LESSON 1 of 5

What Is a Team?
If your organization is like most, it relies heavily on teams to achieve critical objectives.
Discover what a team is—and when you need to build one.

"Team" defined

A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a:
 Common purpose
 Shared set of goals
 Work approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable
How teams differ from work groups
*
The word team is often used loosely; a manager might refer to a work group as a team—and vice versa.
But there are differences between teams and work groups, as shown below.

 Reporting structure Work group Team

Leadership role Strong, clearly focused leader Shared leadership roles
Accountability Individual Individual and mutual
Purpose Same as broader organizational Specific team purpose that the
mission team itself delivers on
Work products Individual Collective
 Performance assessment
Decision making
Effectiveness measured
indirectly by group’s influence
on the organization—such as
contributing to its financial
performance
Boss discusses issues with work
group, decides, and delegates
Effectiveness measured directly
by assessment of collective
work products
The team discusses issues,
decides, and does real work
together

When you need a team

You’ll want to build a team if you face any of these conditions:
 The task is complex. With highly complex tasks, no one person has exactly the right
combination of knowledge, expertise, and perspective needed to handle the entire job.
EXAMPLE

A number of individuals are charged with developing products for new markets in an organization that
wants to expand globally. An enormous amount of information must be gathered, including data on
consumer preferences, competitors’ activities, and available suppliers in the new markets. Since the
markets are untested, the outcome is highly uncertain. The people involved have to manage multiple
subtasks that call for specialized skills and knowledge, such as analyzing supply chain issues and
interpreting trends in consumer behavior. And because the markets are new, the organization has not
established a standardized procedure for completing the task.
 Task components are highly interdependent. The more interdependent a task’s
components are, the more you need a team. That's because the work can be completed
only if multiple individuals collaborate together.
EXAMPLE

To design the interior of the new vehicles developed by their organization, electrical engineers must
coordinate with ergonomics experts to identify the best locations for lighting and electrical features. And
seat designers need to draw on materials specialists’ expertise to ensure durability, safety, and comfort.
 The task is non-routine and of limited duration. A team can focus on a unique,
limited-duration task for the specified time span and then disband.
EXAMPLE

Several unit leaders in a medical-services organization team up to explore the possible benefits of
adopting a radical new imaging technology. They present their findings to executives, then they disband.

Benefits and challenges of teams

 Teams can help you...

  Generate creative solutions to problems
 Improve communication and collaboration throughout your enterprise
 Create a motivating, collegial work environment
 Enhance organizational performance
 Foster effective sharing of information across the company

But..

 Setting up a team with the right leadership, resources, and personnel takes time and skill
 Team effort and collaboration demand continual tending
 There's a risk that team members won't join together around a common goal
 Personal differences or members’ self-interests could undermine the collaboration needed for
success
T O OL

Types of teams
Most teams can be classified in one of three ways: *
 Teams that recommend things. These teams include task forces, project groups, and
audit, quality, or safety groups that study and solve particular problems.
 Teams that make or do things. These teams include people at or near the front lines
responsible for handling value-adding activities in an organization; for example, basic
manufacturing, product development, operations, marketing, sales, and customer service.
 Teams that run things. These teams oversee a business, an ongoing program in an
organization, or significant functional activity within the organization.

Virtual teams: The new normal

 Today, many teams are partially or entirely virtual. That is, members rarely meet face to face as
a whole because they’re geographically dispersed or some members telecommute.
 Virtual teams offer important benefits. For one thing, with virtual teams working literally
around the world, a company can stay open 24 hours a day. In addition, virtual teams make it
easier for organizations to bring together a diverse group of people with varying skills,
experiences, and knowledge about customers and business.
 Virtual teams present challenges as well. If you’re leading a partially or entirely virtual team, you
need to figure out how to apply what you know about managing teams to coordinating virtual
work. You also need to determine which tools will best enable you to keep team members
 connected, communicating, and collaborating.

Many teams are supported by a team sponsor—a manager or executive who champions
the team’s efforts. This person endorses the team’s goals and is committed to seeing its
work delivered on time, within budget, and at the optimum level of quality.

A team sponsor:
 Has a stake in the team’s outcome and is accountable for the team's performance
 Has the authority to define the scope of the team’s work, provide necessary resources,
and approve or reject the team’s output
 Is committed to the team's success
 Acts as the team's patron—providing resources, encouraging the team, and promoting its
effort's value to higher management
EXAMPLE

Mel is the director of a community development organization. He has concerns about the quality of its
press releases and the accuracy of newspaper reports describing the organization's activities and views.
He knows the organization needs a consistent, unified communications strategy. At Mel's suggestion,
several people volunteer to form a communications team. They select a team leader and then develop
and execute a communications strategy.

Team sponsor’s to-do list

 Ensure that the team’s progress is communicated to the rest of the organization and, in particular,
to the leadership.
  Ensure that senior management supports the team’s decisions and direction.
 Be alert to any change in organizational objectives that may affect the team’s charter.
 Remember that some managers will not want their employees to split their time between team
duties and regular assignments. Work with these managers to smooth over any difficulties.

Team leaders

A team leader communicates team status and participates in project management activities
with team members.
Team leaders are like managers in some ways. For example, they:
 Initiate processes that promote team development and performance
 Model desired behaviors
 Coach team members to help them improve their performance
 Pitch in by also serving as a working member of the team
But team leaders also differ from managers in some ways. In particular, team
leaders don’t direct and schedule team members’ work.
To carry out your many responsibilities as a team leader, you need the ability to set a
direction that others will follow, as well as good communication skills and a talent for giving
and receiving feedback. You also need high performance standards, a positive attitude
toward team-based work, and experience in working as part of a team.

Team leader’s to-do list

 Regularly communicate progress and problems to the team sponsor.
 Frequently assess team progress, members’ outlook, and members’ perspectives on their
contributions.
 Make sure everyone contributes and everyone’s voice is heard.
 Do a share of the work.
 Resist any urge to act like a boss.
Be Less of a Boss and More of a Coach
Adjust your leadership style to match what your team needs in order for them to succeed.

I learned a valuable lesson on a project where I was asked to come in and be the boss for a team that
was putting together a series of digital videos for a prominent client. They were a young team, very
capable at what they did, knowledgeable. But they were also accustomed to functioning in a startup
and therefore weren't used to having a manager around.
So early on into the project, I started to get signals that there were different levels of expectation and
understanding about how teams typically work, seasoned teams work. So, for example, I realized in
meetings that the team wasn't accustomed to structuring them, to making formal introductions
between their team and the client team, and making sure that roles were clearly defined and so forth
so that team members could seek each other out.
I realized that when I started talking about putting some standard project management tools in
place, they didn't know what they were, for example. So I realized that I needed to adjust my style.
And instead of taking a more directive role, I chose to take a coaching approach where I would try to
empower the team members to get the tasks done that they needed to.
So there was one example, in particular, that was noteworthy, where we were coming perilously close
to missing our launch date when we would be delivering the first set of videos to the client. And this
would have been unfortunate both in terms of the confidence of the client and also in terms of
setting back the schedule for the entire project.
So I sat down with the technical lead and discussed with him the options he had for addressing the
situation, the pros and cons, the options, the expected outcomes of each one with the thought that
these would give him some tools and options to choose from. And then he would go forward and
pursue the one that he thought would most likely succeed.
So it worked. And we were able to make our deadline, which was a great relief. And the project
continued along. And the client was quite pleased in the end, which, of course, is what you want.
But it was also rewarding in the end to me, on a couple of levels. One was that the team expressed to
me that they'd love to work with me again, which is, of course, gratifying under any circumstance.
But in this case, it was particularly so because I realized that I had learned a new way to interact with
a team, one that shifted from a more authoritative, directive role to one where I was coaching more,
and was more collaborative, and empowered the team members. And that was really a satisfying
lesson for me, an important role for me to remember as I move forward in other projects.

LESSON 2 of 5

Form a Team
Forming a great team isn't easy. You have to clarify the team's purpose and recruit people with
the right skills to fulfill that purpose.

Define your purpose

The best teams invest a tremendous amount of time and effort exploring, shaping, and
agreeing on a purpose that belongs to them collectively and individually.
EXAMPLE

Your organization has recently announced a new strategic effort to boost customer intimacy. You
head up a customer service team, and you and the team meet to discuss ways in which you can
support the overall strategy. You decide that the team will focus on a specific purpose over the
coming year: reengineering the entire customer service process.

Translate purpose into goals

Define Team Goals by Thinking SMART

The best teams translate their common purpose into specific performance goals. For
example:
EXAMPLE

"Through successful reengineering of the customer service process, we’ll achieve these goals by
year-end:
 95% of incoming customer calls will be handled by a single service representative,
 80% of all calls will be resolved in three minutes or less."

Tips for defining team goals

 Make sure team goals are SMART—specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, time-limited.
For example:
EXAMPLE

"Reduce order-processing errors from 25% to 10% by year-end."

 Explain how each team goal supports an organizational goal. For example:
 EXAMPLE

"Reducing order-processing errors from 25% to 10% by year-end will help our company achieve its
objective of providing top-quality customer service."
 Establish interim milestones for each goal. For example:

EXAMPLE

"Reduce order-processing errors from 25% to 20% by end of first quarter; reduce errors from 20% to
15% by end of second quarter; and reduce errors from 15% to 10% by end of fourth quarter."

The Foundation of Great Teamwork

1. Define shared goals
2. Establish trust and respect
3. Keep Hierarchy out of conversation

How to set the stage for exceptional teamwork? Define shared goals, establish trust and respect, and
keep hierarchy out of team conversations.

Individuals aren’t the work unit anymore. Teams are. A team leader’s job is to understand everyone’s
strengths, to make sure that all voices are being heard, and to guide the group to the right decisions.
But you can only do this if you set the foundation for great teamwork. In my job as a senior talent
and organization management consultant, I tell executives to start by explaining and modeling these
three ground rules.
The first, shared goals. Everyone wins and loses together. You should involve everyone in upfront
planning to define what is critical to success. Ask teammates to use their own words to describe
what’s at stake and listen for gaps in understanding and work to bridge them. I recently worked with
a leader of a Fortune 500 company whose initiative was falling apart. When we took the time to ask
each individual what they were driving for, we found out it was different for each person. We needed
to stop and make sure everyone had the same goal, so that they were motivated to cross the finish
line together.
The second ground rule is to establish trust and respect. You need a safe environment to have a
productive exchange. You should highlight the value of everyone’s contribution and each member’s
strengths. Don’t just talk about what gets accomplished; call out how it was accomplished.
And last, keep hierarchy out of conversations. Don’t defer to the senior people. Everyone is an equal
team player. I like to challenge managers to listen more. I know it’s difficult. During your next staff
meeting, try listening most of the time. You ask questions to facilitate team conversation, rather than
directing it. Celebrate fresh ideas from everyone. Rotate roles in meetings to allow everyone a
chance to lead.

In summary, the key to building high-performing teams is to establish shared goals, build an
environment of trust and respect, and break down hierarchy in your conversations. And don’t forget to
have fun.

Identify needed skills

Look at the task your team will be handling, as well as the team’s purpose and goals. Ask
yourself which skills are needed to perform the task and fulfill the purpose and goals.
Examples of skills include:
 Technical—expertise in specific areas, such as market research, finance, and software
programming
 Problem-solving—ability to analyze difficult situations and craft solutions that others
may not see
 Interpersonal—the capacity to work effectively with others
 Organizational—understanding the organization’s political and logistical landscape, and
forming networks of contacts throughout the organization
 Communication—the ability to effectively and efficiently exchange information and
listen to others

Recruit the right skills

 The heart of any team is its members. So you need to bring together the right
people with the right skills.
 A team can gather its members in a number of ways. A team sponsor or leader may
select members and invite them to participate. Individuals who feel highly invested
or interested in the work may step forward and offer to become members. Or people
with an interest in the project nominate individuals who have the right skills and in
whom they have confidence.

Tune into the Skills Your Team Offers

Discover the power of the Platinum Rule—treat others as they would like to be treated.

In delegating, we have the short game of delegating, which is getting things done in two months.
Then we have the long game in delegating. And that is really two things. The first one is job
accumulation. If you're a high-potential, you're getting the work—and more and more of it. So you
could be getting 20%, 30% more every year. So what are you going to do with that? Who are you
going to give it to? How are you going to decide?
Very often what happens is people feel guilty about delegating. Why is that? You make an
assumption that what is no fun for you is no fun for someone else. That's the Golden Rule. The
Golden Rule is treat others as you would want to be treated. Well, that's wrong. What you want to do
is get to the Platinum Rule—treat others as they would like to be treated. So if there's one part of
your job that is your sour spot, there's a very good chance that it's somebody else's sweet spot.
I was working with the team in marketing and the head of the team was fantastic at magic, terrible at
logic. Really could get the sense of where people are going—tremendous ad campaigns. But when it
came to kind of the nuts and bolts of marketing, not so good. So what he did is he really looked for
someone who loved that. He now actually found two people who are fantastic people, who execute
at the drop of a hat. But they couldn't come up with a marketing campaign at the drop of a hat. So
what he didn't love, others do.
But then it became clear is, that needed to happen with the whole team. So everyone really thought
about: “What is it that they loved? What is it that they hated?” And they started shifting the jobs
around. And when a new person was coming on board, they would know, “We need logic and
execution.” And so that person would come on board. Now that person would not be great at
developing the marketing campaigns, and the brilliance, and the magic. So the team really worked
on balancing it out.
And over three years, they went from number 93 to number eight, to number one in the world.
Because they got that right. And the leader of the team delegated out his job, did so with the
Platinum Rule, and the team thrived. And what's really wonderful is in their sense of real diversity,
they all truly appreciate one another. And they also keep on growing, continuing to see what does
each one love, what does each one not love. And see how they can disperse the tasks and be a
sustainable and successful team.

Recruit the right motivations

To determine whether a person will make a good addition to your team, consider his or her
motivations for participating. Good team members have one motivation: to help the team
achieve its goals.
Team members with the wrong motivations could hurt your team’s performance.
EXAMPLE

Suppose you're assembling a team whose mission is to reengineer your organization’s order-
fulfillment process. Sally, who’s in charge of documenting orders, volunteers for the team because
she believes that her status in the organization will suffer if the team overhauls that process. Her
motivation is self-protection, not the team's success. So she'll likely add little value to the team.

Hiring a Top Team

Harness collective intelligence into a team that can really work together.
So this was a very difficult period for Pace when I first joined. The company was in crisis. So on the
one hand, we were trying to manage the financials of the company and make sure we had enough
cash to continue to trade and make payroll. At the same time, I had to build a new team.
This is when chief executives start to earn their money. Because on the one hand, they have to
manage that, and on the other, they have to be selling the vision to shareholders, to staff, to
customers, to suppliers. And also, when you want to start to try and hire real talent into the
company, how do you do it on such a backdrop? So we had to be very clear that I was serious about
the vision and that the people I was trying to hire understood the opportunity.
The other thing, to build a great team, there's no point putting people around you that are worse
than you. You have to bring in people that are better than you-- better in their areas of discipline,
and who can bring a whole new view to the group, so that you get the harness of a team. That's what
a team is about. It's about bringing in and harnessing more talent that can give you a better result
and better decisions.
So I went about doing that. And so it's one thing to choose talent, but it's a team, so you have to
choose personalities that are going to give you spread. There's no point having personalities like
your own because then you've just got more of you. So you need people with different ways of
thinking--lateral thinkers, vertical thinkers, people who are more human, people who are operational.
So you need to choose that blend.
So I went out to find the right talent and the right people. Now, one of the things when you go out
to find great talent is they tend to be good leaders-- strong, opinionated people-- which is good and
a very healthy thing. The key is harnessing that into a team where they can really work together and
pull together. So they have to all buy into the vision, the culture, and the direction of where you're
going to start to make that happen.

But don't think this was an easy task. And again, as a chief executive, you've got to make some tough
decisions sometimes to make sure you put first and foremost the harmony of the team and the
team's capability of delivering, [rather] than the superstar individuals who cause disruption. So I had
one situation where two of the people that I trusted for delivery and absolute excellence, really didn't
get on very well. They were fighting. One didn't believe that they had the talent, the other one
believed they were empire building.
So what you do in that situation? So I sat them down and I said, "Right. Here's the thing. I absolutely
value both of you. The company is so much better with the pair of you here. But one of you is going
to have to go unless you figure out between you how to make this work.
Because from where I'm sitting, I have to have a team. But I love the pair of you, so you need to sort
it out."
And they did. And not only did they sort it out, they work extremely well together because the one
who thought the other one wasn't talented realized that he was, and the other one who thought he
was empire building realized that he wasn't. And now we have a very strong team.
At the same time, one of the people that I hired, he never made it. He didn't turn out to have the
talent. Now in some organizations, the chief executive might feel, "Well, I brought him in, I'm going
to look a bit foolish if I then let him go." But that had to be done because it sent the right message
to the company--that the team is the most important thing, and that we will only have the best
people working in the organization.
And the results that we had from then afterwards, across the organization, in motivating staff was
extremely strong. And in the staff satisfaction survey the top marks are usually given to the executive
team because people trust them and rate them because they're passionate and lead in a very good,
solid way.

Recruit team players

Members of an effective team put the team first, rather than trying to stand out as top
individual performers. Team players:
 Generate creative ideas. Team players work to understand more about their
teammates' expertise and knowledge. That way, they can combine their perspectives and
generate creative ideas.
 Share what they know. Team players have a lot to offer—including information,
experience, and specialized know-how. The more they share these offerings, the more
value they help generate in your team. They can share what they know by teaching, such
as providing a tutorial on using a groupware application. They can also share what they
know by providing relevant information, such as disclosing what they’ve learned about
customers and suppliers.
 Seek win-win solutions with teammates. Team players use constructive
communication to seek trade-offs to issues in ways that satisfy their own and other
members’ interests.
 Feel committed and enthusiastic. Before accepting an invitation to join or lead a team,
team players carefully consider their level of commitment. They know they can be
effective team players only if they’re fully committed to the team's goals. They also
consider their level of enthusiasm. When they're enthusiastic about the effort, they can
give it their full focus and energy.
 Are reliable. Good team players can be trusted to do their share of the work, do it well,
and get it done on time. They do what they say they'll do. And they can be counted on
even when things get tough.

LESSON 3 of 5

Establish Accountability
How to ensure that your team takes responsibility for generating results? Define what success
will look like. Create a schedule and budget. And develop a team charter and project plan.
Steps for establishing team accountability

Work with your team to establish accountability for achieving your goals by following these
steps:

Define success measures

Work with your team to identify a set of success measures—how you’ll know when the team
has met its goals. These measures will depend largely on the specific work your team will be
doing. And they will need to reflect the achievement of clear milestones on the road to the
team's goals.
EXAMPLE

A project team charged with moving the organization’s Web servers and databases to a new data
center adopts the following success measures:
 "Complete the job in 18 days or less."
 "Provide 99% error-free service after switchover to the new system."
 "Stay within initial budget."
Make your team’s success measures challenging but achievable. If these measures seem too
aggressive or unattainable, your team's morale could suffer.

Schedule the work

Scheduling consists of two steps:
1. Specify tasks. Identify all the major tasks and subtasks that the team needs to complete
in order to achieve its goals. Document the number of days required to complete each
subtask.
 Examples of specified tasks
Project goal: Move organization’s Web servers and databases to a new data center

Major task Subtasks Sub-subtasks Days required for sub-

subtasks
Obtain equipment Purchase 3 servers and Cut purchase order and 5
2 databases. submit to vendor.

Ship equipment to new

Alert data center that 2
data center. equipment is slated for
arrival.
Test equipment Test machines Ensure network 2
connectivity, database
access, and
functionality
2. Assign tasks. Determine which team members are best able to handle each task. Then
assign tasks accordingly. While assigning tasks, explain to team members how each task fits
with the team’s goals—and how team goals fit with higher-level organizational objectives. Also
give team members the authority and resources needed to complete each task assigned to
them.

Reorganize a Team for More Impact

Establish common goals and expectations for your team

My telephone rang one day with a call from a client who wanted me to help out with a project. They
wanted to consolidate 16 websites into one. They'd been working on this for a year and a half and
hadn't made much progress, so they asked me to come in and lead the team that would be designing,
building, and launching the website.

I was working with a team of 50 developers, and editors, marketers, operations folks. And I realized
soon after the project started that we needed to reorganize the team. I was getting 10% of this
developer’s time, 30% of that editor’s time, 20% of this marketer’s time. And I reorganized the team so
it had what's called “heavyweight structure,” and I was getting at least 50% of each team member’s
time. So now we had a dedicated team, and we had much more of their time, so we were able to make
faster progress.

I also put in place some very standard practices. We had weekly team meetings. I put in place a Gantt
chart, which was a one-page summary of all the key deliverables for the project and the associated time
line associated with each for completing them. I created a work plan that listed all the sub-tasks
associated with creating each deliverable. And I created an open task report where we kept track of
each of these tasks and the responsible party’s progress against it. And so if someone was falling behind
schedule, we knew about it and could work around it and so forth.
And I would say there was this collective sigh of relief when all these pieces fell into place. Because now
there was a common goal, there were common expectations. There was a sense that there were
interdependencies now among all the different team members, and so there was a higher level of
commitment now to the project.

So we worked together and were able to launch the site in six months, and the company was sold weeks
later, for over $1 billion. So it was rewarding to see that success rewarded with the acquisition of a
company, of course. But moreover, it was really satisfying to see how all these seemingly commonplace
tools could really catalyze a group and enable them to work more effectively together.

Develop a budget
Help your team create a budget showing how it expects to use the resources that have been
made available for its work. The budget indicates the cost of required resources and the
benefits the team expects to get from those resources.
Common cost categories in a budget include:
 Personnel
 Outside help, such as consultant fees
 Travel to meeting sites, customer facilities, benchmarking locations, or other destinations
 Training, such as workshops on the use of special software
 Capital expenditures for resources like team computers, software, and communications
 Research, such as studies or data the team needs to purchase to carry out its work

Create a team charter

A team charter is a concise written document that spells out the nature of the team’s work and
your expectations for the results.
A team charter includes:
 Relationship of the team’s work to unit or organizational goals
 Time frame
 Deliverables
 Benefits of the team’s work
 Resources available to the team
 Budget
 Decisions that the team has the authority to make

Create a project plan

An effective charter indicates the ends that the team will strive to achieve. But it doesn’t specify
the means. A project plan shows how you and your team will accomplish the team’s charter.
The project plan serves as a roadmap for the team and other interested parties by providing more
specific detail about:
 Tasks
 Milestones
 Deliverables
 Risks
 Timetables