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Collaborating “on” Purpose

TEAMWISDOM INVITATION

An organization in which everyone is collaborating powerfully and “on” purpose is a thing of beauty.

On a well-run team, team members are focused on a clearly understood, shared goal. Little or no time is spent on wheel spinning and low-yield activities. Team members get more done in less time, and technical expertise isn’t the only factor fueling the team’s efforts. Commitment to a common task drives the success of the team.

How do we set up and support teams to function this way? My own experience has taught me that the most powerful force for success in teamwork is intense commitment from each participant. I was at SEMATECH from 1989 to 1996, and during the early part of my tenure the company had a single, overriding, clearly articulated mission—to rescue the U.S. semiconductor industry from the threat of foreign domination. Each project we launched was designed to move the industry in the direction of that goal. To accomplish it, participants set aside their short-term parochial interests in service to the larger, overriding goal.

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During my tenure with SEMATECH, I observed employees of bitter rivals (AMD and Intel, Texas Instruments and Motorola, and Digital and IBM) work together side by side. Assignees to SEMATECH had little trouble taking off their individual company hats and putting on their collective team hats. Participants were still identifiable as having come from their unique corporate cultures—Intel’s culture, for instance, is famous for “constructive confrontation” and their assignees to SEMATECH certainly brought that attribute with them—but all participants were willing to work through differences because we were intensely committed to saving America’s most important industry. To this day, I carry this powerful experience of synergy with me, and it fuels my vision for and participation in Nowdocs.com, the company for which I now work.

What would your organization look like if everyone was collaborating powerfully and on purpose? What does it look like now? Are people guided by a common overarching mission? Are decisions based on clear, shared values? Are people and departments making aligned contributions to larger collective wins rather than scrapping over disconnected pieces of the pie? The TeamWisdom tools and practices explored in this book are precisely what you need to answer all these questions and get your organization moving in the right direction. In the memorable words of StarTrek Captain JeanLuc Picard, “Make it so!”

MICHAEL S. OSWALD, JD
Vice President, General Counsel
and Chief Administrative Officer
NowDocs.com, Inc.

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Clarity Is the Source of Power

When was the last time you were in a team where the participants held different ideas about their collective task? How fast did you make progress together? If your experience is anything like mine, not very fast! Lack of shared clarity about direction gets teams stuck. When a group lacks clarity about the task at hand, it’s not just easy but natural for people to lose interest in what they are doing. And once interest starts to flag, it’s hard to believe the team will ever come together, much less accomplish its goals.

What does shared group clarity look like? Simple. Each member should be able to explain simply and clearly what the team is accountable for (not individual roles, but the collective purpose). The mental images behind these statements should be identical across the team. Thus when listening to each other, teammates should hear their own ideas reflected back at them. And there should be sufficient detail to assure that the ideas really are duplicated and not just approximated. When teammates communicate the same future outcomes to each other, they probably have shared clarity.

Shared clarity can be gained through early, aggressive alignment about direction. The charter, mission, deliverable, or outcome of the team’s work must be clarified together through discussion and conversation. Think about the times when you accepted ambiguous direction like, “Make money!” Then think about the times when you accepted clear direction like, “By the end of the year, design a second release of our product that we can build efficiently, and, that our customers want to buy from us.” In which situation were you more resourceful?

When a group, such as a project team, is temporary, it’s important to align members around the collective task they are to perform. When a group, such as a department, is ongoing, it’s 86important to align members around the ongoing purpose of the group. Either way, tasks and purposes must be clear and shared.

Personal Challenge

For one or more of your collaborative relationships, answer this question: What’s the purpose of this relationship? Describe the purpose fully. Then, ask your partner or partners to answer the same question. Talk about what you each wrote until you can articulate together a common and clear description of your purpose.

Team Challenge

Ask team members to answer this question individually in writing: If we were already finished and successful, what would our outcome look like? Describe the outcome fully. Then, talk about what each person wrote until you can articulate together a common and clear description of your outcome. I guarantee this exercise will add tremendous power to your team.

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Come Together Over Commitment and Skills Will Follow

Conventional wisdom on teambuilding advises leaders to first attend to creating the “right” skill mix as they assemble teams. I couldn’t disagree more!

Why do I disagree? Because I have observed time and time again that skills are much less critical to responsible relationships and high performance on teams than is aligned motivation, energy, enthusiasm, drive, and interest.

Don’t get me wrong. I demand the best skill-fit possible for a job. But managing skill-fit is a project management concern, not a team leadership concern. It’s important not to confuse the two. I have seen “teams” with all the right skills perform miserably. And I have seen teams with low skills but broad alignment and high enthusiasm perform at extraordinary levels. Haven’t you? Consider an example from sports. For many years during the 1980’s and 1990’s the New York Yankees baseball team had the greatest talent that money could buy, but they often got beat by teams with much less talent. 88

Why is this the case you ask? Why didn’t the New York Yankees win the World Series every year?

• Talent doesn’t create teamwork, shared desire does.
• Low motivation is more infectious in teams than is high motivation. Even highly skilled freeloaders will rapidly bring a team’s performance level down.
• Skilled individuals act within their roles. Committed team members do what needs to be done for the team, that is, they improvise.

What to do? If teamwork is important to you, choose team members for their motivation first, and their skills second.

Personal Challenge

Reflect on the experiences you have accumulated participating in your last few workteams. How were skills and commitment treated during the selection and start-up processes? Use your imagination to re-make one of your last negative team experiences. Imagine how things might have been different if commitment had been addressed first and skills second. Would the team have performed better? I bet it would have. Dare to give the commitment criterion first priority when you assemble your next team.

Team Challenge

Discuss with your team the implications of placing “commitment over skill” with regard to team performance. How do these implications work to your advantage?

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Teammates Don’t Have to Like Each Other

Many teambuilders begin their work by telling themselves, “I need to get group members to like each other better, so we’ll be a better team.”

While interpersonal attractiveness can be valuable on teams, investing one’s efforts there is actually not the most powerful strategy. Encouraging affinity to a shared task—instead of 90encouraging affinity with each other—has proven to be the fastest and surest way to create strong group cohesion.

What does this mean in practice? Instead of using techniques and exercises to promote friendships, work to get everyone to adopt a common focus so that each team member sees good reasons to work with others.

Think about it. Free market economics teaches us to act in our own self-interest. Many team experts—influenced, perhaps, by a Japanese value system—teach that individuals must subordinate their own interests for the sake of the group’s success. I see a few problems with this. First, it’s contradictory (and therefore unrealistic) to expect people working in competitive cultures to subordinate their self-interests to the group. And, second, there is no necessary or logical connection between subordination and successful, powerful teamwork.

A more effective practice is to use people’s self interest to seed powerful teamwork. For each individual, discover how she can win when the team wins. The easiest and best way to do this is to ask. When you align individual and collective outcomes in this way, what you will have is true collaboration.

Once that is done, see if team members don’t like each other better.

Personal Challenge

Think of a teammate with whom you have often felt competitive and ask yourself this question: What could we pursue as partners that would increase the likelihood of each of us reaching our desired outcomes?

Team Challenge

Begin a group discussion with the following question: What is our team’s task? Make sure people are clear about the task and that everyone is committed to achieving it. In the future, 91when conflict or interpersonal tension arises, have everyone recall this discussion.

Stop Trying to Motivate

Many of us operate under the assumption that responsible leaders motivate people. But you know what? My experience has proven this notion to be mistaken.

When we think of “motivating” someone, we think of dangling carrots out in front of the person or holding threatening sticks overhead to start the person in motion. (In fact, “motion” is “motivation,” minus a few letters). The problem is, that’s not leadership. It’s behavioral control.

Responsible leaders tap into the existing motivation of those they would lead.

In responsible relationships, we move others to action without using carrots or sticks. Period. End of story. How is this done? I recommend you discern what already puts the people 92

you are trying to lead in motion and position yourself so they can get more of what motivates them by working with you. Position yourself so they get tons of what motivates them.

How do we find out what others already want? Just ask them about their dreams, wants, needs, and pleasures. When you know what others want and need, you can help them achieve these things by working on your project. When you discover what people really want and need, you can serve them by keeping the focus on what they really want and need.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It is. Just keep in mind this TeamWisdom principle: High performance is always voluntary.

Personal Challenge

Take ten minutes to question yourself about what puts you in motion? Is there plenty of this motivating factor built into the project you are working on now? If not, what are you going to do about it?

Team Challenge

What usually gets in the way of discovering the motivation of others is our judgment of what constitutes proper motivation. Know what I mean? Drop your judgments about what should motivate your teammates and ask them, “What’s in it for you to work on this team?” Listen to all the answers until you discover what really puts each person in motion. (Hint: Most of us have been taught to say, “Of course, I work for the money!” But leaders with TeamWisdom probe further to find out what the money does for the person. It’s not usually the money but what the money can buy or do for the person that is the real motivating factor. This motivating factor beyond the money itself can be many things. A bass boat? Freedom? A new car? Prestige?) 93

How Do You Know if Your Team Is “Built”?

You can tell from a distance if a team is “built,” but first you have to understand what “built” means. Stand back, scan the team as a whole, and ask yourself these two questions:

• Have teammates adopted a specific shared direction?
• Is the entire team energized?

If the answer to both these question is “yes,” then you have been examining a “built” team. To achieve this status, it’s best to lay the foundation early. Start by asking yourself and fellow teammates, either individually or as a group, the following important questions. Each answer amounts to one step in a five-step process designed to determine the general orientation of a team.

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1. What is the team’s task? What has the team been formed to do? You can’t start managing direction and energy until the task has been established. Having a shared outcome (that’s articulated in such a way that no member can win until the team wins) may be the most important distinction between a workgroup and a team. Members are energized when they know they will win when the team wins.
2. What is the benefit to each team member for committing to the team’s work? Each member’s answer to this question is the source of his or her energy. And remember, a team performs to the level of its least invested member—not to the level of its most invested.
3. Are agreements in place that allow the team to operate rapidly and efficiently? Group velocity increases in direct proportion to group members’ confidence that they can interact with each other. Confidence soars when teammates see each other maintain the team’s integrity or “shape.” And confidence also contributes to energy.
4. Do team members share a goal that inspires them? Clear goals produce both energy and direction and are powerful tools requiring true lateral thinking.
5. Do we know what each member brings to the team? When teams inventory and honor what each member brings to the team, work can be distributed to everyone’s satisfaction, and, sometimes less than obvious talents can emerge in stunning ways. For example, only after landing a bank as a client did I learn that one of my colleagues worked as a teller in college. We were able to exploit her experience in early phases of our work. Such improvisation (situational use of resources) occurs frequently in high performance teamwork. Knowing what the team has to draw on allows team members to lean into their forward momentum.

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Personal Challenge

Close your eyes and bring to mind the profile of a team in which you are currently a member. Does this team exhibit clear direction? How about collective energy? Using the five-step Team Orientation Process described above as a diagnostic tool, pinpoint any orientation problems the team might have and resolve to address them this week.

Team Challenge

As a team, work through the Team Orientation Process, conversing about each question and resolving issues as they arise. The process may take place across a couple of meetings. This kind of examination should result in group momentum towards a specific goal. If not, revisit the Team Orientation Process until this momentum is achieved.

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Who Is the Most Powerful Member of Your Team?

Is the team leader the most powerful member of your team? Is the most inspired member the most powerful? The smartest member? Nope. None of the above. Like it or not, the most powerful member of your team is the one who cares the least about your team’s task. Sorry, but that’s the truth. The leastcommitted member of your team is the most powerful because his lack of commitment establishes a low baseline to which other team members may fall. The success—or mediocrity—of your team likely will be determined by him.

Does anyone not despise freeloaders? We have all worked with them. They are the folks who accept the rewards, but contribute 97minimally to the accomplishment of group tasks. Freeloading doesn’t often occur on self-managed teams because the team and the freeloader would reject each other. Freeloading can only happen where team membership is mandatory.

I’ve heard many people say they don’t let the freeloaders (least-committed people) bother them, that they ignore or work around them. Maybe it’s possible to do so in highly bureaucratic organizations, but in true team situations, such “safe” positioning costs everyone—sometimes a lot more than we want to admit.

In my experience, when a freeloader comes into a team and can’t be rejected because of bureaucratic policy, the other hardworking members of the team immediately and drastically reduce their work level and channel their attention and commitment to other parts of their lives. Why? Because it’s human nature to want to maximize our efforts. Especially as time becomes limited, each of us wants to apply our attention to that which will produce the greatest results. Whether we say it aloud or not, everyone knows that freeloaders leverage our efforts downward, not upward.

The uncomfortable truth is this: Teams will perform to the level of their least-invested coworker. Smart team leaders and savvy team members appreciate this principle and address motivation issues early, directly, and regularly. To do less may seem easier, but in the long run it could cause the demise of the team.

Personal Challenge

Think about your team, ranking the members from most to least motivated. Ask yourself who most influences the commitment level of the team. If this person is leveraging the productivity of the team downward, ask yourself if this is acceptable. Here’s a key: If you or others grumble or complain about a freeloader, it’s likely that this person’s motivation level is not acceptable. See what you can do to increase this person’s 98commitment to the team. Start by finding out how you can frame the team’s work in terms of what motivates the noncommitted person.

Team Challenge

No matter how high the overall commitment of the team might be, someone in every team exhibits the least commitment. Without stigmatizing any one person, acknowledge this and discuss the following questions with your team:

• Which one of us has the least to gain from our team’s success and is, therefore, the least motivated?
• What can we do to raise this person’s motivation?
• Now, who is the next least committed… ?

Consensus

The word “consent” and the word “consensus” have the same root. What some people love and others hate about the process 99of consensus building is that it requires participants to seek each group member’s sincere consent to move forward. My definition of consensus is 100-percent agreement to move forward together.

Why is consensus important to a high-performing team?

First, a high-performing team is measured by energy and direction. Without consensus, a group has no shared direction. Without consensus, people work literally at cross-purposes, canceling out each other’s efforts, instead of amplifying each other’s efforts.

Second, when groups pursue a direction determined by majority or authority, those who dissent (either vocally or silently) can lose energy. They lose their commitment.

Third, the effect of low commitment on teams is dramatic. As discussed in the previous section, when low commitment is present, it will always be more infectious than high commitment. The majority may “win” but the dissenters drain needed energy away from the “winners.”

People with TeamWisdom know what to do when there is a difference of opinion in a team. They silence the majority and ask dissenters, “How can we change this proposal so it works for you?” Then they listen. Usually dissenters will accept the responsibility to move the group forward and will help modify the proposal so that it works for everybody. If they are not given a voice, however, this cannot happen.

The key to consensus building is steering the discussion away from “right versus wrong” arguments. Use language that doesn’t vilify dissenters, such as “That works for me,” or “That doesn’t work for me.” And, above all, keep asking the group, “What could move us forward together?”

The real value of consensus decision-making is that it creates shared direction and high energy on a team, and isn’t that how we want our teams to perform? 100

Personal Challenge

When you hear the word “consensus,” what comes to mind? Quick decision-making? Or belabored discussion? In your past team decision-making experiences, what was the level of your team’s commitment when the team moved forward by consensus? Commit to build consensus on your next team by asking the dissenters, “How can we change this proposal so that it works for you?”

Team Challenge

Create a consensus continuum similar to the one below. Then, when someone makes a significant proposal effecting everyone in the team, take a quick poll of each individual. Ask teammates to rank their level of agreement from 1 to 5:

1. Unqualified yes. Move forward.
2. Perfectly acceptable. Move forward.
3. I can live with the decision of the group. Move forward.
4. I trust the group and will not block this decision, but I need to register my disagreement. Move forward.
5. I think more work is needed before deciding. Do not move forward.
6. I do not agree and feel the need to stand in the way of adopting this decision. Do not move forward.

The usual (almost always harmful) way groups make decisions is that the majority beats-up the minority until the minority withdraws. The majority then identifies this withdrawal as consent. The point of the exercise above is to include dissenters in the group. Inclusion gives dissenters a voice, which is always better than no voice at all. 101

Fast Consensus

Some people report a strong distaste for consensus. They think it takes too much time. Group members always polarize on issues, these people say. Group members threaten to use veto power when they don’t achieve their individual purposes, they add. I find these behaviors distasteful too, I have to admit. They devour time and really sap energy.

We can short-circuit this kind of behavior, however, and put into place processes that allow a team to arrive at decisions quickly. The following suggestions are designed to help teams achieve high-velocity decision-making:

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1. Consider more, rather than fewer, alternatives, and generate them together. Teams that move fast know that generating lots of alternatives actually clarifies decision-making. Trying to analyze only two or three alternatives can have the effect of focusing the team on making the “right decision.” All too often, the choice can appear to be between polar opposites resulting in paralysis instead of creative thought.
2. Involve more people and more points of view in the process. When a large number of participants are heard from, unique points of view emerge. This actually increases the probability of discovering creative and expansive alternatives.
3. Communicate and integrate with other parts of the organization. Teams that move fast invite other departments to participate in their planning. By coordinating in real-time with other departments, team members can avoid having to play catch-up. An added bonus is that other departments may actually suggest new and better solutions.
4. Draw on the wisdom of “gray-hairs.” Teams that move fast check their thinking with mentors and coaches whose experience, intuition, and situational knowledge help the team make smart choices.
5. The secret to making quick team decisions is to establish the importance of collective action. To fast teams, getting a result and learning from it together is more important than being right. Fast teams also make sure that everyone is heard, especially minority views. A smart, consensus-focused leader will build-in time for hearing minority voices, and then, if a consensus doesn’t emerge in a reasonable amount of time, the leader calls for group action on the alternative with the best chance of succeeding.

Personal Challenge

Reflect on the way you make difficult decisions, both in your personal and professional lives:

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• Do you start with clarity of purpose?
• Do you generate multiple alternatives?
• Do you write down the alternatives?
• Do you involve others in clarifying the purpose or generating alternatives?
• Do you confer with mentors?

Team Challenge

Plan with your team the best way to include more voices in upcoming team decisions. Check first to be sure that you have a clear, shared team purpose. Discuss how more voices—not fewer—can actually help you move faster.

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Don’t Rely on a “Common Enemy” for a Sustainable Goal

Rallying a team to beat a “common enemy” is a frequent and intoxicating business tactic. It is also a cheap trick. What makes it cheap is that results are temporary and they commonly backfire in the end.

Leaders choose “common enemy” strategies because they (1) rapidly point people in a common direction and (2) excite people into action. And, yes, these are two critical measures for determining if your team is “built.” However, there can be dire and often unintended consequences for achieving these ends using a “common enemy” tactic. The two largest risks stem from the “us-versus-them” context:

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1. Us-versus-them creates impermeable boundaries and halts the information flow in and out of a team. How? The energizing fear of suspicion and paranoia clamps off communication. People evaluate all others as either “for us, or against us,” so anyone not obviously in the team is assumed to be the enemy. Even loyal team members who operate on the boundary can become mistrusted and accused of treason, due to low visibility within the team.
2. Us-versus-them focuses on a “surrogate” outcome instead of a genuine achievement. How so? While win/lose is an intoxicating game, it is possible to beat a “common enemy” without adding an ounce of value to your customer or improving your score. Indeed, “common enemy” strategies often employ unethical marketing, corporate politics, and even espionage to facilitate winning. Such tactics elevate the status of the competitor, making the competitor the “king” instead of the customer.

Need an example? During the 1970’s, Ford, GM, and Chrysler each had stated missions to “beat the other two.” They then beat on each other while others stole the market out from under them all. During the 1980’s, the semiconductor research and development consortium SEMATECH was created by the U.S. semiconductor industry to “beat Japan” by regaining lost market share. Then, four years after it declared success, the consortium continued to wrestle with an unclear identity while it began exploring a new mission.

Which alignment and empowerment strategies really work? Leaders with strong TeamWisdom reach beyond “common enemies” for a lasting goal that expands opportunity and wellbeing at every level of an organization. It’s okay to use a “common enemy” as a launch pad. Then, when you have identified a common enemy, it’s time to ask, “What about this race is so important that we and our competitor(s) are both in it?” Other questions should occur to you shortly thereafter: “What customer benefits lie beyond the us-versus-them-battle?” And, “What sustainable team purpose stands on the other side of this competition?”

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If you will reach just a bit farther, your search is sure to uncover a larger and more expansive goal for your team—one which supplies ample direction and energy without the risks of beating out a “common enemy.”

Personal Challenge

Reflect on your team experiences. Try to get underneath the hype and determine which of your past experiences was actually fueled by the goal of beating a “common enemy?” List other teams, companies, and communities that exist to beat an enemy. How long have they been in practice? How much longer do you expect them to last until they will need a new “enemy?” What larger goal might give them more power?

Team Challenge

Discuss with your team whether you are unified around beating a common enemy? If so, identify the unintended negative consequences to the team’s interaction. Brainstorm goals beyond the “common enemy” tactic. What might be an alternative, unifying goal?

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Reorient the Relationship for Renewed Direction and Energy

When productivity begins to lag, it’s a good time to reorient the relationship.

The change of a calendar year, the end of a fiscal quarter, or the completion of a project phase can all be auspicious times to acknowledge that continued investment is required if work relationships are to continue growing. So can the failure of a critical technology, a change in personnel or budget, or a shift in the scope of a project. When a team crosses one of these thresholds, one of my favorite “maintenance” tools is what I call the Reorientation Process. Assembling all the players for a reorientation is a powerful way to acknowledge that all productive relationships go through periods of being highly aligned and in synch as well as periods of being out of alignment.

However, the best time to reorient a team is any time you notice that the sense of shared direction has been lost or that energy has decreased. With practice you will find it isn’t difficult to determine when a team has lost its orientation. A team is oriented when everyone has the same understanding of the what, the why, the how and the who of the project. If team members have different ideas about the what, the why, and the 108how, and the who of the project, you can bet that the team is not operating optimally.

The Reorientation Process is simply a way of getting the team members back on track. To orient or reorient a work team, gather the players together and ask each of them to articulate their views on the following:

• The What. What has the team been formed to do?
• The Why. Why are we here, and more importantly, why are you (the individual team member) here? What is in it for you to be on this team?
• The How. How are we supposed to do the work we were formed to do? What are our team rules and agreements?
• The Who. Who is doing what? What does each of the team members bring to the group in terms of skills and responsibilities?

In my experience, when teams get out of synch, committed members get stuck pushing harder and harder on the content of the team’s work. They may not even notice that the team has lost energy and direction. When this happens (and it may happen several times in the life of a team), I like to say “It’s always a good time to reorient.”

Personal Challenge

Reflect on times when your team has experienced a severe lull or even a breakdown. What precipitated it, an external or internal event? How did your team reorient and move forward again? What would you do differently next time?

Team Challenge

Gather the players together and engage in the Reorientation Process as articulated above. When all team members have 109been heard, ask the group to craft a clear team goal, one that has meaning for everyone. This will refuel the group so it can accomplish what it was formed to do. You can tell when people are getting back on track because you can see, hear, and feel their energy increase as the direction comes back into focus.

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