what the problem/opportunity really is before proceeding. Try to put these statements in howto language. How to fix . . . ? How to solve . . . ? How to change . . . ? 5. Now look at the statement. Is it representative of the core problem that needs to be solved, or is it solving a symptom? Re-create the statement so it is more reflective of the decision that really needs to be made. 6. Once the team feels the statement is accurate, look at it again. But this time, look at it from the perspective that this is something for the team to deal with. Disassociate it from who brought up the issue and whose responsibility it is—it is now to be owned by the group. This is the most important step because the team is now going to focus on the issue, not on who brought it up or who needs a resolution. The team now owns the problem/opportunity collectively, not any one person. 7. Take a moment to review the team credo and operating guidelines. Also reread “Getting into a Breakthrough Frame of Mind” at the beginning of the book. 8. Brainstorm ways to solve the problem. Come up with (diverge) as many alternatives before choosing (converging) one way. Think, “We could do . . .” or “We could do . . .” Combine, remove, and modify ideas to

156


come up with the list of possible alternatives. Once the alternatives have been prepared . . . 9. Vote. Here the team votes on which idea(s) they feel would best address the problem/opportunity. Voting is an objective way to determine the actions to take because it summons the group intelligence. This helps the group objectively see which ideas/actions have the most interest. Note that many times a silent vote is best, using a ballot to vote on each option. Use a 1 to 3 scale where 1 equals “Yes, let’s do it,” 2 equals “Maybe but not now,” and 3 equals “No way.” Total the results. The team goes with the majority and now has a sense of where the group energy is for the idea. In cases where a specific team member or subgroup is making the final decision, the vote does not have to be the final say; it is one way to poll the group to determine where it stands. Then use that information to move forward and make the final decision. Some helpful hints for working with this process: • It helps to have an objective ear listen to the problem and help ascertain if that is really the problem. When we are part of the team, getting to the real problem alone is difficult because we are so close to it. An objective ear can help us see what we are too close to view accurately. • Be patient with the team. Many times we do not understand the problem until we have examined several dead-end solutions. This is not failure; it is just more information.


157

• It also helps to have an outside facilitator guiding the team through the process. By focusing on process, the facilitator frees the team to focus on the objective. It is very difficult to lead our team through a process and also actively participate in it. Two hats are sometimes one too many to wear well. Choose which role you prefer to hold, and don’t alternate between the two. • Sleep on it. If the team is deeply fatigued or at the brink of insanity, agree to take a break, or better yet, adjourn early and go for a run, take a nap, do anything but think about that problem one more minute. Give everyone’s brain space to incubate and work on the problem in back-burner mode. • Realize that frustration, anger, and dissonant feelings can be signals that a breakthrough is imminent. Try to stay as objective as possible. Avoid finger pointing and trying to make someone or something the reason for the frustration. Take a step back and ask, “Why are we frustrated? What about this problem is causing our anger?” A group decision-making process facilitates collaboration by involving everyone in key decisions. Use a collaborative process that allows the team to explore alternatives and get a gauge of the group wisdom behind the decision before making team-affecting decisions.

“Creativity is like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E. L. Doctorow

158


Comprehensive Skill Building A self-governing team understands the importance of growth. They are on the lookout for training and experiences that enhance and nurture the team and its members, contributing to feelings of competence and self-assuredness. Breakthrough teams take the time to learn and grow together, nurturing their interconnectivity and growing their communication and collaborating skills to foster their effectiveness. If we do not take the time to learn the skills of collaboration, we will continue to flounder with mediocre team performance. A very important aspect of skill building is that it is wellrounded. In many organizations, there is budget only for technical training or direct work-related experiences and seminars. This is too bad, because we are more than talking heads. In the words of Walt Whitman, “We are large, we contain multitudes.” As people and as a team, we need experiences that nurture our “multitudes,” through growing our entire person: right and left brain, mind, body, and spirit. In this way we develop all of our capabilities, not just those in our primary work area. Why should a team dedicate budget to such seemingly unrelated training? Because breakthroughs come from making unexpected connections! Feeding ourselves new experiences and information is the way we yeast the process.

Whole Team Skill Building Here we discuss the skills and training the team and each member needs in addition to their technical training to feel well-rounded and whole. The Resources section at the end of this book gives suggestions for classes and experiences in the following areas:


159

Personal Exploration Knowing ourselves is a good place to start. It is important for every team member to understand and value his or her preferences for thinking, feeling, and doing. Encouraging self-awareness, risk taking, and a sense of responsibility are the criteria for selecting courses in this area. Taking time to do personal exploration is an excellent way to learn to trust our gifts, creative spirit, and intuition. Take experiences like personal visioning and understanding your life-purpose.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Personal Exploration • What classes can you take to help you understand your personal learning style, the way your brain works, and your vision for your life? What experiences can you take to enhance your professional growth, personal leadership, and mindfulness practice? • What experience can the team take together that will enhance your appreciation of each other’s operating styles? Consider taking the Hermann Brain Dominance Inventory or playing the Diversity Game® to see how well you know the strengths of each team member. (See the Resources section of this book for more ideas.)

Creativity and Innovation Enhancement We are all creative, and we all have ideas. The trick is to learn ways to access and enhance our creativity more easily.

160


Learning the skills and techniques that keep individual and team ideas flowing is important. A common understanding of processes and associated language builds a shared collaborative culture. While a discussion of comprehensive ways to unlock creativity is beyond the scope of this book, there are valuable books, articles, instruments, and other materials that can help you here. Again, some of our favorites can be found in the Resources section.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Creativity and Innovation • What experiences would you like to take to stimulate your creativity and help you feel rejuvenated and invigorated? • What experience could the team take together that would stimulate your creativity? Take an “idea excursion” to an art museum or a park. Be sure to read Principle Ten (Play and Rejuvenate) to get more ideas about unlocking your creativity.

Breakthrough Experiences Surprising insights can arise when we take time to step outside our ordinary realm. Breakthrough experiences can increase our openness to new ideas and help us make unexpected connections to support our personal and professional growth. Try taking at least one class that is not work-related


161

or related to your industry domain. As a team, when we experience breakthrough experiences together, we learn to get comfortable with one another and to play together. Look for experiences that are rejuvenating, invigorating, and creatively stimulating.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . New Possibilities • What experience can you take that is outside of the domain of the work you do? • What experience can the team take together that will be different, creatively stimulating, and/or rejuvenating?

Communication and Collaboration Processes Finding offerings that stimulate collaboration are a must to keeping our teams growing and enlivened. Conscientiously learning and using good communication processes gives structure and effectiveness to team interactions, while providing balance and shared participation. Look for offerings that nurture respect, deeper listening, communication, and a sense of community among team members. Collaborative processes that teach problem solving, idea assessment, decision making, meeting effectiveness, and other team-governing skills are excellent investments.

162


BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Collaborating Skills • What classes would you like to take to enhance your personal collaborating skills? • What skills does the team want to learn to enhance their collaborating and communicating? • What do you need to learn to act more like a business within a business? • What processes does the team need to add/eliminate to support governing from within? • Where does the breakdown in collaboration occur in your team? Remember at Imagination, Ltd. it sometimes happened at the interface, where projects move from one stage to another. Where does it happen in your team, and what can help you bridge the gap? • What other skills does the team need to learn to facilitate better communication and cohesiveness?

Mind-Body Connecting Find offerings that stimulate and support a healthy mindbody connection as part of a wholesome curriculum. These experiences help us feel healthy and strong and can range from taking a class on healthy cooking to bringing in a yoga instructor once a week.


163

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . A Strong Mind-Body Connection • What body intelligence experience can you take this year? • What can you do as a team to enhance your health and physical well-being?

“Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.” —Abigail Adams

Commit to Self-Governance A team is truly powerful when each individual team member takes the responsibility to self-regulate—doing their personal work to be a strong, mindful contributor and responsible participant. A healthy collaborative team has members that act with integrity. Team members engage in a good deal of introspection to have a clear understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, talents, and personal operating styles. Thus, they are self-determining and internally directed. Not only do members take responsibility for their actions and outcomes, they govern themselves by monitoring their behavior and adhering to the co-created credo (developed in Principle Three, Choose the Culture You Want).

164


For some, this might seem obvious (of course we need to know and govern ourselves), but for others this might be a revelation. (You mean I personally make a difference in how the team operates and functions?) By managing ourselves, we mindfully create an environment that supports the behaviors we wish to increase. Sometimes we don’t realize how our actions create our environment, and we send subtle messages about how the business is to operate. Let’s take a look at Sam and his company:

Setting the Tone by Planting Weeds

S

am is the CEO/lead entrepreneur of a start-up Internet company. He prides himself on listening to people and their ideas. But he also rapidly fires questions at them to assess if they have thought their point through. This is in the manner of, “If you are going to say something you better have thought it through and be able to defend your point.” But Sam’s style is antithetical to collaboration. Some ideas are just seed ideas that are put out there. Learning to build on one another’s ideas and grow an idea is the point. Let’s not take baby ideas and stomp on them before they have had time to germinate. Sam does not realize that his style is sending a very clear message about how things get done in the company. He is creating a warfare environment of attack and defense. And it has trickled down to effect other areas of the company of which he was unaware. The “attack and defend” approach was used in software reviews. A software developer had to endure hours of defending his code to reviewers who attacked how and why he created the code the way he did. If the environment were more collaborative, the “we” mentality would take over and the whole team would feel they


165

were ultimately responsible for the code and would approach the review differently. Sam’s style was setting the long-term tone for the entire company in ways he did not even realize. The environment Sam was creating worked against collaboration. It made people defend their opinions and ideas at any cost. Openness was gone because people were protective, thus reducing their willingness to play with ideas and concepts. ✴

“The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.” —Lily Tomlin

Committing to governing ourselves in meetings and other interactions helps cultivate the kind of team environment that encourages mindful interaction and effectiveness. It creates a sense of safety within people, and when people feel safe, their creativity flows and their willingness to take risks grows.

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . The Buddy System Here you go again. You want to go to a great new class. But then you end up being the only one who understands the ideas presented in the training. Wouldn’t it be great if there were others on the team who had the same experience as you? Before you go it alone . . . TRY THIS . . . Engage the buddy system. Ask a colleague to attend the training with you. This gives you

166


another set of eyes and ears to take in what is going on. You can then support one another when you get back and report to the team what you have learned.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Self-Governance Try going through the following list of questions once a quarter or so to see if you are on track: • • • • • • • • • • • •

Am I growing? Am I doing my best? Am I upholding our team values and commitments? Am I contributing fully? Am I curious and open to possibilities? Am I finding ways to get the job done? Am I proactive? Am I courageous in speech and action? Am I passionate about something? Am I proactively getting what I need to do the job? Do I have owner mentality? Am I monitoring my speech and judgments?

“Nothing strengthens judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility.” —Elizabeth Cady Stanton


167

Commit to Self-Understanding and Personal Growth It is critical that team members are contributing themselves—their uniqueness, talents, and creativity. Part of being able to contribute our talents is to know what they are. Some of us are aware of certain technical talents: Frank is great with financials and Shelly thinks strategically. But there is more to Frank and Shelly than we know, and maybe more than they know. It is in our best interest to be interested in ourselves. Personal exploration and growth is vital to healthy team functioning. How many of us neglect ourselves and our need for growth? We become automatons, business robots, working and doing our job, but shriveling inside. Ultimately this causes burnout and declining self-esteem. But by making a commitment to self-understanding and personal growth we can alleviate this trouble. When we are taking care of ourselves, we are able to care about what the team is doing. Don’t neglect the most vital aspect of team performance—you.

A Journey of Self-Discovery

J

oe has been with his company for 20 years. He has a strong technical base, combined with a desire to help teams apply quality processes. He has been in the quality field for over 15 years. During that time he has developed a deep knowledge of quality processes, but the best thing about Joe is he can boil them down to simple, understandable tidbits for the average person to understand. “It’s about sharing what you have learned so that others can benefit from it. Find ways to share what you know. That’s quality in a nutshell.”

168


Joe realizes that in any team it comes down to people: people interacting and people being themselves. It was only after taking several classes exploring his creativity that Joe realized it was okay to be himself at work, that who he was was just fine. This was a revelation for him. He has been on a journey of personal growth and reflection for years. He takes responsibility for his actions and reactions in teams and he is actively pursuing his passions. He says, “I am taking responsibility for the only one I really have responsibility for—myself.” Joe is an excellent example of someone on a personal path of discovery and growth, willing to do intense personal work to be a more effective, fully functioning adult in his workplace and in the world. ✴

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Self-Understanding • Reflections on your unique contribution: • I am passionate about . . . • I feel strongly about . . . • I feel I came to earth to . . . • I am really good at . . . • I feel my strengths are . . . • Reflections on your personal operating style: • The role I usually play in a group is . . . • It is a stretch for me to . . . • I really excel at . . . • Reflections on your personal blind spots: • I really get angry about . . . • I hate it when . . .


169

• My hot buttons are . . . • I am weak when it comes to . . . • Reflections on your role as team member: • As a part of this team, it is important to me that . . . • I want to contribute . . . • I can help with . . . • I feel responsible for . . . • I usually approach a problem by . . . • I have a habit of . . .

Each team member is such an important part of the mix. It is vital that we each govern ourselves. When we know and respect ourselves deeply, we can participate fully.

“Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.” —Charlie Parker

Unlocking Team Genius with Principle Seven: Govern from Within • Determine your personal behaviors and you will operate and stick to them. • Show a healthy curiosity about the way other people think and what they know. • Conscientiously listen and communicate to build collegiality and respect. • Understand your gifts, talents, and operating style so you can fully contribute to any team.

170


• Take personal responsibility and ownership, with an eye to the whole. • Be a mindful contributor.

AXIOM . . .

All for One and One for All

PRINCIPLE EIGHT Build Resiliency Muscles

“Don’t give up too soon, but when it’s time, don’t hang on too long.” —Morrie, from Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom1

This chapter looks at how to use setbacks and problems to propel the team on to better performance. Teams that have weathered storms grow because of them. Healing a sick team takes courage and patience. It requires openness, communication, objectivity, and listening. Most of all it takes a willingness to address issues that have probably been swept under the carpet long ago. Sickness is an opportunity; healing is a chance for change. Teams can build their resilience by developing new mental muscles. The muscles of detachment, learning, and collaboration can be strengthened to enable a team to heal themselves in the “24-hour flu” stage rather than waiting until more drastic intervention is needed.

171

172


Healing Is an Art Healing a sick or hurting team is an art for which there are no formulas or pills. The art of healing uses the tools of openness, communication, objectivity, listening, and a willingness to try to heal using means that might seem unconventional or downright uncomfortable. Healing is the act of becoming whole again as a team, and becoming resilient is the act of working to stay whole and healthy. A benefit of going through the healing process is that it builds the team’s resiliency. Members know they can weather storms together and come out on the other side stronger. Healing does not necessarily mean trying to cure the team by ourselves. We may need to get help because the mindset(s) that created the situation might not be the one(s) able to resolve the situation. In many cultures, people are discouraged from getting outside help because they do not want others to know they are not well (don’t want to air their dirty laundry or be perceived as weak). They hide their hurts, and therefore the problems get worse. Don’t let this happen to your team. At the first sign of problems, we need to stop and work to resolve them. Usually it is not the one or two little injustices that bother us, but the accumulation of these infractions. Decide which ones are worth dealing with so they do not snowball into a catastrophic problem. Again this is an art. What to deal with and what to let slide? Each person is different, but the best way to know is when we get a lump in our throat, a ping in our gut, or some other physical reaction to something that has happened. These are the signals that this is where the opportunities are.

Principle Eight: Build Resiliency Muscles

173

Move toward Wholeness Wholeness is the goal for any person, team, or organization. When we are whole we are healthy and emotionally sound. Interestingly enough, in this state of wholeness we are balanced and, some believe, impervious to disease. It is when we become out of balance that there is sickness; we are hurting as people and as a team. Wholeness is the act of working to integrate all parts and aspects of us into our work. It is also the act of noncompartmentalization. All things are connected, and if one part or person is hurting, the whole is lesser for it. The fundamental point of this chapter is around the intent for wholeness. Do we want our team to be effective? Can we work at our highest productivity when we have injured parts of the team? When we seek wholeness, integrity of the whole, we find some things that we let slide in the past that we can no longer overlook. We realize that, left to fester, these things will cause rips and tears in the fabric of our team and eventually undo the team and its efforts. When we have the intention for wholeness we do not let this happen. We take courageous action to bring up difficult topics, have difficult conversations, and say what we see. We speak our truth, not in a blaming, judgmental way, but in an informative manner. “This is what I see. This is my perspective, and I am open to other perspectives.” Can we have resilience without truth? Can we have effectiveness without wholeness? Can we have impact without courage? A sick team is a team calling for wholeness. It is a wake-up call to find a way to change the system for cohesion and inclusion.

174


BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Wholeness • Where/when does the team put things in compartments to the detriment of the whole? • What do you let slide? • What does the team let slide that you feel is troublesome? • What does the team need to be more balanced and whole?

Treat Sickness as a Sign In every team, there comes a time when we feel we are not making progress. We might be bogged down with hurt or angry feelings. We might even go so far as to say the team is sick. But sickness is a sign that something wants healing and something needs to change. Sickness can be a gift to any team willing to see it in the light of a need for change. The term sick is meant to describe situations and times in a team’s life cycle when there are unhealthy feelings and actions going on. These unhealthy signs are coalitions, infighting, ineffective communication and decision making, frustration, or fighting about something that is not the problem. Use these signs as signals to stop and do some healing work. As we become more and more familiar with one another, we might be tempted to think we know all about each other, or we might be tempted to think we know what someone is going to say. All of us have witnessed times when a team member is virtually shut out because we think we know what he is


175

going to say. In times of team stress, we need to see and hear people anew.

BREA\KING THROUGH TO . . . Seeing the Signs • What does a colleague do that makes you feel angry, frustrated, or taken advantage of? • What can you do, within yourself, about that? What is your responsibility in that interaction? • What signals and signs do you see within your team that lead you to believe the team has issues? • What is the message conveyed by these signs?

Intend to Try to Heal The main goal of self-healing is willingness, an intention to try to heal. The process of trying to heal and the integrity of trying are what matters. People sense the willingness to genuinely want to heal as a team. The needed results/changes may only show themselves once we have gone through the healing process. We cannot know what the outcome will be until it presents itself. Be careful not to get stuck in the assumption that healing means we are going to get back to the way things were— healing means change. Once the team is healed it will not go back to doing and being what it was prior to the stressful times. If sickness is a sign that there is a need for change, healing is a change in the team. If the team does not change, they have

176


not made progress towards healing. If we go back to the way things were, we have not really healed. Thus, we will be back for another round in the healing process, because the sickness will have gotten more acutely painful. The most important thing we need to do is let go of our expectations about what healing must look like. Healing or change will take a form that we might not expect. For some teams, some of the members might need to move on. For others a new strategic direction might be needed or new decisionmaking processes implemented. Whatever the solution, it evolves from a process of unfolding and communication between team members: co-creating changes that lead to healing. Remember, the longer we wait to deal with a problem, the worse it gets and the harder it is to solve.

SMT—An Opportunity for Change

A

self-managed team (SMT) inside a large corporation had spent a great deal of time together implementing their vision. They came together for a meaningful reason they were very passionate about. They shared responsibility and found ways to govern themselves. Much of the time they showed tremendous courage in dealing with the corporation and customers they served. And over time, SMT members had become very familiar with each other’s operating styles, which helped create an environment in which everyone thrived. They were a very effective collaborative team that made a difference. But things were changing—they were not feeling as challenged or as passionate about what they were doing. They had done what they came together to do and were at a crossroads. Some team members wanted to go in different directions from other team members. Frustration and anxiety became a sig-


177

nificant part of their days. They did not know what to do, and the ways they used to deal with issues such as these in the past were not working to alleviate the problems. They were sick. They were willing to try various methods for healing. They worked with outside facilitators to help them define new directions. They agreed to use a new decision-making process, and they learned some new communication tools. All of this was very helpful. But some realities were not confronted. For example, it was not certain whether all of the members of the team still wanted or needed to be part of the team. Another problem was that the team was moving into a new phase of life and needed the right approach for this new phase. Was it different people? An updated mission? In the end, the team lost some members, and then its funding, and finally disbanded. It is important to note that this is not a negative ending. The team had several good years of very important contributions. Remember we talked of being open to various outcomes. Being able to see the outcome as it is, not just as we wish it were, is an important lesson and part of healing and resilience. ✴

“Most people see the world as they are—not as it is.” —Anna, from the movie Anna and The King

So here are some things any team can do to begin healing: • Engage an outside facilitator or team-healing specialist. Don’t be the doctor and patient at the same time. Finding a professional trained in the art of group healing is well worth the time and money. This person is the objective resource who can help the team unearth

178


the real issue(s) and move through a renovation process. • Try a deep communication tool. A very powerful tool for getting to the heart of something is dialogue. “In dialogue, a group can explore complex difficult issues from many points of view. Individuals suspend their assumptions but they communicate their assumptions freely. The result is a free exploration that brings to the surface the full depth of people’s experience and thought, and yet can move beyond their individual views. People are not trying to win in a dialogue. And if done following the basic ground rules, dialogue helps individuals gain insights that simply could not be achieved individually or in discussion.”2 • Engage in active listening (focusing).3 Sometimes people have different takes on what is going on. Focusing is a tool that can help someone understand what she is feeling and seeing. This intense tool can be used mindfully to help someone get clarity on her issues. • Speak from an “I” perspective. A classic tool of communication is using nonblaming language. Using “I feel, I see” language versus “You did, you’re the problem” language can help keep the conversation objective and effective. All of these tools can be used to help heal a team that is going through difficult times. They can also be used on an ongoing basis to build up a team’s resiliency muscles. In the next part of this chapter we are going to highlight the characteristics of resilient teams and the muscles they can proactively build.


179

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Healing • The thing we need to work on that is eating at the fabric of our team is . . . • Are we sick? If so, do we have a cold, the flu, or pneumonia? As the team healer, I would prescribe ________ to help us heal.

Building a Resilient Team We have heard the old adage “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Healing a team is needed when our team has broken down and needs a cure. But if we work to keep our team healthy, we will not need “the pound of cure.” Breakthrough teams consciously work to keep healthy by learning the skills needed for resiliency. Becoming resilient as a team shows we are committed to developing certain characteristics or mental muscles, as we will call them, to fortify our ability to bounce back in the midst of challenge and change. This bounce-back ability can be proactively nurtured in preparation for the inevitable tough times every team faces. Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines resilience as “the capability of a strained body (team) to recover its size and shape after deformation. The ability to recover from or adjust easily in misfortune or change.”

180


People find out what they are made of when they have to deal with adversity. Likewise, we find what our team is made of in trying times, because the stress of the situation brings out the coping mechanisms the team has developed. Are people communicating? Are they being courageous or contentious? Are they sharing and working together to solve problems, or is one stuck figuring it out, with the others commiserating, worrying, or stepping back? Cultivating the characteristics of resilience is like preparing for a marathon. There is much preparation and muscle building that goes on prior to running in the race. This is also true of a team that is resilient—they have been doing the work, building their interaction muscles in preparation for the race, preparing for the change/stress that requires them to expend their bounce-back ability. Every team must take time to build a set of mental muscles that help them to communicate and effectively operate together. These mental muscles are important in day-to-day interactions and become especially critical in times of team stress, change, and uncertainty. The following is a sample set of mental muscles that can help our team become resilient, and of course, more collaborative in the process.

Proactivity Muscle The proactivity muscle has its roots in the entrepreneurial mindset cultivated in Principle Five—shared ownership. Here the members of the team are actively working to move in the directions of the goals and objectives. They are not waiting around for marching orders, nor are they passive participants. They are ready and able to go when it’s time to change.


181

Internal Motivation Muscle This muscle draws on the understanding of what the team is out to accomplish, and flexes with internal drive to weather storms and get done what it set out to do. External forces have a harder time shaking the team’s foundation. Everyone is very focused and cannot be distracted. The team is internally motivated, thus governing from within. Each person on the team is taking care of himself and is driven from a sense of internal direction.

Possibility Muscle An attitude of “We can and we will” builds this muscle. People are practicing “What if?” and “How can we?” approaches that prepare them to tackle problems. The language of possibility makes the team look and feel very different than traditional teams who usually practice “limitation mentality,” recognizable by statements such as “We already tried that,” “It will never work,” or wisecracks that shut down ideas and play. Anything is possible, and when a team takes this to heart, they can create a reality for themselves that is tailor-made for learning and growth.

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . Smart Talk So your team is caught up in “not possible” thinking and not using their minds constructively? Coming up with all of the reasons why something will not work is a waste of good brain cells. Before you waste any more . . .

182


TRY THIS . . . Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the center. On the left side write down all of the reasons why this will not work. Then on the right side reverse your “no can do” statements into possibility statements, or “can do” statements. For example: CAN’T DO Talk/Stifling Talk

CAN DO Talk/Smart Talk

The executives won’t go for it.

The executives will go for it and this is how we are going to make it so . . . We will decide what we want to do. We will not run into resistance we cannot overcome. How do we leverage resistance? There are no problems without solutions; let’s find them. Obstacles are only obstacles if you think of them as obstacles—otherwise they are opportunities. Mistakes offer great information about what does not work.

We will not figure out what they want. We will run into overwhelming resistance.

We have a problem here.

We are going to run into obstacles.

We cannot make a mistake.

Once you have filled up the page, tear or cut the page in half down the center line you drew. Take the stifling talk and tear it up, or better yet, burn it. Keep the right side as a reminder of your “can do” attitude.


183

The “We Mentality” Muscle Remember “One for all and all for one”? Teams developing their “we mentality” muscle are on the lookout for ways to help each other, talk supportively about each other, and believe that the team as a whole needs to succeed. A sense of connectedness through a “we” versus “me” mentality helps create solidarity and helps members build a tough skin to not take things so personally. We move beyond ourselves to a higher place of operation; our interconnectivity and interdependence build strong bonds.

Reflective Muscle It seems there is an unquestioned assumption that business is about action. Sometimes when change and troubles arise the best thing we can do is to stop and reflect on what is going on. Sometimes it is okay to do nothing—letting solutions reveal themselves to us. Developing a reflective muscle means we are willing to do nothing, or do something not work related to get some perspective. This courageous action is not the usual approach of “do something” or “take action.” Typically atrophied, this muscle can save us countless wasted hours doing something versus the right thing.

Collaborative Muscle Interestingly enough, collaboration does not seem that natural. We need to want to collaborate with someone and put our efforts into learning how to collaborate. A commitment to this muscle means a commitment to learning to work together to build all of the other muscles. Working effectively

184


with others is not easy—if it were there would be no need for this book. Building collaborative muscles provides the team with a collective strength that bolsters the team through tough times.

Detachment Muscle Sometimes we are so attached to our way of thinking, we have the “my way or the highway” syndrome, and we close our minds to alternatives. When we are attached to our point of view or overly invested in a certain way of doing things, we cannot see the larger picture, nor can we hear others and their points of view. Building the detachment muscle is difficult because many times we do not even realize we are attached to some way of looking at something or some way of doing something. Detachment is a deep habit developed slowly over many years. But detachment or freedom from bias gives us the gift of objectivity. And objectivity gives us the gift of possibility. The muscle of detachment provides the seedbed for innovation and breakthrough thinking.

Listening Muscle In tough times, it is difficult to hear others and ourselves. When we are stressed, we shift into reaction and “pain relief” mode. In this mode, we are not really interested in the higher forms of interaction and communication. This is why it is vital to cultivate the listening muscle before times of stress, because it is in times of stress that we most need to communicate and hear with thoughtful attention. Listening means we are engaging some of the previous muscles, detaching from our thoughts long enough to hear another’s, and we are stopping to reflect upon what they are


185

saying. We may also need to invoke the curiosity muscle to get clarification and build on others’ thoughts. The key to effective communication is developing the listening muscle, or as Steven Covey would say, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”4

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . What’s That About?! Your teammates have much to teach you—about yourself. When you have an emotional reaction to someone, you have an opportunity to learn. So before you miss out on the learning . . . TRY THIS . . . When someone on your team triggers some emotion in you (whether positive or negative) it is a signal to stop. When you have a spare, private moment stop and ask yourself “What was that about? What brought on that emotion?” Anger, frustration, hurt—try to name the emotion accurately. Then get quiet and listen to what you are trying to learn. It might be helpful to write yourself a letter and tell yourself a story about the emotion and what brought it on.

Inquiry (Curiosity) Muscle A building block of creative thinking is a curious mind. Keep this muscle conditioned by asking things like: How did that happen? What made that reaction? How did we lose that customer? The muscle of curiosity helps us delve into things

186


and break them apart to learn about them. Feel the difference between the curiosity muscle and the interrogator muscle. Curiosity has an air of uncertainty and play. It gives us permission to sniff and touch that which we might not usually sniff and touch. Traditionally in business, we take an interrogator approach. How did that happen? Who screwed up? Find out and fix it. But use of the inquiry muscle helps us move to new ways and have less need to protect and hold onto our old ways. Building this muscle helps us be interested in seeing what happens next, versus holding our breath and battening down the hatches for the worst.

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . Be Curious, Not Furious5 So Sally has just said something that makes you crazy—again. “What is she thinking? How could she be so dense? I don’t know if I can stand this much longer.” Before you blow your cool . . . TRY THIS . . . The next time Sally goes on in a direction you find ridiculous, get curious. What is she thinking? Assume she must have a good reason for her comments. She is a valuable member of the team, so there might be a nugget of wisdom in there. Ask probing questions like, “What brought you to that idea?” or “What problem did you uncover?” Or invite more discussion: “Tell me more.” Be careful not to put Sally on the defensive with questions or accusatory tones like “What are you thinking?” Be genuinely interested in what she is trying to convey. By probing a little deeper, you


187

might just find something the team needs to know or do. At the very least, Sally will feel respected and listened to—not a bad outcome, huh!?

Learning Muscle A willingness to learn is paramount to resilience. When our formal education ends, it seems the learning muscle atrophies because the need to have an area of expertise is so strong. We get rewards and promotions based on being an expert in our field. And if we are considered an expert, we must know much about our area of expertise. This need to know undermines the need to learn. Now that sounds wrong. If we need to know—then by necessity we need to learn it. But once something is learned, some feel they are done. Building the life-long learning muscle asks us to have the courage to be willing to learn many things, including things that are in our area of expertise. A well-shaped learning muscle means not feeling threatened, but interested in expanding our knowledge even in our expert areas.

Well-Rounded Muscle A desire to be well-rounded and whole is important to each member of a team. We need experiences that not only develop our rational and logical mind; we also need ones that develop our creativity, our imagination, our intuition, our emotional intelligence, and our bodies. Breakthrough teams make room for and even invite experiences that might seem odd—but encourage each team member to be all they can be. Look for skill building in these areas:

188


• Personal exploration and self-actualization, where each team member can understand and value their preferences for thinking, feeling, and doing • Reading outside our field to increase openness to new ideas and help make unexpected connections • Stimulating collaboration to nurture respect, deeper listening, communication, and a sense of community among team members • Mind-body connecting to support a healthy mind-body relationship • Creativity and innovation enhancement to learn ways to access and enhance our creativity more easily and create a common understanding of processes and associated language within our team

“I/Thou” Muscle In his book The Soul of a Business,6 Tom Chappell outlines a very important concept that will help anyone on a team overcome the urge to attack another member. He notes a concept by Martin Buber known as the “I/Thou” relationship. Its essence is that we can look at someone in one of two ways: either in an “I/It” relationship or in an “I/Thou” relationship. When we see someone in an I/It relationship, we see them as an object, an It, a thing we want to get to execute our agendas. In an I/It relationship, others are an extension of our will. In an I/Thou relationship, we see another person as an independent being, almost beloved, one whom we respect and want to support. The other person is not an extension of us. Working to see others as a beloved “Thou” versus an objectified “It” helps us treat them very differently. We see them as people in and of themselves, with hopes and dreams. We


189

learn to respect them and their life journey independent of our needs and expectations.

Respect Muscle The only person we can change is ourselves. Building in a respectful relationship means we work to not control others or force them to change to meet our expectations, but to allow them to be who they are following their life path. This is not to say we do not have our boundaries, but a cornerstone of respect is accepting someone exactly as he is.

Time Muscle This is a muscle we build to take time to rejuvenate, make changes, and re-envision, especially when we don’t think we have time. It is when we are under the most pressure that we can benefit from taking time to step back and try to see the forest for the trees. Jerry Hirshberg, former President of Nissan Design International, took his team to see a movie in the middle of struggling to meet a deadline. Upper management was not pleased and reminded him they were under a deadline. Jerry responded that it was precisely because they were under a deadline that they went to see the movie.7 Sometimes we need a break, while other times we need to stop and take account of where we are and see if we are still headed in the right direction. Sometimes we need to take a moment to mourn, when a team member leaves or some other change takes place. Being able to take time to communicate, have fun, or just breathe and have a moment’s peace is a muscle every team needs to develop.

190


Trust Muscle How can we build trust in someone we are working with? What do we need in the relationship to bring us to trust someone? Are we trustworthy? Are we fair to others? Building the muscle of trust asks us to be more careful about how we conduct our interactions with each other. Are we supportive, nonaccusatory, truthful, and free of political agendas? Do we take advantage of the good will of others? These trigger the development or atrophy of the trust muscle.

Play and Celebration Muscle Incorporating play and enjoyment into our work is vital. The problem is, we let play and celebration fall to the bottom of our to-do list, easily forgetting about them, never quite getting around to them. The muscle of play also reminds us to fool around with new concepts and ideas, exploring them and testing them, and not holding onto our view. Remembering to play and celebrate keeps our team vibrant, and goes a long way to raising our own personal satisfaction with our lives inside and outside of work.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Resilience • • • •

The muscles the team needs to develop are . . . The muscles I need to develop personally are . . . Other muscles it would be beneficial to develop are . . . What resilience-building mental muscles can the team add to its credo (statement of values)?


191

“Without a struggle, there can be no progress.” —Frederick Douglass

Unlocking Team Genius with Principle Eight: Building Resiliency Muscles • Use team sickness as a signal that healing is needed and change necessary. • Resist the temptation to have the team return to the “way it was.” It needs to move forward to new ways of operating. • Don’t sweep troubles under the carpet; the longer you wait to deal with problems the worse they get and the harder they are to solve. • Build your team’s resilience by using muscles of detachment, listening, trust, and others that can be used in difficult times.

AXIOM . . .

Exercise Your Collaborative Mental Muscles

PRINCIPLE NINE Make Change Happen

“We live in a moment of history when change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.” —R.D. Laing, The Politics of Experience

Anyone who has been in a group knows change can be difficult. It took quite a bit to get where we are. People start to understand how things work, how to act, and how to react. Even unhealthy teams don’t want to change their behavior. They are comfortable despite the uncomfortable situation. They know what to expect and what to do. But change we must, because no change means no growth, and no growth means stagnation or even failure. In this chapter, we explore building change into a core competence of the team. To do this, we become proactive about change, making it happen and practicing change on a regular basis. In this way it becomes our mode of operating instead of something we do reactively. When we begin to view change as an opportunity rather than a threat, we are able to 193

194


make it part of our skill set. With the intention to make change part of every day, the old axioms of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” “Leave well enough alone,” and “Don’t change for change’s sake” are all mantras we need to bury. They don’t fit any more; they are like old tight jeans from ten years ago. They are constricting and binding in all the wrong places. Turn them into rags and let’s design some new sleek-fitting Lycra trousers for the future that allow us flexibility and freedom of movement.

“Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix.” —Christina Baldwin

Build “Change-Ability” into a Core Competency: Practice Changing A core competency is a skill or talent that our team possesses that is a competitive advantage. Usually it is defined as something tangible that our organization can do that competitors have a hard time emulating. Principle Nine: Make Change Happen is about making an intangible, the ability to change or “change-ability,” into a core competence. Can we do that? Yes. How? By practicing changing, and by changing for growth’s sake. Interior decorating magazines profile designers who are always changing the interior of their rooms. They get tired of the look they created for last season and do something to make the room look and feel different. They stimulate fresh thought, fresh feelings, and a sense of newness by changing the color of the room, the layout of the furniture, or by something as simple as adding a throw rug or leopard print pillow.

Principle Nine: Make Change Happen

195

They have developed the urge to be innovative through change (and yes, it is in their best interest to keep stimulating our urge to buy). But aren’t sales the ultimate goal for many of us also? Sometimes change is drastic, and other times it is subtle and simple. This is how we build “change-ability” into a core competence—by practicing changing, every day if possible. Practicing change might come in simple forms: • Sit in a different chair every meeting. • Make a pact to try something you have never tried once a month (from painting pottery to going for a massage). • Read magazines you never read (like Flyfishing or Red Herring). • Have meetings at the zoo or an art museum. • Invite your mother, friend, or anyone unfamiliar with your work (a “wild card”) to a meeting and ask them to contribute ideas. • Try a mini-internship. Become a marketer for a week if you are an engineer, or think like an engineer for a week if you are a marketer. • Get out and talk to customers. Live a day in their life. • Host a video lunch and watch best practices videos from other companies, especially ones not in your field. • Try saying “Yes and” instead of “yes, but . . .”. • Look for positives versus negatives. • Learn new skills (technical and nontechnical). • Have “Scan the Environment” day where you discuss trends and happenings in the environment that could impact your business or ideas for your business. • Go to a conference of your profession or industry, and when you come back host a “brown bag” lunch to report on the latest and greatest findings.

196


• Call up an organization you’ve heard or read about that is doing something intriguing. Ask if you can visit and learn something about what they’re doing. • Join a new group of people that come together to discuss some issue or topic that interests you. Have an entrepreneurial think tank, comprised of teams of people from different organizations who get together quarterly around a theme. • Bring a new décor to your work area. Add something (art, inspirational messages, color, toys, etc.) to make your workspace stimulating. • Don’t just read the above suggestions. Pick one (or seven!) and get out and do them—today.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Practicing Change • What other simple things can your team do to develop change-ability into a core competence? • What other simple changes would bring freshness to your team?

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . A Room with a View So the team has assembled in the same conference room you always meet in, with Harry sitting in the same seat every time. It seems nothing fresh comes out of this set


197

up. Before you resign yourself to one more same-old, sameold meeting . . . TRY THIS . . . When you are planning on doing idea generation or you are trying to deal with an issue that you have not been able to resolve, consider taking the team to a nontraditional place. Get a room at the local park district, meet at a coffee shop or local book store, or just move to a different conference room—anything that shakes things up a bit. A new environment might encourage new approaches.

Change also might need to be in more drastic forms, including some of these: • Removing some of the cubical walls and moving desks and tables around to change your seating arrangements. • Reinventing the direction/purpose of the team. It might be time to revisit the team’s vision statement. • Changing office buildings. What departments or other teams could you benefit from by proximity? • Reorganizing the department structure. Does your current structure really reflect how you work? Or is it some archaic arrangement of lines and boxes that everyone has all but abandoned? Try drawing your team’s (or organization’s) structure so that it reflects how everyone really gets things done. • Redesigning the physical working environment. Does your workplace have any similarity to your home? Why not? How could you make it more home-like? Consider alternative (comfortable) seating, use of color, and bringing in natural objects whenever possible.

198


• Looking for a whole new customer set. Who might need what you have that doesn’t even know it yet? Stretch beyond who you currently serve and think way outside the segment: How about the animal kingdom? Schools? The military? Teenagers? Retirees?

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Reinvention • What drastic changes does your team need to make? • What drastic changes would be refreshing for your team?

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” —Nelson Mandela, A Long Walk to Freedom

Here is the story of one leader who helped his team build change-ability into a core competence. As we will see, this helped them take foothold on the path toward innovation and change.

Jonathan Booth “Envisioning and Leading Strategic Change at Pharmacia”

J

onathan Booth is a leader who has successfully blended a colorful set of life experiences, drawing on the worlds of


199

automotive engineering, business school, the inner city, and corporate America to create an innovative, team-centered leadership style. He is a Senior Director of Pharmaceutical Technical Operations Finance. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he began working for General Motors at the age of 16 and later attended General Motors Institute, where he received a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering. He later earned master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration from the University of Michigan and Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, respectively. In spite of his educational background, Jonathan felt he was viewed as an engineer with an MBA versus a businessperson with a technical background. After several years at GM, he joined a foods manufacturing company as a Senior Financial Analyst. His first team-building experience came in 1995, when he led Activity Based Costing, and was named a senior manager of this area. This experience led to his current position at Monsanto Corporation. Ironically, Jonathan has never had the opportunity to pick his own team. Instead, he has always had to turn around different teams—“opportunity work” that most people would not touch. Instead of having difficulty with the challenge, Jonathan rose to meet it and developed a niche in turning around troubled teams. When Jonathan reported to his new position, the organization chart showed three directors reporting directly to him. Jonathan was directly responsible for 70 people in the United States and indirectly for ten individuals from other countries. He perceived that in everyone’s mind, a “black box” existed where nobody understood what went on or how it went on. Jonathan recounts walking into a very difficult situation, in which his team lacked direction and motivation. Specifically, many of the team members did not want to work there.

200


The equipment was outdated and morale was low due to a recent reduction in force. Two of the directors working for Jonathan were older, more experienced, and very skeptical of the changes that he wanted to bring about and of his ability to turn the group around. “Everyone wondered why I was there,” Jonathan acknowledges. “The very first thing you need to do is to size up the situation,” he advises. This skill was intuitive to Jonathan, drawn from his youth spent in the 1970s on the East Side of Detroit, which he describes as a fairly rough neighborhood with one of the largest gangs. He describes how his days consisted of “getting by, avoiding drive-by shootings, and trying to survive without having to participate. So you learn very quickly if you’re determined to be very innovative and creative.” Because of this experience, “I always tell people that fear is not a motivator for me, but instead I am motivated by a pat on the back for a good job.” It formed his perspective on “getting along and trying to understand people and breaking through their personal combination lock—truly trying to learn what makes them tick. My motivation then was survival. Now, I want to do well and see others do well.” Resisting the tactic to rush in and immediately begin cleaning house, Jonathan decided to wait and give people a fresh start with him. His decision to hold back was based on his lack of a track record with the company. He believed that his leadership effectiveness was based partly on performance and partly on people management. In looking back on the interviews he held with his immediate group to try and understand what they wanted him to do, Jonathan concedes he made a mistake. “I came in saying this is what we’re going to do, and I have your best interests in mind. I’m going to make sure that you just do tremendous here. I thought that would be something they would want to hear. Unfortunately, I hadn’t


201

proven myself yet. They didn’t trust me. The group probably thought, ‘Who is this guy who is going to do these great things for me?’” As Jonathan points out, no matter what your background or age is, take the time to listen and learn about what the group is doing before you start making changes. Jonathan wanted to move quickly to get the ship on the right course. To help his team prioritize and focus on the right things, he brought in a framework to guide them in developing a charter: a pyramid with six levels, each containing a component of the charter. At the top level is the mission: “Why we exist.” Next is the vision: “What we ultimately want to be.” The third level includes the values: “Who we are and how we work.” Included here are behaviors such as actively soliciting the ideas of others, viewing differences as assets rather than liabilities, and applying creative approaches to generate new ideas, methods, or techniques to solve business problems. The fourth level of the pyramid consists of objectives: “What our desired outcomes are.” The fifth level includes strategies: “How we achieve our objectives,” and the sixth (bottom) level of the pyramid is built on tactics/actions: “What we need to do.” The charter clearly spells out the shared goals and values of the team and specifies the actions necessary to achieving them. The charter and the leadership style exemplified by Jonathan that supports it serve to decrease miscommunication at the last minute, a pitfall that often stymies organizations as they try to become breakneck. How does Jonathan Booth view collaboration? “As simultaneous engineering where everyone works together in parallel.” Prior to his arrival, team members were not sharing information or communicating. He introduced technological changes that enabled all team members to know where everyone else was and what they were working on. He began what would become a yearly evolution, in which staff reevaluate

202


their resumes and career goals, and update them. After a few months, people began to trust him more. Jonathan is thoughtful about his role as leader: “You have a moral obligation to do the right thing by your people, given the fact that you can impact their livelihood.” Another change was the introduction of team meetings, which previously were seen as gripe sessions that put a bad taste in people’s mouths. Jonathan began 30-minute round table meetings held early in the morning. He now brings in bagels, introduces humor into the meetings, and makes sure he is the last one to speak, as everyone around the table shares their thoughts on the team’s progress. Quarterly off-site meetings are held to draw people into decision making. He also started bringing in some of his team members to CFO staff meetings, where they would make presentations to upper level management. “This gave my peers the chance to see what the people in my group could do, and it made it easier for them to move into other positions, if they desired.” In describing his approach to leadership, Jonathan recalls the time he had a cleaning business in which some of his employees were former drug runners. “I had to motivate people creatively. As a leader, the way you make your point is to show people that you are willing to do what it takes. There’s a time to be a leader and a follower, a chief and an Indian. I recognize the subject matter experts for what they are, and I acknowledge when I don’t know something or make a mistake. “My first goal was to change the culture and grab their minds and hearts. People are now interested in getting into my group. I make goals together with subordinates to establish a vision. I wanted to put together a yearbook to help people have a sense of who they are talking to, with photos and diagrams.” Because many members of the team do not reside in the same location, the yearbook breaks down the barriers


203

created by geographical separation and helps people get to know one another’s capabilities. Crystal, a team member, made it happen, which he believes really empowered her. He takes pride in helping people move to the next level—even if they don’t immediately get the promotion. “I tell them, ‘You’re still a winner, and if you really want this and are willing to become better at managing people, you know you can have this job.’” Coming in as team leader, without having a hand in picking the team, can be a very challenging time. At the start, Jonathan admitted to feeling exhausted at the end of each day. “It was as if I was marching down a football field with land mines on it. I was emotionally drained. I tried to protect the people in my group and was willing to take the blame.” He counsels, “Don’t be fearful of doing the right thing, even if the results are difficult. Believe that if you are doing the right thing for your team, you will be taken care of.” Jonathan beams: “Everyone that has worked for me has gone on to be promoted. I want my people to be the most sought after people in the industry and to upstage me.” What does it take to be a successful leader? “There’s a need for people with management skills training. There is a tendency for people to revert back to their old ways when things get difficult with deadlines.” The question for any leader is, “How can we still meet the challenges creatively but still keep our culture intact?” While many managers and team leaders emphasize their commitment to their teams, Jonathan Booth embodies the leadership qualities that bring the intention into action. It’s in his vision; it is shown by his concern for people’s career progression and success; and it is in his voice. ✴

“Nothing endures but change.” —Heraclitus from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosphers

204


Becoming Proactive: Change before You Need To It is always a good idea to address something before it becomes acute and painful. As we discussed in Principle Eight: Build Resiliency Muscles, sickness is a sign and pain is the stimulant for change. But what if we were proactively changing, thus thwarting the pain? What if we proactively took time to do a “need for change” assessment before change was needed. Sometimes the best thing we can do is take time out and ask ourselves change-stimulating questions.

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . “Need for Change” Assessment 1. What have you outgrown as a team? 2. Are you personally fulfilled? Do team members feel fulfilled? 3. What do you wish you had? What does the team need? 4. Is the team still effective? What stands in the way of being effective? What can you do about that? 5. Look at the things the team does routinely—ask “Is this still applicable? Do you still need to do this? Can you make it more effective?” 6. What needs to leave? What don’t you need anymore? 7. Is the team growing? Why or why not? 8. Are you ready for the future? 9. What keeps team members up at night? What are you most afraid of? 10. Is the team still on the right track? Do you need to modify/ change your strategy/your vision/your objectives?


205

When “change-ability” is an intended core competence we are not afraid to ask these questions. We welcome them and make them a part of our daily inquiry. We make time for the questions, the answers, and the implementation. There is no point asking the questions if we are not willing to take some action toward the answers. This usually serves to frustrate even more.

“Live your questions now, and perhaps without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers.” —Rainer Maria Rilke

Look for the Signs That Change Is Needed There are the inevitable times when we get so wrapped up in our work and getting our jobs done that we do not even see changes on the horizon. The need for change seems to sneak up on us, and only when we are face to face with the symptoms of the need for change are we alerted to the fact that something must be done. Here are some symptoms that change and conversations about the need for change are needed: • Boredom. Individuals or groups can become bored with what they are doing. This could be because they are not challenged or because they are too challenged. They don’t know what to do so they are stymied (and thus become bored). Challenge is necessary for growth. Understanding what is behind the boredom is critical for the team to find effective solutions. • Disengagement or disinterest. Here team members might shut down or not contribute, but something is up,

206


and they have mentally checked out. Maybe people feel powerless or they see the team has lost its way. Whatever the reason(s), it is time for the team to start talking and looking for the areas that need to change. • Petty fights and arguments. When people fight over petty things there is usually some deeper, larger issue lurking. They might not be sure what it is or are afraid to speak up about it, but infighting is a symptom of a need for change. • Taking the path of least resistance (pseudo-fixes). Here teams do something (anything) to try to stop the pain. Surely it’s better to do something rather than nothing—or so we think. Peter Senge has said we treat the symptom instead of eradicating the cause. For example, if we have a headache (physical symptom) we take an aspirin (fix to ease the pain). But if the headache is caused by neck strain from an improper computer workstation, we will keep getting the headache until we fix the workstation (the real reason for our headaches).

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Change Signals • What symptoms do you see in your team? (Try to name the symptom as accurately as possible. Disinterest is different from disengagement. Both need to be addressed but will probably need different corrective actions.) • Have you tried to fix these problems before? What happened?


207

• If you have not dealt with these symptoms before, what could the team try now? (Rely on communication to research and find accurate solutions. Try not to “quickfix” any of these symptoms until time is spent understanding the cause(s) or problem(s) and exploring alternative solutions.)

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . Future Look The future is unknown and may be a bit scary. But with a little planning and forethought you can prepare yourselves for possible futures. TRY THIS . . . As a team, begin by articulating issues/uncertainties/environmental factors you are concerned might affect your business in the future (for the good and for the bad). Select three or four issues/environmental factors that intrigue the team. Assign two or three people to each uncertainty to write a story about the future based on the uncertainty coming to pass. Describe what you (the team) would do if such a thing were to happen, how you would react, and how customers would be acting. What about competitors, or the government? Have each subteam share their stories and discuss what the team can do today to prepare for such a future.

The following story illustrates the power of change agents to shape and propel the cycle of change forward into the future:

208


Planting Seeds for Change in Eureka Communities

R

ichard Ybarra is the Director of Eureka Communities, an organization in San Diego, California, that was founded to bring about transformational change in leaders and communities. Richard credits his desire to make a difference in people’s lives to the inspirational influence of his wife’s family, Cesar and Helen Chavez and their extended relations. Cesar Estrada Chavez, who passed away in his sleep in April 1993, became known over a 30-year career as a champion of nonviolence in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Over the years, Chavez influenced and helped change politics in a number of places, especially California and his native Arizona, including the signing of the first agricultural agreements in U.S. history. In August 2000, California governor Gray Davis signed into law a new official state holiday. He declared March 31st as Cesar E. Chavez Day, to commemorate the birthday of the internationally acclaimed farm labor and civil rights leader. Chavez’ wife Helen, their eight children, and 30 grandchildren continue his tradition of nonviolent social and political work. Chavez truly was the change he sought, and his legacy is something Richard Ybarra takes with him into every work environment and professional challenge he faces, including Eureka Communities. This legacy of “change creating change” is what Eureka Communities is all about. With locations in several major American cities, it brings together people who work in both profit and non-profit worlds by providing opportunities for them to collaborate with and learn from one another. Eureka’s mission is to bring about transformational change by building citywide networks of community-based, nonprofit


209

leaders who are positioned to improve life conditions for children, women, and families. At the core of Eureka is a twoyear, on-the-job fellowship, a leadership training program for executives of community-based organizations. In eight short years, Eureka’s community of leaders has prospered, producing 338 fellows, supported by over 250 mentor organizations. Eureka San Diego has graduated 100 fellows in the past seven years, each of whom leads a community organization. These organizations serve nearly one million people in the San Diego area. An example of the programs that Richard Ybarra directs include the Neighborhood Civic Leadership Program, which is a six-week training program led by ten individuals who are fellows. It is a civic leadership program for business people focusing on how these leaders can achieve collaboration within their respective organizations. Leaders are taught how to keep up the momentum within their teams, have the courage to communicate, face ridicule or even danger, and instill commitment to the values of their neighborhood organizations. Central to this training is helping the leaders learn how to do more without imposing their own agendas on their group. Participants leave with collaboration tools, exposure to contemporary methods of team leadership, and a network of mentors and fellows who offer support. And as Richard says, “They won’t stop after that!” He describes Eureka San Diego’s program as “an avenue to having your own voice and taking it to younger people, to expose youth to what is going on in their community.” One story of how Eureka San Diego shapes transformational changes in the communities it serves is that of Fellow Gale Walker, who was recognized in May 1999 by the Small Business Administration as welfare to work “Entrepreneur of the Year.” Gale was lauded for her commitment to improving

210


the lives of children through her Children of the Rainbow, a 7,000-square-foot child care center in the Logan Heights community. Change creates change. Through their innovative initiatives, Eureka Communities plants the seeds for community improvement by building collaborative relationships throughout the business and civic communities across the city. The cycle of social change begun by Chavez lives on through the work of Richard Ybarra and the motivation and hard work of Eureka Fellows to make lasting change. They are rewarded by the results they achieve and the difference they make in education, welfare, and well-being within the neighborhoods of San Diego. ✴

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.” —Anne Bradstreet, Meditations Divine and Moral (1655)

Change One Bite at a Time An interesting phenomenon around change is that when we begin to look at changing something, we start to see many other things that need to change. It is similar to remodeling a house. We know we want to change the kitchen. It needs a new floor, but if we are going to change the floor, then the cabinets need to be updated. And if we do the cabinets, we should get new appliances—oh, what the heck, let’s just redo the counter tops. And if we change the kitchen, the dining room will look terribly outdated—so that needs to change too. Whoa, we just escalated from a $500 new floor to a $10,000


211

kitchen, a $10,000 dining room, and loads more time, planning, furniture, and fixtures. This happens in our workplaces too. We finally decide we are going to change our sales process. It has not served us for over a year. So we begin the effort of modifications. When we notice the marketing materials are a problem—let’s overhaul them too. But wait, the manufacturing process is not supporting sales, so that needs to change. And before we know it we are reinventing the whole company, or we get so overwhelmed by all that needs to happen we shut down and nothing changes. Sound familiar? There is an old joke that applies here: How do you eat an elephant? Answer: one bite at a time. How many times have we tried to swallow the elephant whole? No doubt, it’s been too many to count. Make the changes in bite-size portions, where we can chew and swallow without choking the team and ourselves. (Note to elephants: we are speaking metaphorically, of course.) When we embark on any effort to change, focus on something and finish it before taking another bite. People will feel better about being able to focus, and they won’t have indigestion.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Change Management • What project is the team trying to swallow whole? • How can you break it down into more manageable pieces? • What is most important to be tackled now? What can wait? • What feedback does the team need before making further changes?

212


“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” —Gandhi

Unlocking Team Genius with Principle Nine: Make Change Happen • Develop change-ability into a core competency. • Prepare for change by scanning the environment and planning for possible futures. • Practice change as often as possible by challenging the ways you have always operated. • Be first! Proactively change instead of just reacting to problems and symptoms.

AXIOM . . .

Change for Growth’s Sake

PRINCIPLE TEN Play and Rejuvenate

“The number one premise in business is that it need not be boring or dull. If it is, you’re wasting your life.” —Tom Peters

Don’t Wait to Play The breakneck pace of business has us believing we have no time to play, but life is too short not to enjoy our work. Because of the amount of time we spend there, it is important that work not only be fulfilling but fun. Did we mention life is too short not to play at work? One of the great myths about work and teamwork is that when we have done what we are supposed to do and have completed our real work—then we can have fun! We have been taught that play is something we do after the real work gets done. Or worse, that work is not supposed to be fun. Try to think of all the one-liners that reinforce the message that

213

214


work is not fun: stop monkeying around, stop horsing around, stop goofing around, stop playing around and get back to work, or one of our favorites—it sounds like you are having too much fun. Can you ever have too much fun? Play and fun at work are like soothing balm on tired feet. When we can manage a good laugh or a great joke, the laughter breaks the tension and for a moment relaxes our overtaxed heads. Have you ever noticed when you are at your most creative? Many people say it’s when they are in the shower, running, or in the car. We find the answers to life’s questions in moments of peacefulness and relaxation or after we have physically exerted ourselves, when we are so drained of energy we can finally think clearly. So why is it that if we get our best answers in times of peace and relaxation we feel that it’s not acceptable to create those circumstances in our work and in the environment of the workplace? Principle Ten: Play and Rejuvenate is about just that: intending to make play and rejuvenation part of our everyday work.

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . Time Out Is exhaustion and frustration the mainstay of your mental corporate diet? Is your body totally tense and your gray matter twisted into a pretzel? Are you so used to dealing with anxiety that you have anxiety over your anxiety? Well, before anymore business as usual . . .

Principle Ten: Play and Rejuvenate

215

TRY THIS . . . Take a time out. Kids get them all the time when they are in need of a break—so why not you? Create a sign that says “Taking a Time Out” and go for a run to clear your mind, do some yoga, or get a massage. Have a smoothie, write ten things that you love about your life, help someone out of a pickle, read a children’s story, go to the park and swing, or share some jelly beans. You get it—take a play break and do something fun. If you manage other people, make sure they take the time to do this also. The payoffs will be big.

“The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.” —Aldous Huxley

Create a Space or Place to Play Some companies have gone so far as to create a physical place to play. A software firm in Chicago has dedicated a room for the engineers to relax and play. There is an air-hockey game and cappuccino machine. The room has high ceilings and a sofa. It’s a symbolic place that says, “It’s okay to play.” This company understands the benefits of a place where people can connect and do traditional work in a nontraditional way. Lucent Technologies has dedicated 1,200 square feet of precious conference room space to creativity. The place has purple walls and a floor-to-ceiling white board for mind mapping and connection making. A full library of books, magazines, video and audiotapes give people a place to come, relax,

216


and re-energize. Bean bag chairs and furniture on wheels enable teams to customize the environment to their needs. You don’t have to get this elaborate. Maybe you can have a few Koosh balls, Silly Putty, and Play-Doh in the conference room with a scenic beach poster on the back wall. (Or take a clue from your local dentist who has puppies and inspirational sayings on the ceiling of her office.) The craziest things start to happen when a tear is opened in the corporate veil. People will have fun just playing with the idea of play. Drop a few hints, hand out some gel pens and Play-Doh, and watch the fun start to ooze out.

“Work tends to be a convergent activity, focusing in on the task at hand. Play is a divergent activity. It opens out and is not easy to contain. At Nissan Design International, we have deliberately made room for it, and it is often difficult to know when we are using play to work or when we are simply playing while at work.” —Jerry Hirshberg, The Creative Priority

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Play and Fun • What is the team’s philosophy about play/fun? • Does the team put off play and fun until the work gets done? • Do you have an environment that says, “It’s okay to play”? • What can the team do to incorporate more play and fun into your work and workday?


217

Don’t Let Your Well Run Dry Hunker down and work harder. That is what we usually do when we have to get something done. We “push it, push it, push it” and drive ourselves mad. But many times we push and push only to end up the next morning junking all the effort from the night before. In our MBA classes, in which nearly all students work full time while attending school part time, we have noticed that students who work for a certain company always come to class late, looking like they have been standing in a windstorm and haven’t slept for a week. Their stories confirm our suspicion: this firm values face time. Some students even tell us stories about how people compete with one another in this company over who comes in earliest and stays latest. Does this organization really believe its people are harnessing their creativity and using their repertoire of skills? Just because people are depleting their energy does not mean the organization is getting productivity. It doesn’t prove the team is run like a tight ship set up to perform hard and well. It means we are using up a most precious resource—the people. If you recognize the expectation for face time in yourself or your team, please put a stop to it now. Don’t squeeze every ounce of energy from people. Create some slack to explore and have a life. The beauty is you’ll get more than you expected in the form of refreshed strategies and innovative ideas to carry you forward. Isn’t that what we are striving for?

Replenish the Well Exhaustion is a signal that your internal well has run dry. There is no energy left for living, much less creating any new

218


things at home or work. When this happens, some people keep dropping their buckets down the well (pushing themselves) in hopes of getting the last few drops of water. Alas, there is really nothing down there to drink. The wellspring of vitality is used up. Now there is just dust and drips. You can keep dropping your pail into your dried-up well, but the drops you get are not going to quench your need for new ideas, new products, or new strategies. To get breakthroughs and innovation you need to fill the well through play and rejuvenation. Rejuvenation is the ticket. So what can we do to rejuvenate and reinvigorate our teams? Try some of the following ideas.

Rejuvenation Idea 1: “No-Thing” Sometimes the best thing you can do is no-thing. Do nothing. Just sit—breathe. Don’t even think. Can we just sit in the grass and be? Can we sit on a park bench and just watch the tree branches sway? Probably not—not for more than five seconds. This is why eastern philosophy speaks so highly of meditation. This practice of clearing and quieting the mind is in an effort to create space in our heads (between our thoughts) for other input. When we are going a mile a minute we are not getting the benefit of novel thinking. So stop, just stop for one minute and just do no-thing.

Rejuvenation Idea 2: Celebrations Celebrating is a wonderful way to stop and consciously note what has been accomplished. Celebrating sometimes gets short shrift in our high-powered world. We don’t have time to celebrate. It is too costly. We don’t have time. It’s silly.


219

Blah, blah, blah. Don’t let the opportunity to celebrate pass you by. One of the most important parts of any project is acknowledging its life cycle. Every project has a beginning, middle, and end. Acknowledging the completion or end of any phase helps us prepare for the next phase; celebrating is a symbolic way to signify the end or completion of something. Celebrating should not be limited to when things end. Learn to celebrate home runs and nice tries. Find ways to recognize well-placed effort.

TOOL YOU CAN USE . . . Seasoning So here you are on a project that seems like it will go on perpetually. There is no end in sight—when will you ever get a break? When can you stop even just for a moment and catch a breath? Before you see the future as a constant stream of the same old same old . . . TRY THIS . . . Create every project with a beginning, middle, and end. With large projects create phases or little ends which represent the cycles of life. Look at each phase of a project like you look at the seasons of the year. Every project should have a spring, when we are getting ready to bloom (preparing, objective setting, exploring, data gathering); a summer, when we are in full bloom (doing, executing, making things happen); a fall, when we are bedding down for winter (wrapping things up, putting finishing touches on); and a winter, when we are replenishing and resting. Don’t skimp on winter.

220


Rejuvenation Idea 3: Laughter and Comic Relief Playing together and laughing is one of the greatest rejuvenators around. One of the best things about the Internet is you can e-mail jokes. If we use it for nothing more than joking, the Internet is worth its weight in gold. Those great jokes that get sent round are such great comic relief. Next time you are stuck, frustrated, or cannot think of what to do, pull out a humorous book (Orbiting the Giant Hairball is one of our favorites), or go on the Internet and read some jokes. Remember that Jervis, from the TV smash hit Survivor, survived until close to the end mostly because he provided comic relief. It is a necessity.

“He who laughs, lasts.” —Mary Pettibone Poole

Rejuvenation Idea 4: Nature There is something very rejuvenating about nature, whether it is a nature walk or nature in the office. The need for natural distractions could well be the reason for the “bring your pet to work” movement on the rise. We want to have things that remind us of our home at work—pets are natural. Having pets and plants in the office helps to make it more real and comfortable, as does natural light. Being cooped up in a hermetically sealed building with no windows cuts us off from that which nourishes us—the sun. We can go really wild and bring in a fountain, play a CD of nature sounds, or better yet, get a canary and fish tank. The point is, nature and that which is natural has rejuvenating powers that we can bring right into our cubed world.


221

Rejuvenation Idea 5: Distractions Distractions help break up the monotony of every day. They are the little things like bringing someone flowers for the desk or having a spontaneous ice cream social. The key ingredient is that the distraction is not routine. Spontaneity and novelty are what give these distractions vitality.

Rejuvenation Idea 6: Sabbaticals If we have reached the point of complete exhaustion, we might need a much longer rejuvenation time than a weekend or four days in Vegas. Some people drain their wells so completely that only an extended period of rejuvenation can fill their well. (This is why making play part of everyday is so important—it might mitigate the probability of a breakdown.) Here sabbaticals are wonderful. A sabbatical can give us needed down time and help fill our well with fresh clean spring water. This freshness is a result of taking an extended period of time to rest, travel, and maybe do something different than what we do every day. Learning something new invigorates and gives us fresh perspectives. Healthy teams and healthy people keep their wells full. Making time to rejuvenate and play is vital to a functioning, breakthrough team.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Rejuvenation • Does the team have a space where people can go and rejuvenate?

222


• • • • • •

Is it okay to do no-thing sometimes? How can the team incorporate more celebrating into work? What can you do to celebrate home runs and nice tries? What are you going to do to get some comic relief? How can you bring nature and the outdoors into work? Can you negotiate an extended period of time for a sabbatical or try something different on your next vacation?

Blue Man Group “A Team That Knows How to Play”

T

he Blue Man Group is best known for its award-winning theatrical productions that critics have described as “groundbreaking,” “hilarious,” “visually stunning,” and “musically powerful.” The performance features three enigmatic bald and blue characters who take you through a multisensory experience that combines theater, percussive music, art, science, and vaudeville into a form of entertainment like nothing else. What strikes you most about these guys is that they have got creative collaboration down cold. The creativity that bursts out of the show is inspirational, the seamless execution mind-boggling. You cannot tell the difference between the three men because they are visually the same. But each Blue Man is unique with his own special talent: one can catch marshmallows with the speed of a cat; the other can bang a drum to perfection; and the third can fold up into a ball. Nothing is beyond the scope of this team. They spit, run, and make instruments out of PVC tubing. It seems the world is just one big playground that they use to create music, dance, and entertainment. The healthy humor and joking that takes


223

place between the Blue Man Group and people in the audience is well worth the price of admission. The fun starts immediately after you’re seated, as ushers distribute long strips of tissue paper which people tie around their heads—some in big bows holding back hair, others as headbands. The audience members in the first five rows are issued plastic ponchos to protect them from splattering paint, flying food, and other projectiles. Sitting in the audience you wonder, “What am I doing here?” But by the end you are completely pulled in and feeling free to play along. The transformation of the people, from well-dressed urbanites to goofy kids, is wonderful. If you get a chance, take some time to see the Blue Man Group.1 Maybe go as a team (great team-building outing), because these guys have teamwork figured out. Afterward, discuss among your team: what does the Blue Man Group do that we need to do more of? What enables them to work so seamlessly together? What about that creativity? What can we do to get more of that? ✴

“A man who works with his hands is a laborer, a man who works with his hands and brain is a craftsman, a man who works with his hands and brain and heart is an artist.” —Louis Nizer

Getting to Flow The ultimate goal of any breakthrough team is flow. The breakthrough team is in a state where they are working so seamlessly together it is not like work anymore. They are many

224


merged into one. The lightheartedness of play combined with the strong foundation of trust and interconnectivity gained through working through the ten principles enables the team to rise to the next dimension of working together. We rise above petty difficulties and interpersonal issues to a place of working where time moves quickly, things get done effortlessly, and outcomes are greater than could have been achieved by only one. A team in flow is a beautiful thing. The Blue Man Group gives this sensation of flow. We can tell they have done the hard work of learning their skills, the routines, and interplay with one another, so that when they finally come to the stage, they are operating at a performance level that seems magical. This magical quality, where it seems we have moved beyond our minds and bodies into a realm of connection with all there is, is the land of breakthroughs. We are able to tap into understanding and wisdom we did not know we had. When we are in a flow state with our teammates, working together effortlessly, breakthroughs are common. Becoming a breakthrough team is hard work, and it is more about letting go of things than learning things: letting go of our fears, the worries about what we have to get done, the way we expect things should be, and opening up to what could be. It is very similar to yoga. The practice of yoga has students working to learn the postures and gain strength so they can hold the poses. But within every posture, we need to learn not to push our bodies to the point of pain, but to let go of the tension and strain. We breathe into each pose relaxation and release, letting go of the effort. In this state of release, we find our muscles relax and our bodies give just a bit more. Yoga is the practice of letting go to get in flow, moving gently and smoothly into each posture with beauty and grace.


225

Think of anything that fills you with this flow feeling: watching a beautiful ballet, listening to a moving piece of music, sitting on a beach where life moves as easily as the tide ebbs and flows, or playing catch with your kids at the park. They all conjure a state of peace and ease. This is the state of being that our teams can reach. We have worked hard, communicating, trusting, and growing together, so now we can relax and flow with one another, knowing we are a breakthrough team.

BREAKING THROUGH TO . . . Flow • Have you ever experienced this state of flow? Describe what it was like. What did it feel like? What were you thinking? • Imagine the team in this flow state. Describe what it is doing. How are people interacting?

“Genius is nothing more than childhood recovered at will.” —Charles Baudelaire

Unlocking Team Genius with Principle Ten: Play and Rejuvenate • Don’t wait to play. • Create an environment or place that says it’s okay to play.

226


• Take time to fill the well—rejuvenate. • Enjoy times when your team is functioning so well together, it is in flow.

AXIOM . . .

Play or Fade Away

PUTTING THE PRINCIPLES IN ACTION What You Can Do

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” —Will Rogers

Change begins one person at a time. To transform our teams we must be earnest about transforming ourselves. Throughout this book we have talked about many ways to unlock the genius within your team and within you. Implied in every principle is the necessity that each individual team member take responsibility for their actions; that each member, including you, intends to put these principles into practice.

Breakthrough Basics—What You Can Do Begin the journey to creative collaboration with internal exploration. Understand what is important and meaningful to you. When we are clear about our purpose and passions we

227

228


can communicate these to our fellow team members. We can come from a place of personal integrity and authority that does not need to be defended or sold. It is just us, the part we have to give to the team. Once we are clear about what is important to us, we can then be open to creating a shared vision with our teammates. Here we practice the muscle of detachment—where we put our expectations and viewpoints on hold to listen to other team member’s viewpoints. Even if our team never formally sits down to construct their vision (which the authors hope does not happen), taking time to work through the visioning process yourself is a worthwhile use of your time and energy. Having an understanding of where you want to head helps you weed out distracting dead end options. Own your power of choice. You have choice in your life; do not take on a victim mentality and don’t let your team either. Choose your culture; choose how you will operate together. Minimally, choose how you will conduct yourself within your team. Remember to build a fully funded action bank account through courageous speech and action. Cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset. Learn to see yourself as the owner of a business and not just another employee. Your team members are owners of their business. How can you make it more effective, profitable, and customer driven? Entrepreneurs are renowned for their chutzpah and willingness to take risks. Cultivate a risk-taking mentality within yourself by looking at things through the lens of an explorer, versus the spectacles of a judge. An experimentation mentality is only one of many mental muscles you can be building every day. Commitment to building your resilience mental muscles will help you thrive in the new economy. The muscles of respect, detachment, curiosity, possibility, “we-mentality,” play, collaboration, proac-

Putting the Principles in Action: What You Can Do

229

tivity, and celebration will help you and your team become open—creating the possibility for breakthroughs.

“Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought.” —Albert Szent Gyorgi, 1937 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine

Now for dessert, for what’s a good meal without dessert? The story of a man who has created a life and philosophy that exemplifies the principles practiced by breakthrough teams.

Tony Watson “Leadership and Collaboration”

A

s the Chief Executive Officer of US Alliance Group in Washington, D.C. and New York, following a 31-year career in uniform, most recently as Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy, Tony Watson has cultivated some valuable lessons on leadership and life. His story reflects a set of deep and varied experiences through which he has shaped the lives of many. We had the opportunity to have a conversation with him about what it means to be a collaborative leader. His insights provide an excellent wrap-up to the presentation of the ten principles for breakthrough teams. His life is inspiring, his work meaningful. “First, whenever I think about leadership in its context— it took me a long time to figure this out—but after 31 years in uniform (27 active and 4 at the United States Naval Academy) and a course taught by Harvard to senior officials in National Security for senior leaders in government, I feel that it is something that evolves over time. How do you define when

230


you feel that you’ve reached a point in leadership when you are successful? You are successful when you can turn around and look at a group of people and ask of them: ‘Will you follow me?’ And, hopefully, the answer will be yes when you ask them to do that. You’ll know when you’ve gotten to that point when a significant number of people in the group will say yes. “In the distant past, there have been myths and stereotypes that military leaders simply issued ultimatums to get things done. On the contrary, in today’s military, there is greater (and necessary) emphasis on collaborative teamwork. It is important that leaders share with their subordinates the reasoning associated with their mission, so they may internalize the purpose for which they stand. “I learned most of the important elements of leadership while I was in the Navy a yard at a time, not football fields at a time. I stumbled here and there, but it was through the difficult times that I learned how to deal with folks. I used to think that the people from the academy (later in the submarine force) who qualified first were the best leaders. I didn’t realize that I had it all wrong until I became Commanding Officer of the USS Jacksonville. I learned that those who move speedily along the way and get promoted because they’re smart haven’t had the time to stop and mature with their troops/ team along the way. “My father taught me a big lesson when I came home from the Naval Academy. He pulled me off to the side of our public housing unit in Cabrini Green (in Chicago) and said: ‘Tony, you may know more than I know, but you do not know what I know.’” [Then] Ensign Watson had graduated from the Naval Academy in 1970 in his class of over 1,000 midshipmen in an intensely competitive environment. “My father taught me that smart is relative to the task at hand. When you look at that application on teams, whether it’s a ship at


231

sea or Microsoft, who’s smarter? The captain or the electrician who stands the watch at the stern of the ship and listens to the whir of the motor, notices that it sounds different than the day before, and that it needs to be stopped before the bearing burns up? When it comes to that pump, the electrician is smarter. “I ask children: Who’s smarter? The bus driver or the astronaut? What if you were in the bus and it was careening down a hill. And the bus driver had a heart attack. Who would you want to take over the wheel? A bus driver, movie star, or an astronaut? The bus driver! Getting there first is not always the best way to get there. You might not learn as much along the way. “The cooks on ships ultimately control the morale of the crew. If they have a dirty dining facility, you know that they’re not handling food in a sanitary way. You won’t be happy. They can control the morale of the crew. It all folds back into leadership experience. As you grow more mature, and are able to accept positions of greater responsibility with more people, you must recognize the experience that all people bring to the table. That’s why it’s so important to have an organization that is diverse. You learn to accept and capitalize on what every person brings to the table. “I was attending a course taught by Ronald Heifetz at Harvard’s JFK School of Government when the Rodney King riot was taking place. I can remember listening to a radio station during the evening in Boston and I got even more upset when the announcers decided not to talk about it anymore. I felt that it was such an important issue that it needed to be talked about nationally. I went to class in the morning and felt so much pressure. The incident really hit home, as I remember growing up in public housing in Chicago with nine or ten people in an apartment, 5,000 or 6,000 people jammed into

232


a building, over 100-degree weather, and no air-conditioning. No matter how difficult things got, people held onto their belief that in the final analysis there is justice. There was this sense that the only thing that they had going for them, justice, was no longer there. I identified with the situation, growing up in those environments where everyone was jammed in. “Throughout the morning in class I heard my classmates complaining about how people could possibly be that way. While I absolutely did not condone any of the actions, I had a sense of what the people were feeling and understood how they could feel that way and the pressure that bore their actions. The professor asked for people’s reactions around the room. I felt an immense amount of pressure after hearing people comment about how bad it was and how they couldn’t identify. When the discussion came to me, I couldn’t talk. I started crying. There was so much pressure trying to communicate to people in this air-conditioned, perfectly kept room at Harvard, when across the country people had lost their last belief in this country. “Professor Heifetz had written a book on leadership that included the phenomenon of the silverback gorilla. The male gorilla is the leader of the group, but he holds this position only temporarily, as long as he (the leader) can find bananas and protect the group. If the group reaches a condition of instability, and they fear that they are not being treated fairly or are not safe, then they assign leadership to another perceived leader in the group until they feel that they are safe. People are really only given temporary terms of leadership as long as they are able to deliver the stability that people need. People in positions of leadership must realize the importance of collaboration. Leadership is a privilege.” We asked Tony Watson how you could achieve collaboration for a common cause and help people focus on the vision


233

and want to work together, especially when it might mean the ultimate sacrifice: “The important point is that if a leader is to effect that, the vision must be communicated as something that is a shared vision. It’s difficult to walk into an organization and impose your vision on the group, until you spend time to sit down with the team to let them know what’s important to you and your value system. Get them to respect the experience that you’ve gained. It’s not really about being smart. We all have something to bring to the table. Once that foundation is set, you have a much higher probability/chance of people being inspired to follow you. “Collaboration is crucial. There is no single answer to all those questions and I don’t ever want to suggest that mine are the right answers. The right answers are an integration of derivatives over time through learning. You must practice and communicate the fundamentals, whether it’s on a football team, a ship, or in a software factory. You talk it through so that everyone understands his or her piece/role. You really won’t know how effective or how well-oiled the team is until it operates under pressure. Only then will you know the synergy or breakdown of the team. You can have an understanding of the process technically, but will not be able to develop a sense of your team to see if they are really committed to the vision and if it is shared well enough so that they are willing put their life on the line because they believe in you and your values. That won’t happen unless you have an understanding of the shared vision, and people make that commitment to the shared vision. It’s not necessarily easy to do. It takes the work of creating that shared vision to do that. “It starts with a vision that is shared. It can’t simply be mandated from someone. To overcome the temptation to not put it off on someone else is a challenge as a leader. The

234


important element is sharing that vision in such a way that people understand your values first. If they don’t understand your values first and respect you, there is no real reason to believe in you. For those leaders that work in an organization, they have to spend the time sitting with their team and articulating the issues that are important to them before they expect their people to lay it all on the line. “Everyone wants to have a ‘silverback.’ If you were to plot the level of uneasiness, people really want to look to someone that they believe in who will keep them safe. In turn, they wouldn’t mind clearing the way for them. Look at Roosevelt or Churchill. You wouldn’t go to war or be willing to die if you didn’t believe in what you’re doing.” When Tony took command of his first submarine, the retention rate was 39 percent. When he left the ship 13 months later, the retention rate was 92 percent. He spent time with the food specialists, learning about their lives and what was important to them. “If people feel that you really care for them, you’ll start building up a bank account. People will respond to you. It’s all about communicating your value systems,” Tony says. He mentions the law of psychological reciprocity: “If someone should give you something positive, you are psychologically committed to give something positive back to them.” He had a friend from his past who came to the Change Of Command in 1987 and sat in the audience. After the formal ceremony, they went to the reception. His friend told him, “It’s not in spite of the fact that you grew up in Cabrini Green that you made it. It’s because of the fact that you came from Cabrini Green that you’ve made it!” The integration of all those experiences makes us all unique. We are all a sum of our experiences. The good and the bad experiences make us into who we are.


235

Joanna Sprtel, now an MBA candidate at DePaul University, told us how she first met Admiral Watson: “I was a plebe at the U.S. Naval Academy, the lowest rung in the chain, while he was third in command of the academy. I was late to class, carrying over 20 pounds of books, when I came upon a group of high-ranking officers. Unsure of how to properly address such a large group of senior officers, I greeted them all with a crisp salute and an enthusiastic ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen.’ Then Captain Watson, who could clearly see that I was nervous, looked at my nametag and said ‘How do you pronounce that, Midshipman Fourth Class S . . .? Where are you from?’ When we both realized that we had the common denominator of Chicago, an instant bond was created. The fact he took the time out of his day to speak to a plebe says a lot about the type of leader that he is. That small moment in time changed much of the way I think about things. He never forgot me after that and a very special friendship/mentorship was developed from that random afternoon.” Tony Watson shared a story with us that illustrates just how creative (and willing to take psychological risks!) he was when he served as Deputy Commandant at the U.S. Naval Academy: “It was the night before the Army-Navy football game. I wanted to find some way to stimulate the troops before the game. We had 4,300 midshipmen eating in the dining hall (this truly must be one of the largest dining facilities in the world). I suggested to the midshipman in charge of the brigade to bring music in the room to get everyone up and doing the ‘Electric Slide.’ He didn’t believe I could get them to do that, so I started by asking a few midshipmen to get up and start dancing. Eventually, I led the entire brigade of midshipmen (over 4,000!) in the Electric Slide!”

236


Today, Tony Watson is bringing people together to form memories of a different sort. Tony and his wife Sharon created the vision for their new company, US Alliance Group, many years ago while sitting on a beach in Waikiki, when he was commanding the Submarine Squadron in Hawaii. He wanted to run an organization that enabled him to open doors for people who might not otherwise have those opportunities. He explains, “I want to articulate to corporate America the value of people with military experience. The military is really about learning how important it is for people to work together and collaborate. They know who the ‘silverback’ is in reality and who it is by appointment, what their strengths and weaknesses are. When they are ready to transition, military personnel are used to working in teams, drug free, and technically adept.” US Alliance Group is delivering those people to corporate America, just as Tony Watson himself has been delivering opportunities to countless teams with his inspirational leadership style and collaborative vision for accomplishing goals. ✴

“There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

In Conclusion As we have seen in Tony Watson’s story, and those of the many other people, teams, and organizations profiled throughout this book, breakthroughs come about through magic and preparation. As Joe Poyer said, “Thorough preparation makes its own luck.”


237

The ten principles can help you increase the probability of breakthroughs. Preparedness, and becoming “breakthroughprone” is your part in it. You can ready yourself for different possibilities to emerge. Listen to your intuition and that of your team. Most of all, find time for play and rejuvenation in your work and in your team: as a drained battery is of no use to a car, so too is a drained team bringing no value to the organization. This book has been about preparing our teams and ourselves, creating the conditions for breakthroughs to happen. You have started on your journey and we hope these discoveries are useful to you as you continue to . . .

Unlock Your Genius

238


The Ten Principles of Breakthrough Teams PRINCIPLE ONE: COME TOGETHER FOR A MEANINGFUL REASON Axiom: Start with a Difference in Order to Make One PRINCIPLE TWO: CO-CREATE AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE VISION Axiom: Start with the Right Foundation to Build on Solid Ground PRINCIPLE THREE: CHOOSE THE CULTURE YOU WANT Axiom: Choose the Culture You Want and Then Live It PRINCIPLE FOUR: ENGAGE IN COURAGEOUS SPEECH AND ACTION Axiom: Courageous Action Is Empowering Behavior PRINCIPLE FIVE: CULTIVATE SHARED RESPONSIBILITY AND SHARED OWNERSHIP Axiom: Act Like a Business to Stay in Business PRINCIPLE SIX: EXPLORE RISK TAKING Axiom: Without Risks, You Cannot Grow PRINCIPLE SEVEN: GOVERN FROM WITHIN Axiom: All for One and One for All PRINCIPLE EIGHT: BUILD RESILIENCY MUSCLES Axiom: Exercise Your Collaborative Mental Muscles PRINCIPLE NINE: MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN Axiom: Change for Growth’s Sake PRINCIPLE TEN: PLAY AND REJUVENATE Axiom: Play or Fade Away

OUTTAKES Some Parting Thoughts

As the credits roll at the end of a film, many directors show a series of outtakes. These scenes offer glimpses into the making of the film, and frequently contain memorable moments of actors speaking directly to the audience. We have compiled such a series for this book. The ideas in this section contain advice, pearls of wisdom, points of caution, and quips from some of the people we interviewed for this book. They do not represent a comprehensive set of everyone’s thoughts, but they are representative of what we have heard over these many months. They are no less important than the information found in the preceding chapters. We leave you with these thoughts: Diggi Thomson: “No one has a monopoly on good ideas. I have come to realize that—let others help build it, and encourage others to let you help build theirs. Then it is very easy to build around it in all sorts of ways. In a meeting situation, you sense the excitement rising as it builds on that idea

239

240


and spills out and over and people go away buzzed. At the core everyone is very clear of the creative engine.” Jonathan Booth: “Vision sets the common person aside from all others.” Tony Watson: “Mission is what you have to do today. Vision is something you are reaching for. The difference between the mission and the vision helps to chart the course.” Marsha Serlin: “Don’t be afraid to do the unexpected. Find the opportunity in each setback.” Ralph Ardill: “The bigger the idea, the bigger the risk. Idea and risk are four-letter words. There are only so many projects you can do in your life. The better, more elegant you can design the process, the more success you will have in your projects.” Jonathan Booth: “Don’t be afraid to put it all on the line. Sometimes you need to just put it all out on the table and take a risk. If you really believe that you can do something, put your job on the line. Tell them, ‘If after this you are not satisfied, I’ll leave.’ People either think that you’re crazy . . . or really passionate.” Lynne O’Shea: “It takes an audience to make a presenter or performer outstanding. Likewise with teamwork. It’s a combination of experts, each taking the lead role as needed with others supporting the effort. Leadership rotates, energy rotates, but vision is shared.”

Outtakes: Some Parting Thoughts

241

Diggi Thomson: “Recognition, recognition, recognition—preferably praise in public in front of peers. But if private praise is all that’s possible, that’s great too! Just because someone is paid to do a job doesn’t mean you don’t have to thank him when he does it well.” Jonathan Booth: “Do your homework in terms of what type of people you bring in. It’s not just about the resume. Interview and take your time to pick the right people.” Saul Carliner: “The first meeting sets the tone. Leaders must have an understanding of what each person does in her job, and how they can help them. Do that work up front.” Lynne O’Shea: “Teams collaborate when the mission of the group is seen as important, where the players are known for their integrity and intelligence. Feedback is critical, as is the acknowledgement of each member and their contributions.” Jerry Zelinski: “Recognize a team for what it is—not what you want it to be. You might have to give up a little to get the one-plus-one-equals-ten phenomenon. Let the task or goal approach as the whole team gets there. Try to understand what they [the team] are trying to do.” Ralph Ardill: Don’t over- or underestimate the link before or after you. Don’t put a ridiculous amount of pressure on someone unwillingly, like asking for something tomorrow afternoon and not realizing there are 15 people who will have to work all night.”

242


Brett Robinson, Customer Business Manager at Unilever Home and Personal Care: “People are the scarcest resource in an organization. If this truth is not embraced, the chances of having a happy, challenged, satisfied team will be greatly reduced. Senior managers too easily focus on performance without thinking about what actually fuels this performance.” An entrepreneur: “Business is an empty vessel—a shell of an idea you fill up with people. The caliber of people, their talents, skills, attitudes, and maturity color the contents. Fill the vessel with mature, collaborative, enlightened people and you get a different outcome then if you fill it with greedy, immature, self-serving people.” Jonathan Booth: “Measure and articulate what success is. Define it. Give them milestones to grab onto.” A marketing director: “The word collaboration is so overused. They say to me, ‘Okay we are going to collaborate on this project. You go out and do all the work and let me know how things are progressing.’ That’s their definition of collaborating.” Jonathan Booth: “Avoid talking badly about other people. Do your own investigation about people before you form an opinion about them. You don’t have to lie and say good things about people constantly. Avoid negative conversations about people. You never know who knows whom in an organization, and it’s not productive to tear people down. People can pick up and sense things from body language.” A marketing manager: “At the pace of business today, you cannot spend all of your time building support one exec-


243

utive at a time. But they won’t all get in the same room together and talk. Why? Because of turf issues and seniority status (different management levels in the same room) and all kinds of other factors.” Lynne O’Shea: “I don’t think ceiling is the word. That implies a vertical, bottom to top. Teams are horizontal, often far-flung. To me, it’s always a matter of time and energy. Whatever we can do to elicit more time and energy, if needed, becomes an axis for collaborative endeavors.” Diggi Thomson: “If you start recognizing people for deserved effort, make sure that you recognize ALL who deserved it over time, or understandably they start to get bitter, and it is worse than not doing anything for those people. A good way to get around this is to ask for nominations from all team members. Just because you are the leader doesn’t mean you know or appreciate all the good work that is going on.” A general manager: “I have my parameters about what people can do within the business. These parameters are based on fairness: fair to me, fair to everyone else in the business, and integral to the whole. Their behavior cannot damage the integrity of the whole.” Diggi Thomson: “Communicate—tell people in core and extended teams stuff that is going on. You can judge the sensitivity of what can be told, but anything is better than nothing. Among other things it gives a sense of forward motion, a sense of belonging, builds excitement, provides an opportunity for feedback which makes people feel that they belong and are listened to, and creates understanding of why things are happening the way they are.”

244


Brett Robinson: “Motivation comes from within each of us. I do not think that any individual can directly motivate another individual. The power we all possess is the ability to inspire motivation. If we can demonstrate creative thinking and creative actions, our teams will naturally gravitate towards this behavior.” Diggi Thomson: On brainstorming: A few thoughts to make them productive, because there are too many meaningless ones. Know what you are doing: prepare, prepare, prepare to make it as stimulating and focused as possible. Give the brain a grappling hook and it will stick to the task. During the brainstorm make sure you build on the nuggets there and then so they are not left as meaningless words later. Let people involved know what happened.” Brett Robinson: “People need to feel valued and intelligent. Feeding your team’s creativity is no different. As managers we must encourage and train people to feel confident in their creative abilities and give them 100 percent support to use these skills. This means there are no repercussions for going out on a limb to try a new idea or concept, no matter how zany.” Saul Carliner: “To heal a sick team, you have to move some people out. One situationally unhappy person can destroy a team. Personal differences and emotions can bog down the process.” Lynne O’Shea: “Watch out for the people who don’t want the team to succeed. Get them off the team. Any way you can, and soon.”


245

New venture director: “Avoid going into a team and telling them this is what I expect from you in the future. Don’t walk into a situation with a formula—the formula gets you the same rate of success for current and past projects, but no newness and possible betterment in the future.” Brett Robinson: “‘Hey you on the water skis! That’s right, I am talking to you. You ARE a creative being.’ Most of us too easily categorize certain types of occupations or personalities as being creative. The trust is that we all possess this wonderful quality called creativity—we just need to learn to unleash it.” Lynne O’Shea: “Kennedy first said, ‘We must put a man on the moon.’ Later, he amended it to add, ‘and bring him back safely.’ The mission didn’t have meaning for most until that addendum. It was not a victory, even with ‘One small step for mankind’—until we brought them back safely. The leader’s cognitive creation of a safety net for the team members is critical to eliciting best efforts.” Emilia Salg (Laurie’s 88-year-old grandmother): “What is the point of living if you cannot do for other people? We are all in this together.”

RESOURCES

The following resources we have found valuable in moving teams and members along their path to creative collaboration. They are organized according to the holistic team learning curriculum categories: • • • •

Team Communication and Collaboration Processes Personal Exploration and Self-Actualization Creativity and Innovation Enhancement Breakthrough Experiences

Team Communication and Collaboration Processes Here are some tools and processes we have found that move teams forward because they help the team objectively focus on the issue at hand, and not on each other:

247

248

Resources

• Creative Collaboration Certificate is a program offered by DePaul University’s Management Development Center and the Ryan Center for Creativity and Innovation in Creative Collaboration: How to Build a High-Performance Team®. Find out more at <www. depaul.edu/~mdc>. • Creative Problem Solving Processes Critical to any team’s success is how well they capitalize on opportunities and problem-solve. Learning and using a good problem-solving process, which usually consists of environmental analysis, data gathering, problem definition, generating alternatives, selecting alternatives, and then action planning can make all the difference to your team. Look into any of these processes: • Creative Problem Solving. Creative Problem Solving is a six-step process that helps a team identify and creatively generate solutions to problems. Resources for creative problem solving are available at <www.cef.cpsi.org> (The Creative Education Foundation) and <www.cpsb.com>, (The Creative Problem Solving Group Buffalo). • KnowBrainer™. The KnowBrainer is a pocketsized tool that contains questions and key words that prompt ideas and steps you through a creative process. Cards focus your thinking and make the process fun. Check out <www.solutionpeople.com> to order. • Six Thinking Hats®. Six Thinking Hats is a problem solving process and effective meeting tool that helps your team focus and stay on one topic at a time. Check out <www.edwdebono.com>.

Resources

249

• Synectics®. Synectics is also a creative process that is simple to use and really helps a team get out of the box. Check out <www.smdi.com>. A key point: Due to the breakneck pace of business, teams tend to drive the problem-solving process to the actionplanning stage while the other stages are skipped. Skipping the other stages has consequences. An incorrect problem definition could lead to an action plan that misses the target. Not generating alternative ideas usually produces same old, same old solutions that have less-than-optimal results. If at all possible take the time to at least realize there is a process that can be followed. Decide where in the problem-solving process you are and give yourself permission to spend a bit of time working through the entire process. • The Diversity Game is a game based on the Hermann Brain Dominance Indicator that helps you and your team understand your creative preferences. It is a great game to play together. Check out <www.hbdi.com/ diversity.html>.

Personal Exploration and Self-Actualization • Hermann Brain Dominance Indicator (HBDI) is a personal assessment to understand your thinking and creating preferences. A great tool for self-discovery. Check out <www.hbdi.com>. • Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is another personal assessment that helps you understand your personal operating style.

250

Resources

• Great books for personal exploration: • The Heart Aroused by David Whyte • Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey • The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron • Your Heart’s Desire by Sonia Choquette • Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie • Interesting organizations: • Omega Institute, the nations largest holistic education and retreat center <www.eomega.org> • The Institute of Noetic Sciences, an organization dedicated to exploring human potential, spirit, creativity, and peak performance <www.noetic.org>

Creativity and Innovation Enhancement • Great books: • AHA—10 Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit and Find Your Great Ideas by Jordan Ayan. Check it out at <www.create-it.com/aha/index.html>. • The Creative Whack Pack by Roger von Oech is a set of cards to give you creative inspiration. Check it out at <www.cooper.com/biblio/bib_whack_ pack.html>. • A Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger von Oech is a great book to get your creativity flowing. • Mindmapping by Joyce Wycoff offers you an excellent brain-friendly note-taking and brainstorming tool. • Wonderful organizations that connect you to best practices:

Resources

251

• The Innovation Network is dedicated to building communities of innovation. Check them out at <www.thinksmart.com>. • The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) is an organization dedicated to proving leadership programs for the benefit of society worldwide. Check them out at <www.ccl.org>. • Set-breaking magazines: • Fast Company <www.fastcompany.com> • Business 2.0 <www.business2.com> • Utne Reader <www.utne.com>

Breakthrough Experiences The following are some ideas to make unexpected connections and feed your brain new experiences and fresh perspectives. Try: • Watching a movie together and talking about what connection people made between the movie and the team. • Having an art day where you experiment with paint, clay, and other media to revamp your work chair or garbage can. • Inviting everyone to a wine tasting, and trying to describe the wine the way a great connoisseur would. • Reviewing a new book once a week, presented by a different member of the team. • Taking a field trip to a museum. • Having a family day where the kids come to meetings with you.

ENDNOTES

Getting into a Breakthrough Frame of Mind 1. Gregerman, Alan, Dr., Lessons from the Sandbox, Contemporary Books, 2000.

Principle One 1. Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2000, page A1. 2. Tuckman, B.W. “Developmental Sequences in Small Groups,” Psychological Bulletin, June, 1965: pp. 384–399.

Principle Three 1. We use e-valuation to differentiate between traditional evaluation (numbers based assessment) and collaborative e-valuation (values based assessment). 2. Kohn, Alfie. Punished by Rewards. Houghton House, 1993. 3. Positive Impact, Inc. Skokie, Ill. [email protected] 253

254

Endnotes

Principle Four 1. Concept extracted from Leading with Heart by Coach K.

Principle Five 1. Krzyzewski, M., & Phillips, D.T. (2000). Leading with the Heart: Coach K’s Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business, and Life. Warner Books.

Principle Six 1. Fisher, R., and Ury, W. (1981). Getting to Yes, Houghton Mifflin. 2. Concept described in Collins, J.C., & Porras, J. I. (1997). Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. Harperbusiness.

Principle Eight 1. Albom, M. (1997). Tuesdays with Morrie. Doubleday. 2. Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline. Doubleday. 3. Gendlin, Eugene (1981). Focusing. Bantam Books. 4. Covey, Steven. First Things First. 5. Based on conversations with Leslie Dagostino, internal Lucent consultant. 6. Chappell, T. (1993). The Soul of a Business. Bantam Books. 7. Hirshberg, Jerry (1999). The Creative Priority. HarperPerennial.

Principle Ten 1. See the Blue Man Group in Chicago, New York, Boston, and Las Vegas.

INDEX

A.T. Kearney, 15 Accountability, 19 Action(s), 92–101 accounting, 92–93, 105 courageous team, 94–100 Adams, Abigail, 163 Aesop, 145 Albom, Mitch, 171 Allen, Woody, 89 Ambiguity, 114, 115 Anna and The King, 177 Apple Computers, 15–16 Ardill, Ralph, 147–53 Arthur Andersen, 102 Assessment, 76 Assumptions, questioning, 12 Attack and defend approach, 164 Attitude, 14 Baldwin, Christina, 194 BATNA, 133 Baudelaire, Charles, 225 Be curious, not furious tool, 186–87 Bender, Betty, 21 Bentley College, 48 Blaming, 98, 178 Blue Man Group, 222–24

Blue Sky Center for Creativity and Innovation, 22–26, 27, 29 Body Shop, The, 27 Booth, Jonathan, 198–203 Boredom, 205 Bradley, Omar Nelson, 56 Bradstreet, Anne, 210 Brainstorming, 49, 71, 155–56 Brande, Dorothea, 87 Braveheart, 28 Breakthrough experiences, 160–61 frame of mind, 1–7 teams, 43, 238 Briefs, 13. See also Visioning/vision statements Buber, Martin, 188 Buddy system tool, 165–66 “But why?” tool, 132–33 Carliner, Saul, 47–51 Celebrations, 190, 218–19 Change, 117, 119–20, 193–212 as core competency, 194–96 Eureka Communities and, 208–10 healing and, 175–76

255

256

Index

Change, continued Jonathan Booth on, 198–203 management, 211 practicing, 196 proactivity, 193, 204 reinvention, 198 signs showing need for, 205–7 Chappell, Tom, 188 Chavez, Cesar, 208 Chavez, Helen, 208 Chicago Bulls, 10 Children of the Rainbow, 210 Choice, 22, 23, 31–33, 35, 100, 228 Churchill, Winston, 92 Climate of exploration, 139–40 Clue please tool, 91 Code of conduct, 93, 96 Collaboration, 11–15, 19, 67–69, 161, 183–84, 201–2 collaborating behaviors, 70–71 connectedness and, 74–75 courage and, 97–98 decision making, 146, 153–57 entrepreneurial teams and, 116 leadership and, 229–36 methodology and, 146, 149–51 rewards and, 84 skills, 162 slowing down conversation and, 76 Comic relief, 220 Communication, 14, 79, 134 and collaborative process, 161–62 tool, 178 Community leadership, 47–51 organization objectives, 49 risks, 50 skills and knowledge needed for, 50 Connection, 17, 33, 41, 134 mind-body, 162–63 Conversation, slowing down, 75–76 Courage, 89–105 action accounting, 92–93 entrepreneurs and, 101–4 integrity, 90

team actions and, 94–100 values and, 99 Covey, Steven, 92–93, 185 Creative Priority, The (Hirshberg), 216 Creativity assumptions as restraint on, 12 Blue Man Group and, 222–24 in climate of exploration, 139–40 corporate antibodies and, 117 creative collaboration, 67–69 and innovation enhancement, 159–60, 188 undermined by rewards, 84 Credo, 79–83, 87, 155 Crossing the Chasm (Moore), 55 Culture, 61–87, 160 collaborating behaviors, 70–77 collaborative team characteristics, 67–69 creating as a team, 62–63, 64–66 disinheriting old culture, 63 e-valuation system, 82–83, 87 five finger contract tool, 85–87 mind dump tool, 70 rewards notion, 83–85 space out tool, 73 team credo, determining, 78–82 Curiosity, 146, 148, 185–86 Davis, Gray, 208 Decision making, collaborative, 146, 153–57 Defending, 98, 164 Destiny. See Governing from within Detachment, 184, 228 Dialogue, 178 Disconnection, 43 Disengagement/disinterest, 205–6 Distance education, online, 16 Distractions, 221 Diversity, 13–14, 22, 35–37, 41 Diversity Game®, 159 Dixon, Jack, 26 Doble, J. Frank, 66 Doctorow, E.L., 157 Doubt, 2

Index

Douglass, Frederick, 191 Dream teams, 9–20 common characteristics of, 18–19 connection, 17 Diggi Thomson on, 11–15 diversity, 17 Lynne O’Shea on, 15–18 Du Autermont, Harriet, 59 Ducharme’s Precept, 139 Due diligence, 34 Economic value added, 54 EDS, 15 Einstein, Albert, 51, 69, 119 Elevator test, 55–56 Eliot, T.S., 46 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 43, 236 Emotional bank account, 92–93 Emotional reactions, 185 Encouragement, 74 Enesco Group, Inc., 22–26, 27, 29, 30 Entrepreneurial mindset, 108, 196, 228 Entrepreneurs, 30, 114–16 Environment, 164–65 redesigning office, 197 Envisioning, 46–47 see also Vision/vision statements convening the team, 53–55 personal reflection, 51–53 Erhard, Werner, 40 Ernst & Young, 102 Eureka Communities, 208–10 E-valuation, 79, 82–83, 87 Exhaustion, 217 Expectations, 2–3, 6, 13 avoiding overdefining, 116 co-creation of, 32 letting go of, 72 Experimentation mentality, 228 Exploration climate of, 139–40 personal, 159 Failure, fear of, 103–4 Farson, Richard, 15–16

257

Fast Company, 149 Fear(s), 2, 6 dealing with, 138–39 defining, 130–33 Feedback, 82 Financial objectives/goals, 3 Five finger contract tool, 85–87 Flow, 223–25 Focusing, 178 Ford, Henry, 133 Formulas, 116 Frame of mind, 1–7 France, Anatole, 18 Frost, Robert, 91 Fun Factory, 24–25 Future look tool, 207 Gaines, Frank, 47 Gandhi, 212 Gateway Computers, 18 Give me five tool, 58 Goals company vs. individual, 37–38, 66 evaluation of, 82–83 Gordimer, Nadine, 128 Gore, W.L., 65–66 Governing from within, 145–70 breakthrough experiences, 160–61 collaborative decision making, 153–57 committing to, 163–64 comprehensive skill building, 158 creativity and innovation enhancement, 159–60 Imagination, Ltd. and, 146–53 personal exploration, 159 whole team skill building, 158 Governing guidelines, 79 Grace of Great Things, The (Grudin), 104 Grant Thorton Executive Woman of the Year Award, 102 Grau, Amy, 23, 24, 25 Gregerman, Alan, 6

258

Index

Grigoriou, Jim, 33–34 Group development, Tuckman’s model of, 31 Growth, 126–27 committing to personal, 167 risk and, 129 Grudin, Robert, 104 Gwaltney, Julie, 23, 25 Gyorgi, Albert Szent, 229 Hart, Mickey, 34 Healing, 172, 175–77. See also Resiliency Heifetz, Ronald, 231–32 Heraclitus, 203 Hermann Brain Dominance Inventory, 37, 159 Hierarchy, 19 Hirshberg, Jerry, 189, 216 Hock, Dee, 13, 140 Hugo, Victor, 9 Hutsell, Jeff, 24 Huxley, Aldous, 215 Idea interview tool, 113 Imagination, Ltd., 146–53, 162 Initiative, 21, 145 Innovation, 30, 62, 116, 117, 184, 195 enhancement of, 159–60, 188 risk taking and, 129 Inquiry, 185–86 Integrity, 90, 96, 101, 105, 136, 163 Interconnectedness, 74 Internal exploration, 227 Internal motivation, 181 Internet culture, self-organizing systems and, 29 Introspection, 146, 163 Intuition, 52 “I” perspective, 178 I/Thou concept, 188–89 Jamming (Kao), 113 Janninck, Mary, 23, 24, 25 Judgment, 76

Kao, John, 113 Keightley, Alan, 61 Killer phrases, 75 Kohn, Alfie, 84 Laing, R.D., 193 Laughter, 220 Leadership advice, 136 and collaboration, 229–36 culture and, 64–66 by example, 101–4 facilitating team success, 116–18 successful, 203 Learning, and resiliency, 187 Les Miserables (Hugo), 9 Lessons from the Sandbox (Gregerman), 6 Letting go, 5, 7 Listening, 184–85 active, 178 curiosity vs. animosity, 72–73 generously, 73–74 identifying resistance and, 134–35 judicious evaluation, 76 slowing down conversation and, 75–75 Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 203 Long Walk to Freedom, A (Mandela), 198 “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The,” 46 Lucent Technologies, 114, 215 McAlindon, Harold, 85 MacKenzie, Gordon, 83 Maher, Bill, 123 Manager, culture and, 64–66. See also Leadership Mandela, Nelson, 198 Marston, Ralph, 142 Maurer, Lea, 135–38 Meaningfulness, 21–41, 121 allowing for choice, 31–33 being brave of heart, 28

Index

diversity and, 35–37 Enesco Group, Inc., 22–26, 27 fitness between goals and values, 37–38 Jim Grigoriou and, 33–34 motivation errors, 38–39 passion, connecting with, 30–31 self-organization and, 28, 29 source of meaning, 26–28 Meditations Divine and Moral (Bradstreet), 210 Mental muscles, 180–90, 228 Merck and Co., 27 Metaphors, 44–45, 52 Millennium Dome, 146, 152 Mind-body connection, 162–63, 188 Mind dump tool, 70 Mind meld tool, 127–28 Minneapolis Jewish Federation, 49–50 Mission statements, 27, 59 Mistakes, 140–41, 142 Moldofsky, Kim, 85 Moore, Geoffrey, 55 Motivation, 38–39 internal, 181 for rewards vs. values, 84 Multidimensional structures, 19 Natori, Josie, 129 Nature, 220 Need identifying, 43 filling, 111, 118 “Need for change” assessment, 204–5 Neighborhood Civic Leadership Program, 209 Net present value, 54 Nissan Design International, 216 Nizer, Louis, 223 Nonengagement, 43 Nonprofit Resource Center, 48 Objectives, 33 Objectivity, 76–77, 126, 156, 184 O’Connor, Marie, 39 O’Neil, George, 109

259

Online distance education, 16 Openness, 3–4, 72, 99 Operating guidelines, 81–82 Opportunity reviewing, 3, 6 statement, 27 Orbiting the Giant Hairball (MacKenzie), 83, 220 O’Shea, Lynn, 15–18 Outcome, detaching from, 71–72 Outside facilitators, 49, 57, 157, 177–78 Outstanding Recycling Business Award, 102 Ovid, 142 Owner mentality, 110–11, 118 Ownership, shared, 107 Parker, Charlie, 169 Passion, 14, 21, 22, 30–31, 41, 100 to fill a need, 111 risk and, 129 Passivity, 43 Path of least resistance, 206 Patience, 156 Patton, George S., 36 Pay-for-performance, 84 Personal exploration, 159 Personal norms, 33, 34 Personal responsibility, 71, 89, 123–25, 159, 163 see also Shared responsibility Perspectives, divergent, 9 Peters, Tom, 213 Pettiness, 206 Pharmaceutical Technical Operations Finance, 199 Picture this tool, 40 Piper, Elyse, 23, 24, 26 Play and rejuvenation, 190, 213–26 Blue Man Group and, 222–24 creating a space for, 215–16 getting to flow, 223 ideas for, 218–21 Politics of Experience, The (Laing), 193 Poole, Mary Pettibone, 220

260

Index

Positive Impact, Inc., 85 Possibilities, 139–40, 161, 181 openness to, 3–4, 72 undermined by rewards, 84 Power, 100 Poyer, Joe, 236 Prather, Charles W., 129 Precious Moments®, 23 Preparedness, 237 Proactivity, 180, 193, 204 Problem, reviewing, 3, 6 Product relaunch, 12 Punished by Rewards (Kohn), 84 Purpose, understanding, 43, 117 Reaffirmation, 104 Reality, creating and influencing, 2 Receptiveness, 3 Recognition, 14 Reflection, personal, 51–53, 80, 183 Reinvention, 198 Rejuvenation. See Play and rejuvenation Resiliency, 171–91 building a resilient team, 179–80 collaboration, 183–84 detachment, 184 healing, 172, 175–76 inquiry (curiosity), 185–86 internal motivation, 181 I/Thou concept, 188–89 learning, 187 listening, 184–85 play and celebration, 190 possibility, 181 proactivity, 180 reflective behavior, 183 respect, 189 self-managed teams and, 176–78 sickness as a sign, 174–75 time, 189 trust, 190 well-roundedness, 187–88 “we mentality,” 183 wholeness, 173–74 Resistance, 133–35 Respect, 97, 136, 189

Responsibility. See Personal responsibility; Shared responsibility Return on investment, 54 Rewards, 83–85 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 205 Risk/risk taking, 75, 103–4, 112, 119, 129–43, 148, 159, 228 climate of exploration, creating, 139–40 definition of, 133 fear, 130–33, 138–39 fictional case studies, 140–42 resistance and, 133–35 teaching (Lea Maurer and), 135–38 Robbins, Anthony, 53 Rogers, Will, 227 Room with a view tool, 196–98 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 101 Root cause analysis, 132 Sabbaticals, 221 Saint-Exupery, Antoine de, 28 Salon Selectives, 11–12 School for Management and Strategic Studies, 15–17 Seasoning tool, 219 Secker, Pete, 23 Self-awareness, 159 Self-discovery, 167–68 Self-governance, 146 Self-managed team, 175–78 Self-organization, 28, 29 diversity and, 35 Self-reaffirmation, 104 Self-serving interest, 39 Self-understanding, 167, 168–69 Serlin, Marsha, 101–4 Service, relaunch of, 12 Shared ownership, 107 owner mentality, 110–11 Shared responsibility, 100, 107–28, 145 See also Personal responsibility approaching purpose as a business, 108–10 choice and, 121, 122

Index

corporate antibodies, 117 cultivating, 119–22 entrepreneurial mindset, 108, 118–19 growth and, 126–27 Jerry Zielinski and, 114–16 meaningfulness and, 121 objectivity and, 126 owner mentality, 110–11, 112–13 participating as co-creator, 118 providing needed service, 111 risks, 112 system thinking, 125 Sickness, 174–75 Skill building, 158, 162 Smart talk tool, 181–82 Soul of a Business, The (Chappell), 188 Space out tool, 73 Speech, 89–90, 93, 94–95 Spontaneity, 221 Sprtel, Joanna, 235 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 166 Strain, Douglas, 16 Strategic plans, 3 Synchronicities, 5, 7 System thinking, 77, 125 Team credo, 78–82, 87,155 Team governing guidelines, 79 Team leaders, 13, 14, 19 Teamwork methodology for, 146 resiliency and, 179–80 Thinking modes, 37 Thomson, Diggi, 11–15 Time, 189 Time out tool, 214–15 Tin Cup, 90 Tomlin, Lily, 165 Trust, 33, 94–95, 190 Truth/truthfulness, 95–97, 135 Tuckman’s model of group development, 31 Tuesdays with Morrie (Albom), 171 Turkle, Sherry, 17–18

261

Unilever, 11–15 Uniqueness, 100 United Scrap Metals, 101–3 US Alliance Group, 236 Values alignment of, 33, 34 company vs. individual, 37, 66 personal exploration of, 79–80 statement of, 80–81 team credo and, 78–79, 87 understanding, 234 Vision/vision statements, 4, 6–7, 13, 43–59, 228, 233–34 co-creating of, 32, 46–47, 59 elevator test, 55–56 envisioning process, 51–55 fresh perspective, 57 good soup metaphor, 44–45 mission and vision statement compared, 59 process, 45, 56–58 purpose, 43 Saul Carliner and, 47–51 Visual language, 52 Volunteer organizations, 32–33, 47–51 W.L. Gore Associates, Inc., 65 Walker, Gale, 209–10 Wall Street Journal, 29 Watson, Tony, 229–36 Web-enabled technology, 18 Well-roundedness, 187–88 We mentality, 74, 98, 101, 183 Western Behavioral Sciences Institute, 15–16 Whitman, Walt, 99 Wholeness, 173–74 Worry, 2, 3, 6 Worst case scenario tool, 131 Ybarra, Richard, 208–10 Yoga, 224 Zielinski, Jerry, 114–16

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Lisa Gundry, Ph.D. Lisa Gundry, Professor of Management in the Charles H. Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at DePaul University, teaches courses in Creativity in Business and EntrepreneurshipNew Venture Management <www.depaul.edu/~Lgundry>. She is the director and founder of the Leo V. Ryan Center for Creativity and Innovation at DePaul, dedicated to handson learning for creative discovery and business innovation. Dr. Gundry was awarded the Innovation in Business Education Award in 1997, and in 1994, she received the Excellence in Teaching Award at DePaul University. She has written two other books, BluePrints for Innovation, coauthored with Charles W. Prather, and Field Casework: Methods for Consulting to Small and Start-Up Businesses, coauthored with Aaron Buchko. She is co-creator of a team collaborating program offered at DePaul University’s Management Development Center. The program provides business associates a certificate in

263

264

About the Authors

Creative Collaboration—a comprehensive set of experiences dedicated to unlocking the collective wisdom in teams. She has also published numerous journal articles, chapters in books, and has been interviewed in many media publications, such as The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Entrepreneurial Woman, and Crain’s Chicago Business. She consults with organizations on issues such as creative problem solving, innovation, and small business development. She holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University. She lives outside Chicago and credits her most creative moments to the inspiration she gets from her family.

Laurie LaMantia, MBA, MS Laurie LaMantia, owner of Athena & Associates, cofounded and directed IdeaVerse, an award-winning venture at Lucent Technologies dedicated to nurturing an environment for creativity and innovation. Laurie spent more than seven years of her 14-year career with AT&T/Lucent immersed in the field of creativity and innovation teaching, consulting, and developing programs to ignite the power within people and organizations. The most popular offerings of IdeaVerse were the team offerings. Working with almost 100 teams, helping them with issues ranging from reinventing themselves to creating a collective vision has given her a significant understanding of what goes into fostering a collaborative team. Prior to IdeaVerse, Laurie initiated and worked in the entrepreneurial new ventures organization within AT&T. This organization was dedicated to nurturing fledgling internal venture teams in preparation for spin-off.

About the Authors

265

She is the co-creator of a certificate program, Creative Collaboration, a comprehensive set of experiences dedicated to unlocking the collective wisdom in teams, offered at DePaul University in Chicago. Laurie holds an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, a Masters in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a Bachelor in Electronic Engineering from DeVry Institute of Technology. Laurie is currently an instructor for DePaul University and a corporate consultant. She lives in Lombard, Illinois, with her wonderful husband Marc, and their feisty pair of Pomeranians, Buttercup and Cosmo. For more collaborative resources, visit us at <www.creativecollaborationcentral.com>.

Breakthrough Teams for Breakneck Times: Unlocking the Genius of Creative Collaboration

Creative Collaboration

Creative Collaboration

Breakneck

Breakneck

Breakneck

Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius

Sound FX: Unlocking the Creative Potential of Recording Studio Effects

Sound FX: Unlocking the Creative Potential of Recording Studio Effects

Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration (Businessweek Books)

Unlocking Assessment (The Unlocking Series)

The Discipline of Teams

Anointing For Breakthrough

Moriarty- The Life and Times of a Criminal Genius

Breakthrough

Breakthrough

Breakthrough

Breakthrough

Breakthrough

Breakthrough

The Breakthrough

Knowledge at Work: Creative Collaboration in the Global Economy

Breakthrough

Mechatronics for the Evil Genius

Collaboration

Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds

Unlocking The Secrets Of Communicat

Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds

The Genius of China

The Creative Life: 7 Keys to Your Inner Genius

The Alpha Masters: Unlocking the Genius of the World's Top Hedge Funds

Breakthrough Teams for Breakneck Times: Unlocking the Genius of Creative Collaboration

Creative Collaboration

Creative Collaboration

Breakneck

Breakneck

Breakneck

Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius

Sound FX: Unlocking the Creative Potential of Recording Studio Effects

Sound FX: Unlocking the Creative Potential of Recording Studio Effects

Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration (Businessweek Books)

Unlocking Assessment (The Unlocking Series)

The Discipline of Teams

Anointing For Breakthrough

Moriarty- The Life and Times of a Criminal Genius

Breakthrough

Breakthrough

Breakthrough

Breakthrough

Breakthrough

Breakthrough

The Breakthrough

Knowledge at Work: Creative Collaboration in the Global Economy

Breakthrough

Mechatronics for the Evil Genius

Collaboration

Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds

Unlocking The Secrets Of Communicat

Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds

The Genius of China

The Creative Life: 7 Keys to Your Inner Genius

The Alpha Masters: Unlocking the Genius of the World's Top Hedge Funds

Recommend Documents