Teams do not come together by themselves. They are developed purposefully and with intention.
To build, motivate, and engage your team members will require that they be as passionate about achieving an objective as you are. Of course, that means you must have a high degree of energy and commitment around what you're trying to accomplish. Your leadership comes not from telling others what to do but from showing them why what they're doing is important to the entire organization. Furthermore, before they agree to follow your lead, they must first place their trust in you.
As the leader, you will need to follow closely the four principles of values-based leadership. Self-reflection will keep you on track with what your team needs to accomplish and how successfully you are engaging and motivating others. With balance, you are genuinely interested in other people's input and feedback as you make the final decision. In fact, you may discover that their recommendations are better than your initial approach. You want them to challenge you and each other as they explore how best to accomplish the team's objectives. True self-confidence affirms that you do not need to be right; rather, you are committed to doing the right thing as you work with a team of bright and talented individuals. And genuine humility reminds you of who you are and where you've been. You haven't forgotten what it's like to be a junior member of a team. At the same time, you also recognize that no matter what someone's title may be, you are neither inferior nor superior to that person. You're all on one team.
In the real world, however, time pressures and unexpected developments can upset the balance of the team. Here's a situation I faced as the controller of one of Baxter's businesses. Given a decline in our sales and pricing pressure on our profit margins, we faced a significant reduction in the division's operating earnings. In order to improve our financial performance, we needed to offset the drop in operating profitability by reducing our total expenses by 10 percent.
As the division vice president of finance, I could have met with the division president and asked, “So, what are we going to do?” Then he and I would have sat down together to figure out how and where the different departments—manufacturing, sales, R&D, and so forth—would have to make cuts. As a values-based leader, however, I knew that telling the team what they needed to do to address an issue would not be as effective as engaging and motivating them to come up with a solution. Therefore, I saw it as my responsibility to call a meeting of the senior department heads within the division. Our task was to come up with a plan for attacking this issue. Then, instead of presenting the problem to the division president with the expectation that he would solve it, we would be proactive and empowered to come up with a plan of our own that was acceptable to all involved.
Our first meeting involved senior team leaders within the division, who for the sake of this example I'll call Fred in manufacturing, Mary in marketing, Joe in R&D, Tim in sales, and Donna in supply chain. I explained that our objective was to put together a recommendation of how and where to cut expenses by 10 percent. Given the urgency of the situation, I requested that we come up with a plan to present to the division president within the next two weeks.
Keep in mind that when we met in a conference room to hash out the details, I was among my peers. Like me, they were all senior leaders in the division, and all of us reported to the division president. Therefore, the challenge for me was to influence and motivate others who did not report to me. It would not be easy, but it was possible. As I'll explain later in the chapter, I needed to use my skills as a values-based leader to influence the team and motivate others to come up with a cohesive and workable solution for the good of the entire division.
Project managers and leaders of initiatives face this type of problem every day: how to get a talented group of individuals to come together to accomplish a common goal or task. Even when people do report to you, it is not always easy to keep them motivated to perform at a high level. Furthermore, you will face many situations where people do not report to you, yet you are responsible for accomplishing a project that requires a considerable contribution from each of them. This challenge is compounded by the fact that most people typically have three or four other major assignments at any given time. The question then becomes, why should they help you? The answer lies in your ability to relate to people so that you can motivate them to contribute at a higher level than they normally would.
The thinking among many people, particularly those who start out as single contributors, is often, “It would be so much simpler just to tell them what needs to be done and give them a deadline.” These people say to themselves, “As soon as I have some direct reports, I'll be able to assign them specific tasks. Then my life will be easier.” This is a fantasy far from reality. Leadership isn't about doling out responsibilities that you can check off your to-do list. Leadership is about forming teams that are motivated and engaged to do the right thing and to make the right decisions for the good of the company.