8
Extraordinary Influence for Teams
Three Levers for High Performance
One of my closest friends worked his way through college on a commercial landscape crew. One day “Pat” and the other team members installed some large aesthetic boulders on the edge of a freshly paved sidewalk, which traversed a beautiful nature park. A few members of the team, including my friend, were trained in using a bucket crane to lift the boulders and position them in the location specified in the landscape plan.
The only control in the cab for which Pat did not know the purpose was a red lever on the right side of the control panel. To this day, Pat does not know what got into him, but he impulsively reached over and pulled the red lever. Instantly, the jaws of the giant bucket swung open dropping a several ton boulder from about 10 feet into the middle of a freshly paved asphalt sidewalk. To describe it as a disaster far understates the destruction. It looked like a giant meteor crashed on the lunar surface. The team spent the rest of the day and much of the next getting the boulder out the crater and repairing the damage.
Despite being a strong contributor to the team and well-liked by all, Pat knew he would be fired for this costly mistake. As a result, he would have to drop out of school. His dreams for his future were crushed. The rest of his life would be spent asking the same question hundreds of times a day, “Do you want fries with that?” As he stood in line to get his paycheck on Friday afternoon, he girded himself for the worst. His boss handed Pat what he knew to be his last paycheck.
Pat's boss could have said, “You screwed up and cost the company a lot of money in unnecessary labor, so you're fired.” Instead, his message included a surprising affirmation. “Your mistake yesterday was highly uncharacteristic of you. You are an excellent employee, and we greatly value your membership on our installation team and the positive influence you have on the other team members. We want you to remain on the team, and by the way, don't pull that red lever again unless you know exactly why you're doing it!” The boss spoke Words of Life to Pat's core.
When Pat's team assembled for their beginning of day check in at the office on Monday morning, everyone wanted to know what the boss said on Friday afternoon. Pat told the story, and everyone became quiet. Normally, the meeting was all banter replaying the weekend games, but something was different. Pat kept his job, which everyone felt good about, but the grace shown to Pat enveloped the whole team. Everyone knew Pat should have been fired, but forgiving his mistake affirmed the whole team and created a much broader impact than just one person. When Pat pulled the red lever, all reaped the consequences, but all benefitted from the grace shown to one in the supervisor's Words of Life.
The mission of Pat's landscaping company was, “We create beautiful spaces that renew people's lives and preserve the environment.” That day, even the mission took on more meaning. Though they faced another day of hard physical labor, the team experienced the goodness of their corporate purpose. The team's commitment to the mission rose through the affirmation of one team member.
The Three Levers
A constant interplay exists among three dimensions in our lives—the I, the We, and the It.1 The I represents our individual hopes, dreams, and concerns. The We represents the collective aspirations, interests, and potential conflicts among the group members. The It expresses our purpose, mission, task, or quest.
A lever can be thought of as a great effect from a small cause. Pat pulled a physical lever in the crane, which allowed a small hand motion to move a huge boulder. For a leader, these three dimensions function as levers. A leader's attention to the individuals, the group, and the task constitute levers a leader uses to manage a team or even a whole organization.
Balanced attention to the I, the We, and the It is absolutely necessary for a healthy leadership team, a well-functioning military unit, and even a family. When any dimension remains out-of-balance, all three dimensions suffer in some way. Much of this book addresses what a leader must do to transform an individual, the I. A group or team encompasses the I, the We, and the It. In the normal course of work, teams oscillate. For a team to perform with excellence, all three require balanced attention. When any of the three is over or under emphasized, problems ensue. Despite the constantly shifting needs of a normal team, a skilled leader must learn to lever all three dimensions to restore the team to balance.
One of the most dysfunctional executive teams with which I've ever worked led a manufacturing company in the central United States. The team included one of the most disruptive members I've ever seen hold a job in the corporate world. People literally speculated that he must hold incriminating information on a senior officer in the company who protected him. Other team members were quite talented in their respective functions and had important ideas to grow the company, but the one individual constantly drew disproportionate attention to himself. He could take the whole team into the abyss of despair faster than imaginable. He perfectly fit what the great southern author, Joel Chandler Harris, called a “tar baby.” It was impossible to have a clean, congruent, unencumbered, straightforward conversation with the team's tar baby without getting stuck. Many meetings ended with members shaking their heads in disbelief, wondering how in the world the guy kept his job. The excessive focus on the one highly dysfunctional individual made it impossible to experience the synergy of the collective We or team, and the accomplishment of the mission suffered appalling compromise. He was what my grandmother would call a mess.
In this example, an inordinate amount of attention was focused on the one dysfunctional member. He absorbed a dramatically excessive amount of energy and time from the leader and the members of the team. As a result of one highly dysfunctional member, the team became dysfunctional, because the team leader did not act quickly or with adequate resolve to address the problem.
The three dimensions of team member, team, and mission are highly interdependent, and when not in relative balance, the team loses its stability. It's like a three-legged stool with only one or two legs. Working as a team usually proves much more difficult than anyone appreciates, especially when one or more members carry some emotional baggage as did the dysfunctional individual in the example. The level of rancor and tension I see on many teams often shocks even a grizzled veteran like me.
Great leaders know how to bring out the best in teams through maintaining balance among the individual team members, the collective team, and an inspiring mission. A team leader must keep these aspects in balance to experience the power of teamwork so often touted. At any moment in time, the leader must bring one of these three entities to the forefront through nimble attention to any imbalance. Most underperforming teams lack balance and proper emphasis on one or several of these dimensions. How does this work?
Individual Team Members—the I
We might ask, “Why do individual concerns need attention—we're building a team?” A dedicated team focus in some organizations means that attention to the I runs totally counter to teamwork, so I would like to challenge this notion.
Reader warning—I am not a big fan of slogans, especially inspirational slogans on posters, and even less, those slogans that are expensively framed behind glass. I should be careful here, because a lot of us have bought those sappy inspirational posters for the workplace walls. These inspirational slogans presumably inspire us to work enthusiastically with others and subjugate our interests to a group of people I sometimes don't even like, much less trust.
A couple of my least favorite slogans are:
“There's no ‘I’ in Team.”
Actually, there is an I in team. It's the individual team members. I like Bill Murray's tweet about this popular slogan. “There's no ‘I’ in team … there is, however, an ‘I’ in win, achievement, prevail, triumph, first place, gold medalist, and champion.”2
“Things get easy when we work together.”
Whoever said “Things get easy when we work together,” has never been on a team or tried to work with another person for more than an hour. My observation over the last 30 years of helping hundreds of organizations is that work often becomes incredibly difficult when we work with others.
“Better we than me.”
Most of the team training I've led personally, and most of the team training I've studied seeks primarily to build the collective We of the team. Individual team members must also be developed according to their specific needs and acknowledged for their individual contributions. Focus on the We to the exclusion of the I creates an imbalance team leaders must address.
All my cynicism about well-intended team slogans aside, team leaders must find ways to recognize and to affirm the individual members of a team. Compensation, titles, special recognition, and career paths represent just a few examples of actions that can be considered for individuals on even the most healthy and well-functioning teams. Attention to individuals does not reflect inattention to the team.
Me First?
Attention to an individual team member could mistakenly appear to foster a “me first” attitude or narcissism. Rather, as individuals we exist distinct from others. We have our own hopes, dreams, plans, and aspirations that are important to us. We hold opinions and insights that we self-authored. We have our own voices and our own part of the mission. As Stephen Jobs said, we all want to make our own dent in the universe. Any team leader who ignores the individual needs of team members invites a highly disruptive imposition of those needs on the performance of the team.
Conversely, excessive attention to any individual for any reason, positive or negative, creates an imbalance. Problem individuals such as the one described earlier in this chapter drain energy and passion away from a team to the point of disillusioned team spirit and lack of focus on the accomplishment of the team's task or mission. The We and the It or team purpose suffer.
When leading a team session, I always try to begin with an exercise that speaks to the needs of all the Is for recognition. Asking a question or two that each team member answers about himself/herself gets a meeting rolling. Here are some simple examples:
- Where did you grow up?
- What did you do after high school?
- Give a 60-second summary of your career highlights.
- What is an interesting but unknown fact about you?
- Who has been the person of greatest influence in your life?
- What would you do if you won the lottery?
- What do you hope to get from this team session?
A warm-up exercise, such as these sample questions, engages the I and creates a readiness to attend to the We and the It. One other important practice for I behavior in a team setting is to explain any unusual behavior. I sometimes point out to groups, “Distractions take precedence.” If an individual member leaves the meeting, for example, everyone wonders if something is wrong.
One team member, in a session I led, announced at the beginning of the meeting that his wife may be starting labor. “She had false contractions two days ago, but this may be the real thing. She will text me, so if I leave suddenly, you'll know why.” Five minutes later, he darted from the room. We understood the sudden departure and wished the first-time parents well! His announcement of his possible departure from the meeting honored the We, and legitimized the I's uncharacteristic behavior.
Extraordinary Influence on the We
To harvest the benefits of teamwork, an effective team leader must generate a strong sense of the We. Like any enduring relationship, the potential synergy of working with others does not spontaneously materialize. It requires disciplined intentionality. Extraordinary influence on a team requires that the leader equip the team with the necessary skills and processes to be a great We. Many excellent books have been written on the topic of how to build an effective team, such as MacMillan's The Performance Factor and Lencioni's The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
Like any enduring relationship, the potential synergy of working with others does not spontaneously materialize. It requires disciplined intentionality.
Just as with individuals, leaders must provide both tactical and strategic affirmation to the team. Oddly, I rarely see team leaders affirm teams for doing something extraordinary together. Well-documented performance gains often result from a highly functioning team, such as greater productivity and a higher quality work product. These are the domain of tactical influence.
Although we normally think of “core” as an individual attribute, as discussed in earlier chapters, the We also has a collective core, which reflects the team's character! Teams also adopt collective beliefs that guide team behavior.
A Team's Collective Core
I often observe a self-concept in teams, which effectively reveals the health of the team's collective core. Some teams are confident, interdependent, and collaborative across their respective functional areas. They have a pride about their team's work and believe in the power of their well-functioning We. They trust each other to do their jobs and they trust in each other's integrity. While they may have conflict periodically, the disagreements lead to clarity versus rancor.
I observe other teams with a terrible self-concept. They exhibit very low trust in each other. The team stays mired in conflict with minimal progress on important initiatives. During meetings, members constantly check their phones. There is eye-rolling and sighing when certain members speak. Their attendance at meetings is obligatory, and members are grateful when the meeting is short. The team is toxic.
Words of Life (strategic influence) must also be given to affirm the character of a team. The 10 dimensions described in Chapter 4 (Integrity, Courage, Humility, Judgment, Authenticity, Self-regulation, Wisdom, Candor, Resilience, and Influence) also apply to the We. How the team accomplished its work, for example, being resilient in the presence of repeated setbacks, is a great way to affirm a team. When a team is healthy and well-functioning, Words of Life should be spoken to the team's core. When a team is dysfunctional, Alliance Feedback is in order. As I discussed in Chapter 7, it may be important to help certain members move off the team.
Extraordinary Influence on the It—the Mission or Quest of the Team
When thoughtfully formed and skillfully communicated, a purpose or mission (the It) provides motivation for the team. A great mission becomes a quest. A team leader exerts extraordinary influence with this powerful tool. It contains the potential to take even the most mundane work or project and lifts the collective self-esteem.
A great team mission becomes a quest.
The leading hotelier in the world and founder of the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company and Capella Hotels, Horst Schulze, makes a practice of personally opening all his new hotels. We would probably agree that public perception ranks some hotel jobs lower on the desirability scale, such as housekeepers. Yet, Schulze urges his housekeepers to be the best in the world. During training, he stresses to housekeepers, “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” Along with many other supporting policies and expectations, housekeepers are empowered to make many decisions in the interest of providing a superior customer experience to all guests. Schulze's mission to be the best, supported with hundreds of other quality practices, led to the Ritz Carlton receiving the prestigious Malcomb Baldridge award, not once but twice, thus making it the only company in the hotel industry to achieve such a distinction. Schulze has also trained seven hotel managers presently serving as heads of major hotel chains.
Schulze's mission to be the best might better be described as a quest. His quest mobilized an army of dedicated hotel managers, concierges, food service professionals, valets, dishwashers, and housekeepers excited about changing the world of lodging for discriminating guests.
A great mission creates purpose, meaning, passion, and even urgency for a team. Leaders who want to provide extraordinary leadership for teams (and organizations) transform the task into a quest. Connecting a seemingly mundane task to a higher calling raises the importance and even the self-esteem of those completing the task. Putting new tires on a car can be about air wrenches or about keeping a family safe. It's the same task, but one perspective inspires a different level of attention to detail and excellence.
A great mission creates purpose, meaning, passion, and even urgency for a team.
Pressing meaning into the task provides the inspiration and the energy of high-performing teams. If a team lacks passion, find out if they are putting lug nuts on a wheel rim or providing safe travel for families. No matter what the team's task, a great team leader forms and communicates the bigger why.
The accomplishment of a great mission provides the leader with tremendous opportunities to affirm the team. This requires tactical affirmation of the team's style and competence along the way, and strategic affirmation of the team's collective core at key intervals. Everyone wants to be on a winning team, and accomplishment of a mission becomes the ultimate affirmation.
Extraordinary Influence—Healing the I, We, and It of the Broken Organization or Team
Tragedy or misconduct sometimes occur in any organization. Leaders with whom I've worked died unexpectedly. A chemical plant my firm served experienced a huge explosion, and six people died. Financial misconduct of a leader I knew left a leadership team in denial and disruption.
Sometimes a leader inherits a team or even a whole organization with a trauma or some other besetting concern in its past. A trauma diminishes trust to the extent that even the fundamental economic value of a company is often jeopardized, such as what transpired with Enron.
Eric Pillmore joined Tyco International as senior vice president of corporate governance just after the FBI indicted CEO Dennis Kozlowski for larceny—stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from Tyco (remember the $6,000 shower curtain for his Manhattan apartment?). Pillmore took on the job of restoring the corporate trust with investors, customers, and employees. I spoke with Mr. Pillmore and asked him how he restored that trust. Many thousands of words in articles and other publications as well as video interviews document the details of Tyco's fall and rebirth. My purpose here is to summarize a few of the initiatives Pillmore and his colleagues took to address the immediate needs of I, We, and It on the heels of Kozlowski's fall.
Healing the I
Human nature prompts any normal person to prioritize self-interest in a crisis. What will happen to me, my job, my reputation, or my family because of this trauma? This required immediate attention to the I. Pillmore said that the leadership team agreed early on that they must act decisively. There was no time for studies and analysis. Two hundred thousand employees and thirty thousand leaders—two hundred and thirty thousand Is needed reassurance from senior leadership.
Tyco's senior leaders began the healing process with hundreds of town halls, which “gave the individual employees their voice.” Leaders stayed at these sessions for as long as anyone wanted to ask questions. “At first, all people wanted to do was vent. They just wanted to be heard.”
As we acknowledged earlier, shame is one of the most powerful and corrosive human emotions. Public shame such as my company's CEO perp walking on TV become private I shame. A critical aspect of turning around a wounded team or organization is to restore everyone's pride. At one point, Pillmore knew healing was underway when one questioner joked, “When can I put my Tyco t-shirt back on to mow the lawn?” At the beginning of the town hall initiative, senior leaders were “dogs,” but eventually, “We received standing ovations.” Town halls and the openness of the leaders who led them opened the door to the reestablishment of trust.
Tyco ran an ad in the Wall Street Journal, in which the 13 top leaders pledged, “This month, Tyco is launching an advertising campaign in major newspapers and financial publications in the United States, Europe, and Asia.” The ads show Tyco's top 13 executives, their signatures, and a headline that reads, “We signed on because we believe Tyco has a bright future. We signed below to show you we mean it.” In essence, the message conveyed that the leaders committed to stay involved in the company until they got it fixed. While the ad's message intended to reassure stockholders and customers, the senior leaders really hoped to assure individual employees. It did.
The creation of a positive emotional bond with the Is of a wounded organization or team becomes the focus of restoring trust with the Is on a team or a large organization. Visible leadership, non-defensive attention to injured member's apprehensions and a willingness to act in response to employees' concerns must be the hallmarks of this effort.
Healing the We
When a breach of trust occurs, no one knows who to trust. Creating a boundary of safety or circle of trust becomes paramount. Tyco's effort to restore trust included a new emphasis on transparency. Certainly, this helped investors, but it also benefited all employees, the collective We. Senior leaders communicated detailed findings of all wrongdoing, including Kozlowski's two million dollar Roman toga birthday party for his wife. Every time a new wrongdoing surfaced, company leaders made sure to inform those most affected.
Pillmore knew that the company needed to demonstrate its change of direction in ethical standards, but he also knew this effort required a culture change involving all stakeholders—the collective We. As the town halls continued over several years, Pillmore shifted from addressing the concerns of the Is to the collective concerns of the We. In December 2002, Governance Metrics, Inc., a corporate accountability ratings firm, rated Tyco a 1.5 on a scale of 1–10 and concluded it was one of the five worst companies globally. Pillmore made it clear that the members of the company must work together to raise awareness and accountability across the whole organization to address Tyco's ethical challenges.
Pillmore said the more he brought the need to the attention of the people of Tyco, the scores kept going up. Employees joined together to make the needed changes. By 2007, Tyco became one of 38 companies out of 3,800 to score a perfect 10. The problem could not be addressed only in the corporate office but in the daily transactions of the people of Tyco (the We) conducting its business, as well.
Healing the It
When an organization or team experiences trauma, survival becomes the short-term mission, but leaders must also set a new direction. The most urgent aspect of directional change for a company or team with misconduct, is culture. This powerful direction-setting tool guides the company in how we will operate going forward to prevent a repeat of past mistakes. In the opening months, senior leaders agreed that everything in the company would now operate within four values: Integrity, Excellence, Accountability, and Teamwork. The leadership team insisted that all employees hold all their leaders accountable to work within these values.
A major test occurred when compliance officers discovered new areas of ethical compromise. One manager embezzled seven million dollars over a five-year period and was arrested trying to flee the country. With prosecutorial help from the company, the manager went to jail. Another manager complained that he was being held accountable for sales targets that could only be reached by trading in the black market. This manager's disclosure precipitated a major review of how sales goals were set and how the company could operate successfully within white markets.
As the company rediscovered its bearings, Pillmore said, “We empowered leaders to recognize people. We gave awards to folks for a variety of things when they demonstrated the values in their work.” This and other affirmations breathed Words of Life into the soul of the corporation. Of all the major companies that experienced major ethical and criminal compromises during that era, Tyco was the only company to survive.
Pillmore pointed out that Tyco's revenues never declined from the day of the crisis forward. They continued to rise, and, “We generated close to five billion in cash three years into the turnaround. We generated only five hundred million the year of the crisis.” Pillmore and his colleagues in senior leadership roles at Tyco clearly brought out the best in their organization.
Conclusion
Whether steady state or responding to a disabling crisis, great team leaders must respond to and balance the needs of the I, the We, and the It. Transformational leaders breathe Words of Life into the core of the team and even the whole organization, as in the case of Tyco. Legendary organizations get this right.