Want a High Performance Team? Ditch Your Star

Many moons ago, I was a teenage university student, paying my tuition by working the graveyard shift at a grocery store.  One of the prime motivators of continuing to study hard year after year was so that I wouldn’t have to continue to work the graveyard shift at a grocery store.

Now that a few decades have elapsed, I have come to realize and appreciate the true value of this experience.  When we have assisted clients to implement high performance teams, I am often asked if I have ever been on one of those very special teams.  Then I tell the story about being on night-crew during university….

Interestingly, people are always trying to draw the connection between high-performing individuals and high performance teams.  When I tell people the link is not as strong as they might like to think, I am often greeted with confusion.

Here’s an ugly little truth:  Your star employees are often high-maintenance, and may do more long term damage than good.  Everyone knows the employee who can crank out the results, but leaves a wake of broken relationships and collateral damage behind.  She may produce a superior level of output for some period of time, but may adversely affect the output of others.

High Performance Teams exist where the interactions between team members are exceptionally functional.  A High Performance Team quite likely doesn’t have any stars, but rather group of competent performers who have found their groove in working together.   The success of your organization depends upon the number and quality of these B-players.

Back in the 1980s, in the middle of the night at a high-volume grocery retailer, our little team had no stars.  It was a group of guys who liked working together, had a very clear idea of what they were supposed to be doing, and relentless peer pressure to get things done properly.  Our output was almost double that of any comparable crew – and we had way more fun too.

The prescription for a High Performance Team is easy to understand.  Filling that prescription is much more difficult.

Micro-Managing: A Great Way to Get Fired

OK – we’ve all done it.  Decided to do something ourselves because its easier and faster than holding the appropriate person to account.  Maybe you’ve even done it with your children.  Micro-managing – the gift that keeps on destroying.

Every manager has been warned against this, so let’s look at why it happens, given the most common excuses most managers give for doing so:

It’s faster to do it myself.  It probably is faster… the first time.  But if you look at the amount of time it will take you to teach or correct someone else in the execution of a task, versus the amount of time it will take you to do it on an ongoing basis, the answer is clear.

I can do it better. You probably can… for a while.  However, if you insist on doing every individual task yourself, you will become quickly overwhelmed, and will end up doing some (high) proportion of those tasks poorly.

My people aren’t capable. If this is the case for any amount of time, you are clearly not doing your job as a manager.  It is your job to develop people.  Occasionally you truly don’t have the right talent, in which case you have to make changes to your talent bench.

I need to keep close to the details. Actually, you probably don’t.  As a manager, it is not your job to be expert at everything.  It’s your job to create experts, and be able to ask some semi-intelligent questions of them.

If I don’t do all these tasks, I won’t be useful anymore. Listen to yourself.  If you’re that insecure in your role as a leader, you need to examine whether you should be in a management role at all.

The bottom line is that micro-managers sap the productivity out of organizations by failing to capture the discretionary effort of their employees.  They don’t develop people, which is a primary function of a leader.  They also limit their own career mobility by trying to make themselves indispensible in the role they are in.

Micro-management is a self-destructive behaviour, and a great way to get fired.  Then you’ll have lot’s of time.

The Vision Statement

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Vision helps to define where the organization is headed.   The vision should paint a clear and compelling view of the future that helps everyone understand where the organization is headed and perhaps what it will be like once you’ve reached your desired state.   It must motivate, be ambitious and should stretch people to achieve more than they thought possible.

A clear vision is one that answers the question …Where are we headed?

Once you have your vision in place, then you can proceed with the strategies, plans and budgets to map out exactly how you will move ahead to realize the vision.

A clear vision has the potential to break through all the forces that support the status quo and encourage a true commitment by:

1.     CLARIFYING the general DIRECTION for the organization;

2.     MOTIVATING people to take ACTION in the right direction;

What Makes a Vision Great?

Clearly, some visions are better than others. Who can question the success of Bill Gates’ “A computer on every desktop” at Microsoft? This vision was successful because it possessed a set of characteristics shared by all great visions. Great visions are:

  • Imaginable – they convey a picture of what the future should look like.
  • Desirable – they appeal to the long-term interests of employees, customers, stockholders, and others who have a stake in the enterprise.
  • Flexible – they accommodate individual initiative and allow alternative responses in light of changing conditions.
  • Memorable – they communicate a message easily and are somehow ‘catchy’ or hard to forget?
What Works and What Doesn’t Work

What Works

  • Trying to see – literally – possible futures
  • Visions that are so clear they can be articulated in one minute or less
  • Vision statements that are creative and memorable.  It needs to be simple, yet catchy to make it stand out.  Think short, fun and to the point.

What Doesn’t

  • Assuming linear or logical plans and budgets alone adequately guide behavior when you’re trying to leap into the future
  • Overly analytic, financially based vision exercises
  • Giving fifty-four logical reasons why our future needs to look different than our past

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The Strategy Starter Kit includes:

  • Strategy Starter Kit Workbook (pdf, 40 pages) – A series of questions and fill-in-the-blanks that result in your completed Business Planning Document, containing aligned Mission, Vision, Strategies, Goals & Objectives, as well as a Sustainment Plan to ensure success.
  • ‘Aligning Vision, Mission & Goals’ Full-Length Video (approx. 15 minutes) – Audio (mp3) and Visual Slides (ppt) can be downloaded separately
  • ‘Aligning Vision, Mission & Goals’ Cheat Sheet (pdf, 1 page)
  • ‘Mission Statements’ Podcast + Podcast Slides (mp3, ppt)
  • ‘Mission Statements’ Cheat Sheet (pdf, 1 page)
  • ‘The Vision Statement’ Podcast & Podcast Slides (mp3, ppt)
  • ‘The Vision Statement’ Cheat Sheet (pdf, 1 page)
  • ‘SMART Goals and HARD Goals’ Podcast & Podcast Slides (mp3, ppt)
  • ‘SMART Goals and HARD Goals’ Cheat Sheet(pdf, 1 page)
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Mission Statements

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While the vision statement is future oriented and describes where the organization wants to be in the future, mission statements are firmly grounded in the present, describing what the organization, department or team does.  The Mission describes the purpose of your organization, product or service.  It answers the question “Why are we here?”

Even if you are working within a larger organization think as though you are in business for yourself as though you are a consultant or contractor with skills and talent the organization needs for a specific purpose.   Why do internal or external customers need you?  What is your team or department committed to providing to it’s internal or external customers?

Why Create a Mission?

A clear mission provides grounding and purpose to your organization.  It communicates the focus of the organization.  What the organization does.  It’s purpose.   A well-written and well-communicated Mission can coordinate the actions of many people in a fast, efficient way.

Without a focused mission statement, the risk is that the organization limps along, attempting to be everything for everyone, with no limits, no parameters, and no focus.  Lacking focus the organizations energies and resources may become stretched over more activities than can be properly served with excellence.

Mission statements help clarify what business you are in; with that clarity you are then in a much better position to articulate your strategies and goals.

What Works and What Doesn’t Work

What Works:

  • Mission statements that are clear statements of the business purpose
  • Missions that are moving, capturing your heart as well as your head
  • Focused language that provides guidance in decision-making, clearly explaining what the company or department or team does.

What Doesn’t:

  • Unfocused statements – we will be successful in everything we do … we will exceed the expectations of our customers.
  • When the Mission is too confusing.  If your mission statement is packed full of technical terminology and business lingo, it loses its effectiveness.
  • Mission Statements that are too long – trying to cover absolutely everything.  Relating fifty-four things the company does.
  • A Mission that is not grounded in reality.  It’s okay to be hopeful, but when hopefulness crosses the line into sheer fantasy … there is a problem.

Get the Complete ‘Strategy Starter Kit’

Get the ‘Strategy Starter Kit’ files here

The Strategy Starter Kit includes:

  • Strategy Starter Kit Workbook (pdf, 40 pages) – A series of questions and fill-in-the-blanks that result in your completed Business Planning Document, containing aligned Mission, Vision, Strategies, Goals & Objectives, as well as a Sustainment Plan to ensure success.
  • ‘Aligning Vision, Mission & Goals’ Full-Length Video (approx. 15 minutes) – Audio (mp3) and Visual Slides (ppt) can be downloaded separately
  • ‘Aligning Vision, Mission & Goals’ Cheat Sheet (pdf, 1 page)
  • ‘Mission Statements’ Podcast + Podcast Slides (mp3, ppt)
  • ‘Mission Statements’ Cheat Sheet (pdf, 1 page)
  • ‘The Vision Statement’ Podcast & Podcast Slides (mp3, ppt)
  • ‘The Vision Statement’ Cheat Sheet (pdf, 1 page)
  • ‘SMART Goals and HARD Goals’ Podcast & Podcast Slides (mp3, ppt)
  • ‘SMART Goals and HARD Goals’ Cheat Sheet (pdf, 1 page)
Get instant access to the complete Strategy Starter Kit…

Politeness in the Workplace? Go #@$% Yourself!

I’m not really sure when it happened.  Sometime over the last few years it has become socially acceptable to have a potty-mouth at the office.  Most often I am invited into workplaces for short periods of time – usually a few months – so I normally don’t know anyone when I first show up, and have to take some time to get to know people.

I find it incredible that people who don’t know me are quite willing to use exceptionally foul language in our very first meeting.  I should clarify two things:

1)   I’m not there to fire them, or otherwise torture them… which may be construed as just-cause for an expletive or two.

2)   I’m not offended by any of this, and use my own fair-share of foul words in more familiar company.

I just find it curious that people think words your mother always told you she didn’t want to hear are now common-place in work settings.  In my experience, this transcends just about all demographic groups.  It is not just younger people, nor is it just men.  I have witnessed this in large cities, and small ones, in a wide variety of industries.  I think it’s safe to say this has become a societal thing.

So… what is to be done?  Probably nothing.  But I would caution anyone who cares that first impressions are very powerful, and if you litter your first impression with language that would make a lumberjack blush, then you will inevitably come across as insensitive and less intelligent.

As a general rule of thumb, it might be good to know someone’s last name, before asking them (in so many words) if they like sex and travel.  Likewise, don’t assume that you’re not offending anyone, just because everyone else seems to be swearing.  It’s amazing that many offices insist on no fragrances or smelly foods for fear of upsetting someone, but have no similar guidelines for certain forms of noise pollution.

Until you know who you’re talking to, you might want to channel Bill Cosby more so than Eddie Murphy.  In the mean time… check out this clip for how one office handled it.

It’s a Jungle Out There

I found this clip on YouTube that is a hilarious/sad commentary on many workplaces.  Happy Viewing.

Is There Hope for Introverts?

Other than questioning someone’s parentage, is there a faster way to insult someone than calling him an introvert?  Isn’t introversion something that we need to cure people of by sending them to the Dale Carnegie Course?

Many organizations have invested in some form of psychometric instrument that indicates whether people have a preference for introverted or extroverted behaviour, but that hasn’t stopped the vast majority of people from throwing around these terms without actually having a clue as to what they mean.

People hear “extrovert”, and they think: outgoing, friendly, social, capable, productive, normal.

People hear “introvert”, and they think: shy, withdrawn, anti-social, illusive, dysfunctional, wall-flower.

The problem with these descriptions is that neither is particularly accurate, and it infers that people are capable of only one set of behaviours exclusively.  There is also a connotation that Extroverts will excel in business to a much higher degree than Introverts.

In Good to Great, Jim Collins reveals the qualities that his research has shown as effective in running great organizations.  Interestingly, many of the qualities of “Level Five Leadership”, are found more naturally in people with Introverted preferences.

You might also be surprised who may be a closet-introvert:  High-profile leaders, television personalities, sports stars, maybe even one of your friends, neighbours, or family are introverted.  They’re everywhere, so beware – you never know when they’ll want to slink into the back corner of a meeting room, and silently wish everyone would stop talking at once.  Or perhaps pray that someone will listen to them for 20 seconds before interrupting them.  Worse yet, they may think about something before responding to a question creating that awkward few seconds silence.

So you may be wondering where I fit on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Grid.

As someone who spends a lot of time talking to groups of people, and a person who worked in television (for a short and spectacularly unsuccessful period of time), I am rarely accused of being an Introvert.

I prefer to label myself as a Recovering-Extrovert.  We might need to create a new scale for measurement.

Number One Rule of Leadership: Everything is Your Fault

Poor Tony Hayward – he just wants his life back.  OK – that’s officially the stupidest comment of the year, but he’s apologized now, so it should all be OK.  Like most important life-lessons (whether it be business or personal), the fundamentals were taught to us in Kindergarten, we’ve just chosen to forget, or not apply them.

I was watching Disney/Pixar’s A Bug’s Life with my son the other day, when Hopper (the chief antagonist, and all-around bad ass) reminded Princess Atta that the number one rule of leadership is that “Everything is Your Fault”.  Apparently Mr. Hayward hasn’t watched any children’s programming lately, or he might have gotten some of this right.

If it’s any consolation, BP is not the only company to have reacted to a bad situation by making it exponentially worse.  Just a few months ago, we were watching Toyota come unglued like an Egyptian mummy in a swimming pool.  It seems that every organization to have screwed up (or just had plain bad luck) seems to go into ass-covering mode with the exception of Tylenol in the 1980s, and Maple Leaf foods just two years ago.

The big difference:  both the Tylenol and Maple Leaf disasters killed people, but instead of hiding behind their lawyers, the leaders of these companies made themselves front and centre, and took responsibility for the (in)actions of their organizations.

So what can the middle manager or front level supervisor learn from all the silliness?

First… go rent A Bug’s Life, and listen to Kevin Spacey’s line about leadership responsibility over and over again.  When you think you’ve learned it, go listen to it a bunch more times so that when the excrement hits the rotating air-circulation device, you won’t try to cover your ass, but rather step up and take your lumps.

Second… manage your little empire proactively.  In areas that could get you into big trouble (health & safety, violence in the workplace, harassment, discrimination, etc.) don’t ever settle for less than outstanding performance.  Executives at BP will not only oversee the loss of billions of dollars/pounds of shareholder value, but they may be held personally liable for sloppy process.  It’s not out of the question that one or more of them end up in jail/gaol.

Third… understand that taking responsibility is the burden of leadership.  This is what we pay you to do.  It’s what you signed up for in the first place.  If you’re unable to get your head around this, you should get yourself reassigned as an individual contributor.  Yep… that right:  If you “want your life back”, you should think about that before disaster strikes.

Create a Team Charter

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When creating a team charter, you will wan to include the following standard components (and might also include other sections):

  1. Purpose
  2. Accountabilities
  3. Operating Guidelines (Ground Rules)
  4. Goals and Actions

The Purpose, Accountabilities, and Goals sections establish what the team needs to achieve; the Operating Guidelines section lays out how the team is going to achieve them.

Team Charter: Purpose

The Purpose Statement in a team charter defines the focus of the team’s efforts by explaining why the team exists.  This section is less about the job description of things the team does and more about why the team might do these things … to what end?  What organizational goals does the team intend to impact?  Think in terms of being in business for yourself as though you are a team of consultants or contractors with skills and talent the organization needs for a specific purpose.  You might try using the “5 Why’s” or asking “SO WHAT” to help you drill down from actions or activities to what the teams purpose is.

Questions to prompt your thinking:

  • Why does this team exist?
  • What goals or objectives do we intend to impact in the broader business?
  • What will change for the better because of our team?
  • What problems or opportunities are we to address?

Team Charter: Accountabilities

The Accountabilities in a team charter are the team’s main deliverables.  Well-identified team accountabilities, provide a list of the team’s main responsibilities and outputs. Think outcomes not activities!

Questions to prompt your thinking:

  • What are the teams main job responsibilities?
  • What outputs, products, tools, services do we provide to fulfill our purpose?

Team Charter: Operating Guidelines

The Operating Guidelines in a team charter should be stated as behaviors so that all team members understand what is expected of them. It’s important that everyone on the team agrees to and supports the guiding principles.  They define the agreed-upon behaviors and expectations of the team and the individuals who make up the team.

Questions to prompt your thinking:

How will we approach the work?

  • Collaboratively, always working together
  • Divide the work to experts to work on separately
  • Will we involve others from outside the team .. who, how, when
  • How will we share information

How will we make decisions?

  • By consensus …how will we define consensus
  • Present our positions to the team lead who will make final call
  • Other

How will we run meetings?

  • How often will we meet, where
  • Who controls and distributes the agenda
  • How will we spend our meeting time

How will we treat one another?

Team Charter: Goals and Actions

The team’s Goals and Actions in a team charter need to have direct line of sight to the Team Purpose and Accountabilities.  Here you need to get more specific, with actions that include measurable targets that will lead to your team meeting its accountabilities and delivering on its purpose.  Think ‘SMART’ (Specific, Measurable, Agreed-upon, Realistic, Time-Bound).

Questions to prompt your thinking:

  • What are the first steps that we need to take in order to meet our accountabilities and delivering on our purpose?
  • Who will do What by When?
  • How will we measure our progress?

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The Business Review Meeting

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A business review meeting is a specific type of recurring meeting that is held to discuss individual or team scorecards and progress toward objectives.  During the business review meeting, teams apply problem-solving tools to issues that are impacting their performance.  Team leaders, managers and senior leadership assume coaching roles which emphasize positive feedback and recognition.

The purpose of a business review meeting is to:
  • Reinforce the accountability and action plans of each team or individual
  • Share ideas and learn about interrelationships in the business
  • Celebrate success
  • Identify and remove barriers

Roles of leaders in the business review meeting process:

  • Articulating the organization’s vision
  • Involving people in deciding how to achieve the organization’s vision
  • Supporting employee efforts to realize vision by providing coaching, feedback, and role modeling
  • Recognizing and rewarding success

The business review meeting process:

Business review meetings are scheduled on a regular basis (monthly or quarterly) and include a presentation of key performance measures (individual and/or team).  Baselines (historical performance), current data and projected trends are presented for each goal or critical success factor.  Key successes are shared with the group as well as required interventions and actions to overcome barriers.  Working together, the team develops action plans to improve performance – steps to reach objectives are identified; individuals are assigned responsibility for each step; target completion dates are established for each step and expected results are communicated.

Why have a business review meeting?

  • Opportunity to assess the current performance status of each team or individual
  • Opportunity to highlight and recognize good performance
  • Opportunity to gain input from peers and management on ideas, scorecards and action plans for the next time period
  • Opportunity for leaders to focus the team on critical issues, goals and objectives
  • Opportunity to make decisions as a team
  • Opportunity to give and receive feedback

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The Business Review Meeting topic bundle includes:

  • Business Review Meeting Cheat Sheet (pdf)
  • Business Review Meeting Booklet (pdf) containing:
    • In-Depth Topic Overview
    • How to Make a Successful Presentation at a Business Review Meeting
    • How to Lead the Business Review Meeting Process
    • Recommended Resources – where to find out even more about business review meetings
  • Business Review Meeting Podcast (mp3)
  • Business Review Meeting Podcast Slides (Powerpoint)

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