11
Team Leadership

 

Don Carew, Eunice Parisi-Carew, Lael Good, and Ken Blanchard

Teams have become a major strategy for getting work done. We live in teams. Our organizations are made up of teams. We move from one team to another without giving it a thought. The percentage of time we spend in team settings—project teams, work groups, cross-functional teams, virtual teams, and management teams—is ever-increasing.

In our latest Blanchard research involving 1,300 people—in partnership with Training magazine in 2017¹—we learned that people spend more than half their work time in teams, and the more senior the respondent in terms of organizational level, the more that time increases.

Yet only 27 percent of the respondents felt that their teams were high performing. And these views on performance differ within age groups. The most important takeaway from these findings, however, is that regardless of age, people did not perceive the majority of their teams as high performing.

What is happening in today’s teams that is contributing to this performance gap?

When asked about the areas that have the greatest impact on improved team performance, the following were identified:

• Establishing team purpose, goals, and expectations from the start

• Regular communication regarding team progress and achievement

• Regular feedback discussions

• Recognizing and celebrating team achievements

The most important skill for a team leader at the team’s beginning is to ensure that the team has a clear purpose, as well as clear goals, roles, strategies, and expectations.

Our research confirms that being effective in today’s organizations is a team game, and without the right team leadership approach, a team is unlikely to be successful.

• Changes in the overall technology landscape

• Changes in the way we work

• Changes in the way we manage organizations

Teams are at the heart of these changes. The article reinforces our findings that leading with teams is the best approach in today’s business environment. Bersin points out that “companies are increasingly operating as networks of teams” and that “team-centric tools, platforms, coaching, analytics, monitoring, and assessment tools are red hot—because they are needed.”

The days of top-down management are over. “As companies replace hierarchical management with a networked team structure, we are going to be using new tools purpose-built for teams,” Bersin notes. “Companies want management tools that help enable and empower teams, drive team-centric engagement and performance, and support agile, network-focused HR practices.”²

Teams have the power to increase productivity and morale—or destroy it. Working effectively, a team can make better decisions, solve more complex problems, and do more to enhance creativity and build skills than individuals working alone. The team is the only unit that has the flexibility and resources to respond quickly to changes that have become commonplace in today’s world.

People no longer have the luxury of going it alone. Technology change is occurring so quickly that it is impossible for one person to be able to accomplish goals on his or her own.

At the same time, the business environment itself has become increasingly competitive, and the issues it faces are increasingly complex. This challenging environment has caused organizations to realize that they can no longer depend on hierarchical structures and a few peak performers to maintain a competitive advantage.

The demand is for collaboration and teamwork in all parts of the organization. Success today comes from using the collective knowledge and richness of diverse perspectives. There is a conscious movement toward teams as the strategic vehicle for getting work accomplished and moving organizations into the future.

Fast-paced, agile work environments require teams to operate virtually around the world. These geographically dispersed teams face special challenges in building trust, developing effective communication, and managing attentiveness.³ However, with the proper leadership and technology, virtual teams are every bit as productive and rewarding as face-to-face teams.

Teams are not just nice to have. They are hard-core units of production.

It’s a fact that people’s health and well-being are directly affected by the amount of involvement they have in the workplace. Twelve thousand male Swedish workers were studied over a 14-year period. Workers who felt isolated and had little influence over their jobs were 162 percent more likely to have a fatal heart attack than were those who had greater influence in decisions at work and who worked in teams.⁴ Data like this—combined with the fact that teams can be far more productive than individuals functioning alone—provides a compelling argument for creating high-involvement workplaces and using teams as the central vehicle for getting work done.

Teams are not able to achieve high performance for many reasons, from lack of a clear purpose to lack of training. These obstacles keep a team from reaching its potential.

Our survey of 1,300 respondents found that the top obstacles to team performance were these:

• Lack of accountability

• Unclear decision making

• Poor leadership

followed by these:

• Poor or no planning

• Disorganization or unclear roles

• Lack of clear purpose or goals

An awareness of the obstacles to optimal team performance can prepare team leaders and members to proactively address these issues.

In our team leadership approach, it is important to first understand the characteristics that make a high performance team. Knowing what a high performance team looks like will provide a benchmark for team success.

Next, leaders need to identify the team’s stage of development, ensure that the team gets off to a good start by creating a team charter, and then provide a set of leadership behaviors that will keep the team moving through the stages of development to ultimately reach and sustain high performance.

This approach to team leadership can be adapted to any team, regardless of its purpose, pursuit, type, or size.

Some teams achieve outstanding results no matter how difficult the objective. They are at the top of their class. What makes these teams different? What sets them apart and makes them capable of outperforming their peers? Although each team is unique, each has characteristics that are shared by all outstanding teams regardless of their purpose or goals.

Building highly effective teams, like building a great organization, begins with a picture of what you are aiming for—a target. It is imperative to know what a high performance team looks like. That is why the journey to high performance begins with understanding the characteristics that make up a high performance team (see Figure 11.1).

These characteristics represent the gold standard for teams committed to excellence. By benchmarking your team in each of these areas, you can identify where you need to focus team development.

As you read from the bottom to the top about the characteristics of high performance teams, it’s probably no surprise that teams like these are effective.

For example, Ken was invited to a Boston Celtics practice during the heyday of Larry Bird, Robert Parish, and Kevin McHale. Standing on the sidelines with Coach KC Jones, Ken asked, “How do you lead a group of superstars like this?” KC smiled and said, “I throw the ball out and every once in a while, shout ‘Shoot!’” In observing Jones as a leader, Ken noticed he didn’t follow any of the stereotypes of a strong leader. During time-outs, the players talked more than KC did. He didn’t run up and down the sidelines yelling things at the players during the game; most of the coaching was done by the team members. They encouraged, supported, and directed each other.

This team exhibited the characteristics of a high performance team. They were aligned for results, knew how to perform under pressure, had built team cohesion, and had reached a level of sustained high performance that did not rely on the coach for direction to get the job done.

When this low-key leader, KC Jones, retired, all the players essentially said he was the best coach they’d ever had. Why? Because he permitted everyone to lead, and that’s what a team is all about.

Don Carew observed an extraordinary example of team leadership while working with Caterpillar’s Track Type Tractors (TTT) division in Illinois.⁵ The TTT division was in deep trouble. The lowest-performing division of the company, it was losing millions of dollars a year and had been involved in a bitter strike. The Blanchard team worked with TTT to implement a new set of values and behaviors based on trust, mutual respect, teamwork, empowerment, risk taking, and a sense of urgency. In less than three years, the company realized a $250 million turnaround. Quality as measured by customers improved by 16 times. Employee satisfaction moved from being the lowest in Caterpillar to being the highest. All of this was achieved by people at all levels working together in teams and by the organization creating the conditions that supported teamwork, mutual respect, and trust.

Knowing the characteristics and needs of a high performance team is critical. It gives you a target to shoot for. Obviously, teams don’t start with all the characteristics of a high performance team in place. All teams are unique and complex living systems. The whole of a team is different from the sum of its members.

Research over the past seventy years has consistently demonstrated that, regardless of their purpose, teams, like individuals, go through a series of developmental stages as they grow.

All these comprehensive research efforts were surprisingly consistent in their conclusions.⁶ They all identified either four or five stages of development and were very similar in their descriptions of the characteristics of each stage. After a comprehensive review of more than 200 studies on group development, Roy Lacoursiere identified five stages of team development:

1. Orientation

2. Dissatisfaction

3. Integration

4. Production

5. Termination

We will focus in detail on the first four team development stages (see Figure 11.2), and will discuss the Termination stage later in the chapter. Understanding these development stages and a team’s characteristics and needs at each stage is essential for team leaders and team members if they are to be effective in building successful, productive teams.

That’s what diagnosing is all about. The ability to determine a team’s stage of development and assess its needs requires stepping back and looking at the team as a whole, rather than focusing on individual behaviors and needs.

Productivity is the amount and quality of the work accomplished in relation to the team’s purpose and goals. Productivity is dependent on team members’ ability to collaborate, their knowledge and skills, clear goals, and access to needed resources. Morale is the sense of pride and satisfaction that comes from belonging to the team and accomplishing its work.

Productivity often starts out low. When a group first comes together, its members can’t accomplish very much. Often, they don’t even know each other. Over time, as they learn to work together, their performance should gradually increase. If that is not the case, something is seriously wrong. Either they have a leadership problem, or the skills necessary to perform well are not present in the group.

Morale, on the other hand, starts out high and takes a sudden dip. People are usually enthusiastic about being on a new team unless they’ve been forced to join. The initial euphoria dissipates quickly when the reality of the difficulty of working on a team comes into play. Now you might hear people say, “Why did I agree to be on that team?” As differences are explored and people begin to break through initial frustrations and working together becomes easier, the team begins to achieve results, and morale begins to rise again. Ultimately, both morale and productivity are high as a group becomes a high performance team.

Why are high morale and high productivity the ultimate goals? High morale with no performance is a party, not a team. On the other hand, a team that is achieving good results yet has low morale will eventually stumble, and its performance will fade. The bottom line is that both productivity and morale are required to produce a high performance team with sustainable results.

Diagnosing the level of productivity and morale is a clear way to determine a team’s development stage and understand team needs at any point in time.

In this stage, team members depend strongly on the leader for purpose and direction. Some testing of boundaries occurs, and the central leader’s behavior is usually tentative and polite. Morale is moderately high and productivity is low during this stage.

Two of us were asked to serve on a project team to study and modify the compensation system for our consulting partners. At the first meeting, we were excited and eager to see who else was a part of the project team. Many complaints about the system had been registered, and we were eager to make positive changes. We were apprehensive about whether “they” would really listen. We also wondered how much time this would take, who would be in charge of the team, and how we would fit in with the other members. We had no idea how to proceed or even what our goals should be. We looked to the team leader to steer us in the right direction. These feelings of excitement, anxiety, and dependence on the leader are normal for team members at Stage 1.

The challenge at the Orientation stage is to get the team off to a good start by identifying a purpose and structure for the team, as well as beginning to build relationships and trust.

The duration of this stage depends on the clarity and difficulty of the team purpose, as well as clarity about how the team will work together. With simple, easily defined goals, the Orientation stage may be relatively short—5 to 10 percent of the team’s life. On the other hand, with complex goals, the team may spend 30 to 60 percent of its time in this stage.

Back to that compensation project team we just mentioned: While we started off with enthusiasm, we quickly realized how much hard work would be involved, the goal’s controversial nature, and the possibility that recommendations we would make might not be accepted. We began to experience some strong negative feelings among members, and subgroups began to form. Frustration with the team leader began to develop. We started to wonder whether this was worth our time. These feelings of questioning, doubt, and frustration are typical of team members during Stage 2.

The challenge in the Dissatisfaction stage is helping the team manage issues of power, control, and conflict and begin to work together effectively.

The amount of time spent in this stage depends on how quickly issues can be resolved. It is possible for the team to get stuck at the Dissatisfaction stage and to continue being both demoralized and relatively unproductive.

Team members learn to appreciate the differences among themselves. Team members begin to see the team as a whole and start thinking in terms of “we” rather than “I.” Although the team understands the importance of addressing and embracing conflict in order to move forward, the newly developed feelings of trust and cohesion are fragile, and team members may tend to avoid conflict for fear of losing the positive climate. This reluctance to deal with conflict can slow progress and lead to less effective decisions.

Back to our project team: As we began resolving the frustrations we experienced in Stage 2, we began listening more carefully and came to appreciate different points of view. We developed some initial strategies for accomplishing our team purpose and clarified our goal and roles. In spite of the difficulty of achieving our goal, working with the team now became more fun. People were getting along, and at every meeting we were more clearly seeing what needed to be done. We even began to see the possibility of some success down the road. These feelings of increasing satisfaction and commitment, and the development of skills and practices to make working together easier, are typical of Stage 3.

Learning to build team cohesion and getting past the tendency to agree in order to avoid conflict are the challenges at the Integration stage.

The Integration stage can be quite short, depending on the ease of resolving feelings of dissatisfaction and integrating new skills. If members prolong conflict avoidance, there is a possibility that the team could return to the Dissatisfaction stage.

Our project team really started to hum, and the completion of the job became a reality in our minds after many meetings and a careful study of alternatives. It finally began to feel as if the effort was worth it, and we were optimistic that the outcomes would be positive for both the company and the consulting partners. We all shared the responsibility for team leadership. We felt this had become a really great team to be on, and we were proud to be part of it. These feelings of accomplishment, pride, confidence, and a sense of unity are typical of teams who have reached Stage 4.

The challenge in the Production stage is sustaining the team’s high performance through new challenges and continued growth. This stage is likely to continue—with moderate fluctuations in feelings of satisfaction—throughout the team’s life.

While the stages of team development are described as separate and distinct, they share considerable overlap. Some elements of each stage can be found in every other stage. However, the team’s dominant characteristics and needs determine its development stage at any given time. A change in these characteristics and needs signals a change in the team’s stage of development.

Why is understanding your team’s stage of development and corresponding needs such an important step in the process? Because it allows team leaders or members to accomplish the next key step: providing leadership behaviors that respond to those needs.

Directing behavior structures and guides team outcomes. Behaviors that provide direction include organizing, structuring, educating, and focusing the team. For example, when you first join the team, you want to know how it will be organized. What do you need to learn to be a good team member? Where will the team focus its efforts? What’s the structure? Does anybody report to anybody? Who does what? When? And how?

Supporting behavior develops mutual trust and respect within the team. Behaviors that provide support include involving, encouraging, listening to, and collaborating with team members. For example, in developing team harmony and cohesion, people want to be involved in decision making, be encouraged to participate, be acknowledged and praised for their efforts, be valued for their differences, and able to share leadership when appropriate.

Without team leadership training, people who are called to lead a team are usually clueless about what to do. They often operate on instinct. For example, suppose an inexperienced team leader thinks that the only way to lead a team is to use a participative leadership style. From Day 1, she asks everybody for suggestions about how the team should operate. The team members think the leader should answer that question. “After all,” they say, “she’s the one who called the meeting.” They begin to question why they joined this team. The leader, getting little response from her team, becomes frustrated and wonders why she agreed to lead the team in the first place. Everyone is confused.

Without understanding the framework of team development stages, it is only by chance that a leader’s behavior matches the team’s needs. The Team Leadership model (see Figure 11.3) creates a framework for matching each stage of team development with appropriate leadership behaviors.

For team leaders and members to determine the appropriate leadership style, first diagnose the team’s stage of development in relation to its purpose, considering both productivity and morale. Then locate the team’s present stage of development on the continuum and follow a vertical line up to the curve on the leadership style quadrant in the model. The point of intersection indicates the appropriate leadership style for the team.

Intervening with the appropriate leadership style that is responsive to the needs of the team at each stage of development will help the team progress to and sustain high performance. Matching leadership style to the stage of team development, similar to one-on-one leadership, works best when the team leader(s) and team members all know and agree on the team’s purpose and are doing the diagnosis together.

As we mentioned earlier, at the beginning of any team, most people are eager to be there, and they have high expectations. Morale is high, but productivity is low due to a lack of knowledge about the team purpose and each other. The team is dependent on authority. Team members need some support, but this need is much less than their need for goal- and purpose-oriented directive behavior. They need to clearly understand what kind of participation is expected from them. Leaders need to get the team off to a good start by providing structure while building relationships and trust. Team leaders should assess training and resource needs and orient team members to one another.

To create a solid foundation for the team’s work, it’s important that the team leader and members work together to complete a team charter at this early point in the team’s life cycle. A charter is a set of agreements that clearly states what the team is to accomplish, why it is important, and how the team will work together to achieve results. The charter aligns the team for results, but it is also a dynamic document that can be modified as team needs change.

The team charter agreements directly link the team’s purpose to the organizational vision and purpose. Team values and norms should reflect the organization’s values, as well as provide guidelines for appropriate behavior within the team. Identifying team initiatives sets the foundation for determining goals and roles. This is when the team establishes strategies for communication, decision making, and accountability. Once completed, the charter provides a touchstone for making sure the team is on track. The team is now ready to move from planning to doing, and it will keep the charter visible and available to navigate the stages ahead.

At this point the team could be experiencing confusion and frustration and needs to learn how to manage conflict and work together more effectively. Now is when the leader should reconfirm or clarify the team’s purpose, goals, roles, and norms; develop team skills necessary for the team to perform under pressure; address difficult issues; and recognize helpful behaviors and small accomplishments.

The Dissatisfaction stage is characterized by a gradual increase in performance and a decrease in morale. Anger, frustration, confusion, and discouragement can arise due to the discrepancy between initial expectations and reality.

The Dissatisfaction stage calls for continued high direction and an increase in support. Team members need encouragement and reassurance as well as skill development and strategies for working together and toward goal achievement. At this stage, it is important to clarify the big picture and reconfirm the team’s purpose and goals. It is also important to give the team more input into decision making. Recognizing team members’ accomplishments and giving feedback on progress reassures people, encourages progress, and boosts morale. Help team members adopt a learning attitude where there are no failures—only learning opportunities. This is a critical time to encourage active and open listening and reaffirm that the team values differences of opinion and invites self-expression. It is also helpful at this stage to have open and honest discussions about issues such as emotional blocks and coalitions and to resolve any personality conflicts.

The team, now working together more effectively but cautiously, must learn to work collaboratively and hold each other accountable.

Goals and strategies are becoming clearer or have been redefined. Negative feelings are being resolved. Confidence, cohesion, and trust are increasing but are potentially still fragile. The team must build a trust-based environment. Trust is built by sharing information, ideas, and skills. Building trust requires that team members cooperate rather than compete, judge, or blame. Trust is also built when team members follow through on their commitments. It is critical that team members communicate openly and honestly and demonstrate respect for others. Team members are more willing and able to assume leadership functions.

Support and collaboration are needed in the Integration stage to help team members develop confidence in their ability to work together. The team needs less direction around the goal and more support focused on building confidence, trust, cohesion, involvement, and shared leadership. This is a time to encourage people to voice different perspectives, show appreciation for each other’s contributions, share responsibility for leadership, and examine team functioning. Now the focus should be on increasing productivity and developing problem-solving and decision-making skills.

Now operating with high productivity and high morale, the team is challenged by the need to sustain its high performance.

At this stage, the team members have positive feelings about each other and their accomplishments. The quality and amount of work produced are high. Teams at this stage often need new challenges to keep morale and team focus high.

The team generally provides its own direction and support at this point and needs to be validated for that accomplishment. Team members demonstrate unity and are fully participating in achieving the team’s goals. If an outsider were to come in and attempt to determine who the leader was, it would be a challenge because all the team members are participating in leadership. Continued recognition and celebration of the team’s accomplishments are needed at this time, as well as the creation of new challenges and higher standards. Because the team is functioning at a high level, at this stage it is appropriate to foster decision-making autonomy within established boundaries.

• Keep the team aligned to the team’s purpose and agreements

• Monitor progress and provide feedback

• Create a safe environment with opportunities to be heard and a respect for differences

• Hold team members accountable for behavior and commitments

• Be aware of ongoing team dynamics

The most basic, critical skill in understanding team dynamics is that of being a participant observer. This means being totally involved in what the team is doing while simultaneously observing how the team is functioning (see Figure 11.4).

The first step in developing this skill of being a participant observer is to distinguish between content and process. The content is what the team is doing—developing the budget, creating a new strategic plan, or working on a specific goal. The process is how the team is functioning while doing its work—how it is communicating, how decisions are being made, how conflict is being managed, and what behaviors are disrupting the team or helping the team to move forward.

Often, little attention is paid to the process, which results in ineffective team action. In other words, “We know what we did but have no clue on how we got there.” The reality is that outcome depends on process. So attention to both is a must.

There are several ways to build this skill in team members. You might consider spending the last ten minutes of your team meeting discussing what went well, what improvements are needed, whether people were involved and heard, and how decisions were made. Another way to build this skill is by rotating responsibility among team members to take the role of being a participant observer during meetings and reporting results. The point is for the team to examine itself and be conscious of how it is functioning, and that is the role of all members.

Paying attention to the dynamics is the way to understand and make sense of these complex systems called teams and the interventions needed to help them grow.

Whether the team is disbanding or simply moving on to a new challenge or project with the same team members, it is important to bring honorable closure to the team’s work. This can be accomplished by having a wrapping-up conversation with the team to express appreciation, acknowledge feelings, discuss what was learned and identify what to do better next time, and celebrate the team’s success.

And when teams function well, miracles can happen. A thrilling and inspiring example of a high performance team is the 1980 United States Olympic hockey team.⁷ Twenty young men—many of whom had never played together before—came from colleges all over the country. Six months later they won the Olympic gold medal, defeating the best teams in the world—including the Soviet Union, a team that had been playing together for years. No one expected this to happen. It is considered one of the greatest upsets in sports history and is labeled a miracle. Thirty-eight years to the day later, the American women’s hockey team pulled off a similar miracle.

When members from both teams were interviewed, all without exception attributed their success to teamwork. The drive, commitment, cohesiveness, cooperation, trust, team effort, and a passionate belief in a common purpose—“Go for the gold”—were the reason for their success.

Teams are especially essential when dealing with emergencies and critical situations. Think about the Hudson River plane crash in 2009, when Captain Sullenberger, First Officer Jeffrey Skiles, and the rest of the flight crew worked together to land the plane safely under dire circumstances, saving all the lives aboard.

Whether it’s a medical team of surgeons, anesthetists, and nurses all working together and using their individual specialties as a team to save lives, or a team of tech wizards collaborating on a new software that changes the world we live in, we know that humans can achieve great things when they work effectively as teams.

But these high performance teams don’t just happen. They take practice, discipline, and hard work. Moving a team from a group of individuals to a highly interdependent and productive team with a shared purpose requires an effective team leadership approach. You can make the most of teamwork by building teams that are diverse, connected, motivated, and high performing. This will give your business the edge when solving new problems and embarking on complex projects.

In the next chapter you’ll learn about the role collaboration plays in building high performance teams.