teams

5 Tips for Team Goals

March 8, 2011 By Tammy Leave a Comment

Today’s Teamwork Explorer Tip is the King of Spades, Be Clear about the Goal. (Need to know more about our approach to teamwork?) See our Teamwork Explorer blog post.)

Be Clear about the Goal

The idea of goal setting is not new, but what is challenging on teams (and generally in organizations) is getting everyone aligned and working towards the same goal. In Built to Last Collins and Porras described the importance of having visonary and emotionally compelling goals, or big hairy, audacious goals (BHAGs). As they suggest a BHAG is “clear and compelling, serves as a unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a clear catalyst for team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines.” In our experience, here are a few tips for identifying your team’s BHAGs:

An obvious tip … but ensure your team goal is aligned to the overall goals of the organization. If that connection isn’t clear you are on shaky ground.
Identify the common values of your team members. Goals need to be aligned with common values or you definitely won’t get people buying in. For example, if team members value social causes and your team’s big goal is to increase sales revenue you likely won’t get everyone on board. When you identify and discuss values, ensure you also talk about the beliefs and behaviors behind your value. For example, I value freedom because I believe that freedom contributes to my creativity and keeps me energized. That’s why I have chosen to remain an independent consultant for many years as the freedom to choose projects and organizations keeps me interested, engaged and continually learning. I have turned down many jobs in order to live my value of freedom.
Find goals that tap into the passion of your team members. Start goal setting with a brainstorming starter like “What if we could …” Ensure that you suspend the “we can’t do that because …” critical analysis until you’ve had a good shot at the brainstorming!
Ask yourselves how you will know if you are making progress toward goals and then build in celebrations when you reach them.
At the end of meetings, ask yourselves how the meeting helped to move you closer to your goals. If it didn’t, you need to change your meetings and/or revisit your goals.

King of Spades – Be Clear about the Goal

Amazing results are achieved when team members pull together toward a common goal. Revisit the goal often to make sure everyone understands what the team is trying to accomplish. It’s best to bring hidden agendas out on the table rather than keeping them hidden.

Are you clear about the goal on your team? What tips do you have for helping team members stay focused?

Curious about the rest of the tips and want to know all about them now? Then download the free Teamwork Explorer iPhone app now! More interested in the actual paper based set of cards? Visit our store!

Filed Under: Leadership, teams, Uncategorized Tagged With: goals, Leadership, teams, teamwork

Team Trust Builder #1

March 1, 2011 By Tammy Leave a Comment

Today’s Teamwork Explorer Tip is the King of Hearts, Fess Up!. (Need to know more about our approach to teamwork?) See our Teamwork Explorer blog post.)

Fess Up!

This week’s blog post follows very closely from the last two … as humans we make mistakes. The biggest trust builder on teams in our experience is to sincerely fess up! While we think that fessing up should be practiced by every team member as a matter of good practice, much has been written recently about the importance of public apologies from leaders … for a great blog post check out Barbara Kellerman’s When Should a Leader Apologize?

King of Hearts – Fess up!

Everyone makes mistakes. The biggest trust buster on teams is people making mistakes and not fessing up, but looking for something or someone else to blame. Help each other be accountable and create a team environment that encourages people to learn from mistakes. Fess up in a timely manner to head off any built up resentments over time.

What’s your team environment like? Do people fess up? Has fessing up been a trust builder for your team?

Filed Under: Leadership, teams Tagged With: communication, Leadership, teams

Team Trust Buster #1

February 22, 2011 By Tammy Leave a Comment

Today’s Teamwork Explorer Tip is the Ace of Clubs, Deciding how to Make Decisions. (Need to know more about our approach to teamwork?) See our Teamwork Explorer blog post.)

Deciding How to Make Decisions

Many researchers have identified trust as the number 1 enabler on a team. In our work as team coaches, we encounter lots of examples of trust busters and today’s tip comes from the club, or decision making, cards. Nothing causes more angst on a team than when a team leader changes decision making styles. I was interviewing a team member and asked her to describe the decision making on the team. She said that for the most part it was consultative but that occasionally the team leader would make an autocratic decision. The latest had been related to her budget … she came to a team meeting and was told her budget was being cut … there was no opportunity to discuss it or provide input, just live with it. She said it was jarring and had broken trust with her. To our tip below, we would also add “Leaders need to communicate clearly to their team members the decision making styles they will employ, when and why.”

Ace of Clubs – Deciding how to Make Decisions

One of the most important things a team leader does is decide how best to make any particular decision. The Club Cards in this deck outline numerous decision making strategies, but knowing which card to play in any particular context is the real key to successful decision making on teams. Leaders should pay particular attention to the number of people involved and the magnitude of the impact of the decision when selecting a decision making strategy.

What’s your experience with decision making on a team?

Filed Under: Leadership, teams Tagged With: decisions, Leadership, teams

#1 Team Communication Tip

February 15, 2011 By Tammy Leave a Comment

Today’s Teamwork Explorer Tip is the Ace of Diamonds, Impact/Intention. (Need to know more about our approach to teamwork?) See our Teamwork Explorer blog post.)

Impact/Intention

One of the best books we’ve read on enhancing communication is Douglas Stone et al’s Difficult Conversations. This book is a goldmine of practical advice and we have summarized a couple of their main ideas for our Ace of Diamonds (communication) card. As we tell our coaching clients, the concept is simple in concept but amazingly difficult to live. We judge ourselves by our intentions and judge others by the impact they have on us. This applies to disagreements about why your spouse didn’t get the groceries to deeply held hurt and pain about organizational life.

I was working with a team just recently that exemplifies this last point. The organization was under financial and time pressure to make some changes and the leader of the team needed to act quickly. He had the best intentions of his team members in mind but, for a plethora of reasons, the impact of his decision had disastrous effects. His team members assumed he had deliberately set out to hurt them. The hurt feelings went underground and by the time I came to work with the team all sense of trust had broken down. Had any of them been able to follow the tips listed below, they may not have lost a lot of valuable time and saved themselves huge pain and frustration. His team members needed to suspend their judgment and talk to him about his intentions and he, in turn, needed to be more attuned to the emotional impact of his decision, and acknowledge that he may not have handled the situation in the best way.

Ace of Diamonds – Impact/Intention (Douglas Stone)

We judge ourselves by our intentions. We judge others by their impact on us.

Our assumptions about intentions are often inaccurate

Solution: Disentangle impact/intention
Hold your view as a hypothesis
Inquire about their intentions

Good intentions don’t sanitize bad impact

Solution: Listen for feelings
Be open to the complexity of your intentions

What other tips do you have for improving communication on a team?

Filed Under: Leadership, teams Tagged With: communication, Leadership, teams

Embracing Team Accountability

February 8, 2011 By Tammy Leave a Comment

Today’s Teamwork Explorer Tip is the Ace of Spaces, Accountability. (Need to know more about our approach to teamwork?) See our Teamwork Explorer blog post.)

Accountability

Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team has greatly influenced the work we do on teams. His 4th dysfunction, avoidance of accountability, is the focus of this blog’s team tip, accountability. It’s no surprise that this tip falls into the category of our spades, or task cards, as indeed work needs to get done on teams! As Lencioni suggests, “While a sense of accountability should pervade virtually every aspect of organizational life at a great company, the place where it must be demonstrated and addressed most clearly is meetings.” We agree and we like Lencioni’s idea of a scoreboard which helps the team keep track of things.

Ace of Spades – Accountability

Knowing who is responsible for what is vital to a team’s success. It’s very easy for these accountabilities to be too vague, especially when there are changes in team membership. Who is responsible for what is the most important thing to have documented at the end of any team meeting.

What other tips do you have for embracing accountability on a team?

Filed Under: Leadership, teams Tagged With: accountability, Leadership, teams

The Heart of Teams

February 1, 2011 By Tammy Leave a Comment

Today’s Teamwork Explorer Tip is the Ace of Hearts, Develop a Shared Vision. (Need to know more about our approach to teamwork? See our Teamwork Explorer blog post.)

Develop a Shared Vision

I just spent the last week interviewing members of an executive team in preparation for some teamwork we will be doing with them. I was struck by their commitment to the work of the organization, but when I asked them to describe the culture of the team, I got things like collegial, professional, committed, predictable, cordial, conservative and well scripted. Reflecting upon the teams I am a part of, I was thinking … but what about the heart of your team? What are people passionate about, what gives them meaning and purpose? I contrasted that with a podcast I was listening to by Chester Elton of Orange Revolution whose extensive research uncovered that great teams have a noble cause beyond just getting the job done, whatever job that might be. And that to me is the very essence and heart of a team … what noble cause or vision are they committed to?

So, thanks to Chester, I would change point #5 below to read “What noble cause would we commit ourselves to?”

Ace of Hearts – Develop a Shared Vision

There is no one right way to develop a shared vision but sometimes approaching it indirectly can be easier for people. Have each member of your team answer the following questions. Once everyone has identified their responses, have a team discussion and see what emerges as a result. This can lead to a vision statement in a more concrete way than just asking people to describe their vision.

Think back to a great team experience.

Describe that experience.
What was it about that experience that was so positive?
How did it differ from other team experiences?
How can this team create that kind of experience?
What would we commit ourselves to?
What values would we demonstrate?

What have been your experiences with teams and developing a shared vision? What are your noble causes?

Filed Under: Leadership, teams Tagged With: Leadership, teams, vision

Teamwork Explorer, an iPhone app for Leaders

January 25, 2011 By Tammy

Teamwork Explorer Version 1.2

Teamwork Explorer Version 1.1

Filed Under: Change, Creativity, Leadership, teams Tagged With: Change, Creativity, Leadership, teams