Lead a winning team

Recently, an article from NY Times highlighted Google’s Project Aristotle – a project set out to understand great teams and to leverage findings to improve team performance.  Several years of data collection, the conclusions were that teams worked better when they were connected at a deeper level by being more open to each other, allowing everyone to contribute their talents, and creating a safe haven for everyone to take risks. 

These conclusions should not be a surprise to anyone because we were put into teams since we were very young.  By the time we enter the workforce as professionals, we would have had countless hours of working in teams for sports, games, homework assignments, volunteering, or just plain ganging up on our older siblings.  Given today’s culture, our children are likely to have been immersed in squad-based video game campaigns or teaming up in MMOs.  So with all the tens of thousands of hours experience in teaming, why is it something that Google and others are still trying to improve? 

I believe team performance is challenged by egos and cultures. Teams are made up of individuals who inherently bring their own egos (and personalities), agendas (needs), values and beliefs to the table.  Individuals also bring their own cultural differences inherited from their diverse backgrounds including where they were born, where they grew up, and where they’ve worked.   These two factors play heavily on how individuals will behave on the team.  I do not think there is a proverbial “cool-aid” that you can give to everyone that will make them all fall in line.  Rather, I believe the answer to leading higher performing teams is helping individuals to learn how to flex their egos and cultures so that they achieve balance between their individual diversity and team success. 

In my experiences, the best teams that I worked with were definitely ones that had a solid identity and purpose, invested in each other’s success, and shared a comradery.

Team identity and purpose – At Superbowl XXXVI, the New England Patriots shocked the American Football community and fans by taking the field as a team rather than being announced as individuals.  They understood that their strength was in unity and the collective talents of the entire team versus a few individuals.  When a team sheds the egos of its individuals and summit to a single identity and purpose, they are more likely to achieve the team’s goals and objectives. 

As a team leader or member, you should think about how you can help the team gain alignment on its identity and purpose.  A popular past time for Americans is engaging in Team Trivia Night at a local pub.  The first task for any team is to come up with a fun team name.  This immediately creates an identity for the team that they can rally around throughout the evening.  I have been part of project teams who established vision, mission statements, and team norms from the get go, and periodically revisited them to ensure everyone remains aligned with the purpose of the team.  You can also leverage team-based competition to create greater employee engagement, and better performance at the workplace.  For example, you can award teams for having the fewest defects or accidents, highest sales, greatest number of lead generations, etc.

Focus on each other’s success – In 2007-2008 NBA Season, the Boston Celtics under the coaching of Doc Rivers adopted an African philosophy known as "Ubuntu" which means "all humanity is connected through a universal bond of sharing."  The basketball team acquired two super stars to complement their own, thus creating an era known as the ‘Big 3.’  Instead of the normal period of “storming,” where individual egos clash when a new team is formed, the team accelerated to “performing” quickly and won the Championship that year by adopting the Ubuntu philosophy of selflessly working as a team. 

As a team leader, you should think about how you are motivating your team.  Are you incentivizing the right behaviors to encourage teaming and selflessness?  Do you curtail behaviors that take away from teaming?  How are you establishing a culture of diversity and inclusion and lifting as you climb?  I’ve facilitated team meetings where we used penalty cards to call out bad behaviors and assigned each person to lead a topic so everyone took a turn in the conversation.

Shared comradery – The book, “The Teammates, A Portrait of a Friendship” by David Halberstam details a 60 plus year friendship between four iconic baseball players of the Boston Red Sox.  The book describes the close friendships between the baseball players that extended well beyond the years when they played as teammates on the field.

The major reason that drives me to be more connected to my team is the depth of my relationships with the other team members.  As a team lead, I often gave ample time for my virtual team to bond in our team meetings through provocative ice breakers.  Sometimes, we would spend extra time on them and did not get to other agenda topics.  I was ok with that because I saw the power of that connection.  When team members opened up about themselves during our regular ice-breakers, it invited others to do the same.  The emotional level of that openness affected how they treated one another.  They were nicer.  They were more comfortable in speaking up, sharing their ideas, and taking risks.  They were less self-oriented.  They wanted each other to succeed.  We sustained these relationships by making sure that we spend time socially together when we are in the same location.  So as a team leader, I encourage you to create opportunities for your team members to connect and bond.  

Thank you for entertaining me as I shamelessly plugged three of the four Boston major sports franchises to illustrate my points.  Apologies to the Boston Bruins hockey team for not getting to your winning ways.  Sports is an easy target for highlighting teams that work well.  Boston sports teams are well known for winning championships.  There are also plenty of examples in sports of egos and cultural differences getting in the way of a team’s success.  Boston teams are no exception to that fact.  When the good things about a team are not sustained, it is very possible for a team to go from being first in league in one season and then becoming the worst in the next.  So as a team leader, you will need to think about ways to sustain the commitment, selflessness, and comradery of your team.

Thank you for reading this post.  As always, please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments and share with your networks if you found it to be useful.

Stay Cheesy,

The Rambunctious Rat

Stop scheduling appointments, start scheduling your life

Sometimes it feels like we are not in control of our schedules.  Whether you are leading a Fortune 500 company or balancing life as a stay home mom, your calendars can quickly fill up until it looks like a giant multi-colored quilt.  There was a time when my calendar was filled with back-to-back 30 min meetings days and many of the blocks were triple or double booked and I would have to decide how to split my time.  I thought nothing of it until one morning when Siri pointed out that I had busy day because I had 16 appointments on my calendar.  I took a bigger gulp of my coffee after hearing that news.

There were so many bad things that came with the situation.  I was not necessarily productive because I was multi-tasking at many of the meetings to complete action items for the next meeting.  I was often late for meetings because the previous meeting ran over.  Eating and bio-breaks were a luxury.  Worst of all, I was not enjoying my life.  I dreaded getting up in the morning to go to work.  Two things happened that made me pivot and start to wrestle the control of my calendar back.  

The first incident happened right before Christmas 2012.  I was in the middle of a seventeen back-to-back 30-minute meeting day and happened to grab my phone to look at it.  I realized in a panic I had missed multiple texts and voice mails from my wife.  Her OB/GYN wanted to admit her to the hospital because our baby was showing signs of being born two months early.  I knew I needed to go to the hospital and I stared at the remaining 9 meetings on my calendar and started to stress out.  Fortunately, I was in a meeting with some very close colleagues who immediately ordered me to leave.  They promised to cover for me for the remainder of the day.  After I got off the phone, I spent all of five minutes to arrange for my absence from those remaining meetings and left for the hospital.  Although we spent Christmas Eve at the hospital, the doctors were able to keep my son at bay and he was born two months later.  While I was on paternity leave, I reflected back to that day and the ease with which I was able to rearrange my commitment at the last minute.  I started to wonder whether or not it was important for me to be in all those meetings.

The second thing that changed my "outlook" was that I was the fortunate recipient of executive coaching.  One of the things I discovered from the experience was that everyone knew I was very busy but nobody fully understood what I was working on and why.  The priority for all my meetings and actions were unclear to my others.  We evaluated my calendar and identified a number of activities that were not low impact distractions, and nice-to-haves.  My coach taught me one very important lesson.  He taught me to use my calendar to schedule my life.

Here are a few "work hacks" I learned to do with my calendar:

1.    Prioritize meetings – look at all of the meetings that you are attending and evaluate it against strategic priorities that you are accountable for delivering.  Make sure the appropriate amount of time is spent for priority meetings.  Get rid of low impact or no impact meetings.  If a standing meeting is often cancelled or has become staled, then decrease their frequency.  Manage your acceptances so that it empowers delegation for development rather than micromanagement.  You should also assess who else were invited to the meeting.  My peers and I showed up to many of the same meetings.  Eventually, we divvied up the meetings so that we would have a more appropriate level of coverage and less meetings to attend. 

2.    Schedule time for prep and action – what you do before and in between meetings matter.  If you show up at every meeting unprepared and without accomplishing your assignment from previous meetings, then that unreliability will become your brand and affect the level of trust others place on you.  So when you are creating an appointment, you should also block off time to prepare for it and perform action items after.  I have found blocking off an hour at the beginning and at the end of every day to be a good solution to ensure I prep for my meetings and knock out quick action items.

3.   Disrupt and develop – I met a young singer who competed on American Idol.  She told me about her hectic week and she was sad because she had no time to be an artist and create.  I told her, “Sometimes, you need to take a look at your schedule and see how much time you are spending on things that others want you to do versus doing things that you want to do and make more time for the latter.”   It is useful to make sure that you have time in your calendar once a month that is spent to disrupt regularly scheduled programs.  Spend the time being creative or developing new perspectives.  This will drive your own growth and innovation. 

4.    Schedule quarterly personal Town Hall’s – you should block off time on a quarterly basis to run a personal “Town Hall” where you assess your progress against priorities, document and share the value of your accomplishments, and determine how prepared you are for the remainder of the journey.  This is good to do with your team and your peers, so that everyone feels appreciated for their hard work and are rejuvenated for what comes next.

5.    Schedule time for relationship management – you need to make time for the people that matter.  Relationships are driven by frequency and richness of interactions.  Take time to reach out to your clients, mentors, sponsors, and protégés.  Make the time about them rather than you and you will earn their support and trust.

6.     Don’t forget about yourself – We know we are hurting ourselves by not taking breaks, inhaling food on mute, and not being active.  I have worked with people who manage their health by making sure they block off time for family time, working out and eating meals.  Make sure that your vacations are scheduled well in advance so everyone else around you will plan accordingly and you can truly unplug and unwind.

By taking control of your calendar, you can be more present, productive, and prioritized.  Stephen Covey's "Big Rocks of Life" analogy is great for thinking about how to manage your calendar.  Make sure you get those big rocks on your calendars first.  The last thing I will say on the topic is that you should also pay forward and do not become a burden on someone else’s calendar.  Invite only the people you need to a meeting and be sure that they understand how it fits with their priorities and what is expected from their participation so they can prepare for it appropriately.

That’s it from me for this post.  As always, please comment with your experiences and if you liked what I had to say, please share with your networks.

Stay Cheesy,

The Rambunctious Rat