chapter 10

How do you get everyone going in the same direction?

• Increasing understanding of the team’s common purpose
• Creating shared team ownership of goals
• Getting the team aligned towards a shared outcome

‘Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.’

Joel Barker

Self-assessment

Before reading the chapter, do the following quick self-assessment.

How would you rate the following in your team?

A team thrown together

Exploring the problem

Ted is clearly struggling to see any connection between his new peer and himself.

He understands that the organisational change has thrown them together but he doesn’t understand what makes them a team.

Donald thinks Ted and Trevor are a team because they report into him. This is not enough for Ted who feels more frustrated after their talk.

Feeling superior

Ted feels superior to Trevor and his team. He doesn’t think Trevor represents the same values or holds himself to the same high standards as Ted does. Therefore he worries that being associated with Trevor will negatively impact his image and reputation in the organisation. This makes him less cooperative than he would normally be.

No shared purpose

Ted can’t see what Trevor and he have in common, and therefore he rejects the idea of them being a team. There is no obvious shared purpose for them both, or their teams.

They are not working on the same things and they are not heading in the same direction.

When team members are not aware of a shared purpose, there will be no obvious reason to work together.

Donald needs Ted and Trevor to be a team, for his own practical purposes, but he is unable to give a convincing reason for this, or just hasn’t considered that he needs one.

The reasons for team members not going in the same direction

They don’t know where to go

If there is no common purpose and direction, people will do their own thing, focus on their specific tasks or do very little, as they’ll have no drive to go anywhere beyond just getting the job done.

There is a conflict of roles and responsibilities

If roles and responsibilities have been created more or less in isolation, any connections between the roles are unlikely to have been explored enough. This may, for example, be the case if two teams merge and the lines of responsibility are blurred. This could mean that either too many people are taking responsibility for a task, or no one is, both of which undermine any sense of going in the same direction.

Their goals are not aligned

If there are no team goals, people will only be working on their own individual goals, which may be in conflict with those of their team members. This further feeds the feeling of not going in the same direction and creates a downward spiral into non-collaboration.

They don’t understand their purpose

The purpose is either not known to them, or they don’t feel the emotional bond that’s needed to be able to truly understand it and act on it.

It’s not obvious that they need to go in the same direction

A leader may assume that team members understand they should collaborate towards an outcome, instead of pointing it out explicitly to them. Many leaders leave that assumption at an implicit level, especially if it’s clear to him/herself.

Team purpose and direction is not prioritised

Team purpose and direction is not discussed and hence not prioritised. Focus is given to the short term, the individual tasks in the here and now, rather than the team’s reason to be.

They don’t want to work together

There’s a resistance to collaboration due to personality differences, current conflicts, having worked together before unsuccessfully, not knowing each other, not liking each other, not trusting each other and many other reasons. Previous bad experiences, where people have encountered each other, shape their opinions of each other. This colours their perception into the future, even though the current reality could be very different and the person could be different in this new context.

The resistance can also be a reaction to not feeling involved or having a say in the matter.

The impact of teams not going in the same direction

• It’s demotivating and affects engagement levels. Team members then need to find other ways to be energised, which may turn them away from their work, and lead them to be distracted and to lose focus.
• It can create work/responsibility overlaps, extra work, duplication of work and inefficiencies. Unclear responsibilities mean that too much or too little is done.
• Team members may start making up their own purposes, which can be in conflict with those of other team members, driving them even further apart. People end up doing their own thing, being more influenced by self-interest than what’s best for the company. They work in isolation, focused on their own needs. The effect is they are not looking out for each other within the team or supporting each other outside of the team. This can be seen as disloyalty.

The impact on the business, customers, employees and stakeholders

When employees are not aligned and not going in the same direction, the rework and low engagement and even employee turnover becomes costly to the organisation. Duplication of work and effort has a high impact on the bottom line too.

This example highlights two key issues. The team members are working in isolation, not knowing what the others are doing. They are also lacking a sense of shared direction and responsibility and therefore not taking a real interest in what is going on in the call.

When goals are not clearly connected, the leader will need to get involved, especially if goals are counterproductive to each other. This would not have been necessary if people within the team had been aware of their shared purpose and taken shared responsibility. It’s a waste of the leader’s time and it undermines the team’s self-esteem.

Let’s look at another example.

As this example shows, people respond to purposes. If employees can’t see how they are contributing to something bigger than the task at hand, the job is often not as engaging and motivating as it could have been had the purpose been understood and bought into.

Solutions

Dr Martin Luther King famously said, ‘I have a dream …’. He didn’t say, ‘I have a strategic plan …’. Joking aside, he had a dream, a vision of a better future (he possibly had a strategic plan as well, but that wasn’t part of the communication message that became so famous). These two things are very different in nature and are appropriate and effective at different stages of progression. It’s rare for people to get passionate about strategic plans, that’s not their purpose, but dreams and visions can be compelling and engaging. Good visions have a few components in common. They are inspirational, they paint a believable and appealing picture of the future which people can feel, they engage both hearts and minds. Great visions help you experience what it will be like to get there; how it will feel, what it will look and sound like. They make people passionate and lead to actions that are practical.

It’s the leader’s role to rally people behind the compelling reason to be, the purpose, in order to achieve or at least aspire towards the vision. The vision gives meaning and purpose to what a team does.

To get the full power of a vision, you need awareness of the current reality too. If the vision is strong enough, it makes the team take the necessary actions to lead them there. The pull of the vision, when appealing enough, draws the team towards it. The natural tension between where you are as a team and where you want to go, is resolved.

This then helps in the creation of the strategic plan to move in the direction of the vision.

Research into human motivation, shows that purpose is one of the strongest factors for intrinsic motivation.⁶ Purpose answers the question ‘why’ and gives meaning to what we do.

By getting your team to march in the same direction, you overcome the challenge of a disparate team.

Let’s get specific on how to do it.

Solution 1: Create a vision

If there is no vision in place, you may want to create one. It’s not an absolute must for a team to have their own vision (the vision of the organisation can be enough). However, if you want to create a team one, here’s some food for thought.

A great vision is aspirational; you don’t necessarily need to achieve it, but you need to continue to experience its pull. You might even argue that you don’t want to achieve a vision, because then you would need to create a new one. Regardless, a vision is something that inspires you and moves you forward.

Here’s a vision creation exercise to help you:

Here are some examples of potential team visions:

• To become the best service team in the industry
• To be the team where everyone wants to work
• To be the team that fully supports the organisation by helping each and every customer.

Solution 2: Identify the common purpose together

Closely linked to the vision is a team’s purpose. A team’s purpose is the reason to be, what they are here to do. Involve your team in identifying or clarifying the common purpose that you share. All teams have some shared purpose, the reason to be, that all team members need to both understand and buy into. By involving the team, rather than just telling them what it is, everyone becomes an owner of the purpose. The process can be fast-forwarded by having input from the team on what they think the purpose is through a climate study. A climate study is a simple process, that can look like this:

• Step 1: You interview each person.
• Step 2: You gather all of the interview notes and everyone’s individual thoughts on the team and the purpose.
• Step 3: At the meeting you discuss the purpose and the outcomes of the Team Climate Study. As they already have a lot of input from the study, it helps them hit the ground running.

Solution 3: Make the purpose grounded

The purpose needs to be clear to all, actionable and tangible. It needs to be something that can be achieved. Making the purpose grounded is about creating the team map, explaining that ‘because we do this, we are able to achieve what we are here to do, and we contribute directly to the vision and purpose of the organisation as a whole’. The team map makes the links for everyone and is a way of creating an overview for the team.

Solution 4: Clarify roles and responsibilities

Having clear roles and responsibilities for all team members makes the purpose even easier to take personal responsibility for. Here’s an exercise you can do to make everyone aware of your individual responsibilities in the team:

Solution 5: Create shared team responsibility

Individual responsibility is key, but so is shared responsibility. Discuss as a team what your shared responsibilities are – ultimately it’s fulfilling your purpose. Each person needs to understand that he/she is responsible for the overall results of the team, not just their individual goals. One way of doing this is to make sure that all goals are aligned in some way, so that it’s not even possible for someone to go for individual success without considering the rest of the team.

Solution 6: Create a link

Even if there is a tenuous link between what team members do, like in the story of Ted and Trevor, you can create that link and make it stronger. You can actively look for what people have in common through their contribution to the organisation and the benefits they can have from being a team, thereby giving them a shared purpose.

Solution 7: Use a crisis to show you the way

During a crisis, team members are forced to work together to solve the issue. If your team experiences a crisis (e.g. a system breakdown, bad press, big customer issue), then use the learning that crisis gives. Look at how you did it, what worked and what didn’t. Identify how you need to work together, how you can be better aligned for successful results. Don’t wait for another crisis to work together – work together like that every day.

Solution 8: Give strengths-based feedback

Be observant and recognise how each person contributes to the team’s work. Look for strengths in others and give them that feedback. Strengths-based feedback is when you share a specific observation you have made when a person’s strength was used AND clearly contributed to fulfilling the team’s purpose. The more information you can give, the more helpful it will be. It could sound something like this:

  ‘I have noticed several times that you are very good at piecing information together, making sense of seemingly disparate bits of data. And the way you did it today was particularly good. In our meeting, you proactively offered to share what you saw and were able to explain it in such a way that we could all see it too. As a result, we quickly got a shared view of a new perspective on how to solve the issue with the new customer requirements. It was great – please keep doing it!’

Telling people about their strengths, rather than telling them what they have done wrong, reinforces those strengths and helps them to use the strengths more. When hearing about their strengths, people connect with them as part of their own purpose which can then connect to the team purpose too.

Solution 9: Create a team charter

A team charter is a document that describes the purpose, framework and agreements of the team – many of the solutions listed above. The team creates it themselves, hence making it a powerful and a visual shared commitment. It typically at least includes:

• Purpose and clear links to organisation’s vision and purpose
• Expectations and goals
• Roles and responsibilities
• Skills and expertise needed (to fulfil purpose)
• Resources needed (to fulfil purpose)
• Operating guidelines: behaviours and how the team will work together (to fulfil purpose)
• Signed agreement.

Let’s have a look at what Ted and Donald could have done instead, had they deployed these solutions.

Behaviours of team and leader

Under ‘Solutions’ above, we have listed a number of ‘how to’ actions. These solutions work best when carried out with these supporting ‘how to’ behaviours. The actions on their own, will get you only so far.

Thoughts and feelings of team and leader

On average, a person experiences around 70.000 thoughts per day.¹ Many of those thoughts are habits that affect a person’s mindset or outlook.

When wanting a team to go in the same direction, together, actively replace thoughts and feelings that are counterproductive to that. Here are thoughts from the story, their impact on feelings and how they can be changed.

Summary

Reason to be

For a team to walk in the same direction, they need to know where they are going or contributing to (vision) and why (purpose). This kind of clarity provides the framework and ‘reason to be’ that can really rally a team to work together towards goals that fulfil their purpose.

Remember that visions need to be compelling and purposes meaningful. People respond to the importance in both of these and the sense of making a difference to someone or something. A great example of this is the janitor at NASA who expressed that his job was to put people in space. He was able to see how important his job was in contributing to something that he thought was important and he could rally behind.

Time to focus on purpose

Time needs to be spent on this as early as possible in a team’s existence. It also needs to be reviewed and recommitted to at regular intervals, when goals are set or adjusted, and when new team members join. A clear vision and joint purpose also provides a great framework for new employees, which can enable them to more quickly see the meaning in their job and how they can contribute.

Reflection questions for the reader

• Would my team benefit from having a specific team vision?
• Do we all know what our team’s purpose is?
• How do we need to work to best achieve our purpose?
• What crisis have we been through that we could learn from?
• How clear are the shared team responsibilities?

Self-assessment

After you have implemented the solutions in this chapter, answer these questions again to see the progress you have made.

How would you rate the following in your team?