60 Building Effective Teams

Factor VI: Personal and Interpersonal Skills

Cluster Q: Inspiring Others

VI Q
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.

Michael Jordan U.S. basketball player

Unskilled
Doesnt assemble, build or manage in a team fashion
Manages people on a one-to-one basis
Doesnt create a common mindset or common challenge
Rewards and compliments individuals, not the team
May not hold many team meetings
Doesnt create any synergies in the team; everyone works on his/her own projects
Doesnt manage in a way that builds team morale or energy
Doesnt have the skills or interest to build a team
May be very action and control oriented and wont trust a team to perform
Select one to three of the competencies listed below to use as a substitute for this competency if you decide not to
work on it directly.
SUBSTITUTES: 3,7,18,36,37,39,42,52,63,64,65
Skilled
Blends people into teams when needed
Creates strong morale and spirit in his/her team
Shares wins and successes
Fosters open dialogue
Lets people finish and be responsible for their work
Defines success in terms of the whole team
Creates a feeling of belonging in the team
Overused Skill
May not treat others as unique individuals
May slow down reasonable process by having everything open for debate
May go too far in not hurting peoples feelings and not making tough decisions
May not develop individual leaders
Might not provide take-charge leadership during tough times
Select one to three of the competencies listed below to work on to compensate for an overuse of this skill.
COMPENSATORS: 9,12,13,18,19,20,21,34,36,56,57,64
Some Causes
A loner; an individual contributor
Cant set common cause
Control oriented manager
Dont believe in or support teams
Excessively action oriented
Incentives are all based upon individual achievement
Not a motivator
Not a skilled process manager
Poor time management
The idea of a team is resisted by people
Treat all people the same
Leadership Architect Factors and Clusters
This competency is in the Personal and Interpersonal Skills Factor (VI). This competency is in the Inspiring Others
Cluster (Q) with: 36, 37, 65. You may want to check other competencies in the same Factor/Cluster for related tips.
The Map
Everyone would enjoy being on the dream team. Thats a group of performers each skilled in his/her own specialties,
pulling together accomplishing greater things than the added total of each performing separately. Most organizations
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talk teams, but primarily reward individual achievement. They also attract and promote people who sometimes resist
the idea of tying their performance to that of others. But teams, although uncomfortable to some, are the best way to
accomplish integrated tasks like creating systems, producing complex products or sustained coordinated efforts. They
are also useful in cutting across boundaries to get things done. The key to successful team building lies in identifying
roles, jobs, tasks, rewards and objectives with the team, not with individuals.
Some Remedies
1. Team confused about its direction? Establish a common cause and a shared mindset. A common thrust
is what energizes dream teams. As in light lasers, alignment adds focus, power and efficiency. Its best to get
each team member involved in setting the common vision. Establish goals and measures. Most people like to be
measured. People like to have checkpoints along the way to chart their progress. Most people perform better with
goals that are stretching. Again, letting the team participate in setting the goals is a plus. More help? See #35
Managing and Measuring Work.
2. Need a clear course of action? Create a game plan. Once mission and outcomes and goals are established,
in order to be resource efficient, a plan is necessary to avoid duplicate work and things falling through the cracks.
More help? See #47 Planning.
3. Want to raise the odds that the team will excel? Inspire the team. Follow the basic rules of inspiring team
members as outlined in classic books like People Skills by Robert Bolton or Thriving on Chaos by Tom Peters.
Tell people what they do is important, say thanks, offer help and ask for it, provide autonomy in how people do
their work, provide a variety of tasks, surprise people with enriching, challenging assignments, show an interest
in their work, adopt a learning attitude toward mistakes, celebrate successes, have visible accepted measures of
achievement and so on. Each team member is different so good team managers deal with each person uniquely
while being fair to all. More help? See #23 Fairness to Direct Reports and #36 Motivating Others.
4. Team stuck in a rut? Create a climate of innovation and experimentation. When how to do something is
too rigidly specified, motivation and creativity decrease. How things are done should be as open as possible.
Studies show that people work harder and are more effective when they have a sense of choice and ownership.
Encourage quick, short-cycle experiments. Many will fail so communicate a learning attitude toward mistakes and
failures. More help? See #28 Innovation Management.
5. Not getting through to team members? Work on understanding people without judging them. You dont
have to agree; you just have to understand. To build a team, invest in their learning, education, trips to customers,
and time to think problems through. Give them the benefit of your thinking and particularly what the key objectives
of an effort are. The goal is to have them say, We did it. More help? See #27 Informing.
6. Too much individualism? Shift the focus from me to we. Resistance to the idea of a team is best
overcome by focusing on common goals, priorities and problems, selling the logic of pulling together repeatedly,
listening patiently to peoples concerns, protecting peoples feelings but also reinforcing the perspective of why
the team is needed, inviting suggestions to reach the outcome, and showing patience toward the unconverted.
Maintain a light touch. More help? See #13 Confronting Direct Reports.
7. All work and no play? Build a sense of joy and fun for the team. Even though someincluding youwill
resist it, parties, roasts, gag awards, picnics and outings build group cohesion. Working with the whole person
tends to build better teams. Use humor and support it in others. Learn to celebrate wins.
8. Some team members underutilized? Leverage the variety of talent on the team. Dream teams are usually
made up of a variety of talent, not sameness. While dream teams have all of the talent they need to accomplish
the task, not any one member has all of the talent. High-performing teams learn how to take advantage of each
persons strengths and avoid unreasonable exposure to each persons weaknesses. High-performing teams have
more disclosure to one another about their self-appraisal of strengths and weaknesses. A weakness is not
considered bad. The team just adjusts to it and moves on. Successful teams specialize, cover for each other, and
only sometimes demand that everyone participate in identical activities.
9. Unsure of how to assign team roles? Allow roles within the team to evolve naturally. Some research
indicates that in well-functioning teams people gravitate to eight roles. More help? See #64 Understanding
Others. Generally each of the eight roles needs to be played by someone on the team for the whole team to be
effective. One member can play more than one role.
10. Not operating at peak performance? Learn how to operate effectively and efficiently. Read Overcoming
Organizational Defenses by Chris Argyris. Half of the book is about some of the common problems teams run into
that block peak performance, and the other half offers strategies and tactics for undoing those chilling team
behaviors.
11. Need an outside perspective? Engage a team coach. Because a team coach is external to the team, he or
she can objectively help you problem solve and provide you with feedback to avoid some of the temptations that
Copyright 1996-2009 Lominger International: A Korn/Ferry Company. All Rights Reserved. www.lominger.com

can demotivate a team. The team coach could be a Human Resources partner or an external professional that
specializes in coaching.
12. Slow to act as advocate for the team? Run interference. Effective team leaders run interference for the
team by eliminating obstacles that slow down or impede effectiveness. This may mean using the position power
of the role to get the needed support from the organization, negotiating for resources, etc.
13. Struggling to build or lead a virtual team? Keep virtual teams motivated. Virtual teams are everywhere
now, so its hard to avoid them. Use common-sense tactics to stay connected. Schedule frequent conference
calls. Identify regular times when you can be available for mutual teamwork and communication (work out
compromises for multiple time zones). Leverage multiple technologies (video conferencing, groupware, etc). And,
be mindful of cultural differences, if the virtual team is global.
Some Develop-in-Place Assignments
Manage a project team of people who are older and more experienced than you.
Manage a group of resistant people with low morale through an unpopular change or project.
Assemble a team of diverse people to accomplish a difficult task.
Manage a group that includes former peers to accomplish a task.
Create employee involvement teams.
No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it.

Halford E. Luccock Professor of Homiletics, Yale Divinity School

Suggested Readings
Ancona, D., & Bresman, H. (2007). X-teams: How to build teams that lead, innovate, and succeed. Boston: Harvard
Business School Press.
Capretta Raymond, C., Eichinger, R. W., & Lombardo, M. M. (2004). FYI for teams. Minneapolis, MN: Lominger
International: A Korn/Ferry Company.
Dyer, W., Dyer, W. G., Jr., & Dyer, J. H. (2007). Team building: Proven strategies for improving team performance
(4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Guttman, H. M. (2008). Great business teams: Cracking the code for standout performance. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley
& Sons.
Hackman, J. R. (2002). Leading teams: Setting the stage for great performances. Boston: Harvard Business School
Press.
Halverson, C. B., & Tirmizi, S. A. (Eds.). (2008). Effective multicultural teams: Theory and practice (Series: Advances
in group decision and negotiation, Vol. 3.). New York: Springer.
Harvard Business School Press. (2004). Creating teams with an edge. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Harvard Business School Press. (2004). Harvard Business Review on teams that succeed. Boston: Harvard Business
School Press.
Karp, H. (2002). Bridging the boomer-Xer gap: Creating authentic teams for high performance at work. Mountain
View, CA: Davies-Black.
Katzenbach, J. R., Garvin, D. A., & Wenger, E. C. (2004). Harvard Business Review on teams that succeed. Boston:
Harvard Business School Press.
Katzenbach, J. R., & Smith, D. K. (2003). The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization. New
York: HarperBusiness.
Leigh, A., & Maynard, M. (2002). Leading your team: How to involve and inspire teams. Yarmouth, ME: Nicholas
Brealey.
Lencioni, P. M. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Marquardt, M. (2001). Global teams: How top multinationals span boundaries and cultures with high-speed teamwork.
Mountain View, CA: Davies-Black.
Nemiro, J., Beyerlein, M., Bradley, L., & Beyerlein, S. (2008). The handbook of high performance virtual teams: A
toolkit for collaborating across boundaries. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Parker, G. M. (2002). Cross-functional teams: Working with allies, enemies, and other strangers. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Runde, C. E., & Flanagan, T. A. (2008). Building conflict competent teams. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Schwarz, R. (2002). The skilled facilitator. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Van Ness, G., & Van Ness, K. (2003). Being there without going there: Managing teams across time zones, locations
and corporate boundaries. Boston: Aspatore Books.
Wysocki, R. K. (2001). Building effective project teams. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Copyright 1996-2009 Lominger International: A Korn/Ferry Company. All Rights Reserved. www.lominger.com