By: Michael DeVenney
Getting things done is the number one challenge facing all leaders – at all levels.
With more people, what should be easier becomes generally more difficult. The way teams are structured and work today does not realize the potential for leverage and synergy that is promised.
Despite good intentions, most teams are not working well and it costs organizations’ opportunity and limits potential.
A recent study by the Center for Creative Leadership revealed that 60% of all senior teams – some even called leadership teams – did not think or act effectively.
Maybe you have the “dream team”. You have the absolute strongest performers in your organization on your team. Remember the US Olympic hockey team of 1998 – an incredible group of the best individual athletes that did not win as a team. Stars and superior performers do not an effective team make.
Where does your team stand?
Try to picture coaching your son or daughter’s hockey team. You are facing a competitive team that has been ranked highly. Imagine you have three of your five players arguing amongst themselves. They try to go it alone rather than passing the puck to each other. What are your chances of winning when 60% of your team is not focused on the game? This is what is happening with most teams.
All the offsites and “blue-sky” meetings in the world do not necessarily make your team effective. The annual migration to a lovely resort with an excellent golf course or spa does not immediately mean strategic thinking or greater performance. Most offsites and strategy sessions are more about future tactics than strategic synergy.
A team that works effectively together not only builds and protects the ongoing success of an organization, it develops cross-functional relationships to prevent silos, creates a healthy working environment to retain top talent and it maximizes performance and productivity. Winning teams need to be strategically focused, structured for synergy, and leading as needed by the organization.
The single greatest factor responsible for success or failure in execution is people. It is crucial that teams work effectively together.
There is a new normal. Capital and equipment used to be the drivers of organizational strategy – people rule now and businesses today are subject to a tightening vise.
- Customers have much higher expectations – the internet has changed everything in that our customers now are more informed and demand more value in turn.
- Competition is much greater and organizations constantly need to increase the value they provide to customers to avoid commoditization and irrelevance.
- The pace of innovation is much faster to keep ahead of the curve – we have to think not only of how customers use our products and services now but how will they need to use them in the future
- With the increasing global interconnection, the complexity of the variables facing business is much greater – analysis can no longer be linear, it needs to be branched.
Success in today’s challenging and competitive business environment demands that leaders focus on getting their team basics right. Successful organizations require effective leadership now more than ever to perform. Decisions about people are challenging.
This is where people come into the equation.
When people were asked the following question, “On a scale of 1 to 10 – how effective are you in your work?” most people answered a 4 or 5. In organizations today, the average level of engagement and performance is about 47% of potential!
The impact of this underperformance hits the bottom line. A Harvard Business Review study reported that on average organizations achieve about 67% of their potential financial performance.
Why are some of your key business teams underperforming?
Teams are subject to “drift”. People are put together and called a team. We put people together without clearly assessing strengths and fit to the requirements of the position and hope it all works out. It doesn’t. Team members cite lack of clarity as to expectations for their work as the most significant problem in performing to their potential. People end up working on what is in front of them or what is talked about next rather than cohesively with their colleagues. Not knowing where we are going or who is doing what creates silos and stifles ownership. Leaders have to do it all because no one knows what to do. Even when we know what to do, do we know how to do it. Technical skills are not enough – maximum performance is a result of behaviours and interactions between team members. Are team members carrying out their roles as needed or expected?
The research would say no.
To gain the most effective teams, leaders need to step back and understand their teams first. Leaders need to diagnose before attempting to cure. By clearly and accurately understanding the structure of their teams, leaders can answer the three key questions that underlie effective performance – are the right people in the right positions, are people working the right way to lead and perform, and are people focused on the right actions for success?
Diagnosis leads to the answers as to why teams are not performing to potential, where priorities should be placed, and what to do about it.
First, using accurate and reliable assessments, leaders can gain a tangible picture of the strengths and skills each team member brings to the team. Do their strengths work well together? Are there challenges of too much of good thing? Are the people with the right strengths in the right places – or do they have the right supports? The sad truth is that only 18% of people state their strengths are being used in their work! What a lost opportunity!
The next step is to clarify, agree, and communicate the behaviors needed and expected of the team to perform most effectively. Do we know what is needed? Do we agree on what is needed? Has what is needed been communicated? These answers can create tremendous leverage in how people work together and achieve results. About 60% of team members do not believe their colleagues are working in the way needed to produce results.
Finally, the team needs to focus on doing first things first. The perspective of team members should be assessed in terms of strategic priorities, critical issues, and where attention is needed. Is there agreement or alignment? Do people see things the same of very differently? With clarity of perspectives, discussion can create alignment of energy, resources, and actions to achieve greater results.
The foundation to make decisions to engage people for more effective performance starts with diagnosis – assessing the matching of strengths and positions, clarifying the expectations for interactions and leadership, and focusing on priorities for success.
It is tempting to just tell people what is needed and where attention should be placed to get where you want them to be. Short term – energy is expended. However, it is quickly lost from lack of investment and ownership.
Diagnosis takes a short time and yields tremendous clarity and confidence. It identifies the most effective places to target performance improvement initiatives and reveals whether there is agreement about the priorities for action. It exposes blockages that will inhibit progress and enables teams to create their own improvement agenda. It benchmarks your team for growth and captures the perceptions of the entire team in order to evaluate performance and potential. It defines the team culture, how decisions are made, and if needed people are missing to support the strategy
Leaders can benchmark their team against key performance indicators and clarify overall team effectiveness. Despite the complexity and uncertainty of the new normal, diagnosis by measuring and evaluating team performance factors remains the key to increasing profitability and productivity.
Diagnosis is designed to accomplish one thing – to help teams improve performance to execute better. It is a benchmark for success.
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