Strategies for Team Success
by Kali Saposnick

from Leverage Points Issue 39

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Getting the job done well in today's sophisticated workplace often requires people with a variety of knowledge and skills to work together—sometimes just to figure out what a problem or an opportunity is. Yet enabling teams to be effective remains a constant challenge for many managers. To gain insight into the cause of team failure and strategies for team success, Leverage Points interviewed some leaders and coaches about their experiences; interestingly, they all agree that what a team does at the outset of a project usually determines its long-term performance. To build on this insight, intact teams can take advantage of special team discounts and learning opportunities at the upcoming Pegasus Conference on October 8–10 in Boston, Massachusetts.

Assigning a team to tackle a complex problem seems to be the default process for achieving many organizational goals today. But for those of us experienced in working with a group, being asked to participate doesn't necessarily produce an enthusiastic response. Although we may like the prospect of taking part in an exciting new project, we're wary of stepping in the potential quagmire of team dynamics.

Too often, our frustration begins when the team is formed and certain questions are left unanswered: What were the criteria for selecting team members? What is the team's purpose and direction? Who holds us accountable for achieving our goals? What are our individual roles and responsibilities? These issues must be addressed upfront for the effort to be successful, but instead they're often neglected or overlooked in the face of people's eagerness to get started.

According to Wendy Skinner, director of enterprise process engineering for Sabre Holdings, a world leader in travel commerce, "When I hear someone say a team did not perform well, I ask, 'What were the conditions that made it not successful?' People typically blame the failure on team dynamics, personality conflicts, and bad management, but in reality, poor team performance usually stems from the organization not being ready to support the project or not providing the team with clear direction and appropriate sponsorship from leaders."

Right People and Clear Direction
As the head of a group of internal consultants that support unit leaders in addressing core business process problems, Skinner thinks the first step in ensuring a team's success is to make certain its members reflect diverse perspectives and possess the requisite knowledge to do the project. "Instead of just picking whoever's available," she says, "more thought should go into selecting the right people with the right skills and enough variety in how they approach challenges. If you're reengineering a process, find out who has experience working in that area. If the nature of a project affects the corporate level, identify the person with the right relationships, credibility, and decision-making power to move the project along."

Once members are selected, then the team leader needs to set clear direction for the group. "Especially in today's economy, teams are faced with increasing pressure to get more done in less time and with fewer resources," Wendy says. "It's therefore critical that they know the purpose of the project and how it fits into the organization's overall strategies and objectives." At Sabre Holdings, her group applies a systemic view to how they prioritize their assignments. They have come up with criteria—for example, alignment with strategy, impact on the customer, and organizational readiness for a change—and evaluate each request against those standards.

Balanced Accountability and Authority
Teams also need to know how much authority they have to make decisions. According to Greg Zlevor, president of Westwood International, a firm that specializes in helping businesses develop breakthrough strategies and high-performing teams, without that information, groups end up making wrong decisions or continually asking for permission to take even the smallest actions. "When an organization is process-driven," he says, "it's easier to clarify authority. But a lot of organizations I've worked with are personality-driven; as top executives change, so do their personalities, and as a result, the amount of authority a team leader or members have may change." One of the ways Greg helps companies make better decisions is to use a model he calls the "Tower of Power." Depicting six different levels of authority, this tool can help a team clarify what they can or cannot do with regard to a certain decision.

At Sabre Holdings, Wendy creates a balance between exercising her authority as a leader and enabling team self-direction within boundaries. She explains, "For any project we undertake, we use a standard methodology that frames the major steps that need to be taken. Depending on the scope of a particular project, group members have the freedom to be creative in the way they approach a problem. I feel accountable for my team's producing excellent results, but I consider my role as providing direction on what needs to get done. I give them flexibility on how it gets done. Throughout the projects, the teams regularly share progress, and I provide feedback and ideas. The end result is a collection of everyone's contributions."

Managing the Group Process
Once a team has the necessary leadership and organizational support to succeed, what can team members do to make sure they work together well? For one thing, suggests organizational consultant Marilyn Paul, principal at Bridgeway Partners, they can organize themselves at the outset of the project. She explains that, besides deciding roles and responsibilities, team members also need to figure out process details, such as what they will do when their communication breaks down; how they will keep track of their timelines; whether they will check in by e-mail, phone, or face-to-face; and how they will know when what they've done is enough.

"The answers to these questions form the basics of project management," says Paul. "It usually only takes about two or three hours to do. Yet most teams skip these conversations; they think the task of laying this foundation is a waste of time, that answers are obvious and shared by everyone, and that the 'real work' is more important. Then, when they reach an impasse in the middle of the project—a deadline gets missed, the timeline is off, product specifications aren't as clear as the team initially thought, people are upset with each other—they can spend scores of hours trying to become effective again, a situation that could have been avoided if the 'real work' of getting organized had been done upfront."

Another skill teams need is the ability to have productive conversations so that members can solve problems and resolve conflicts effectively. "Too often on teams, individuals take different points of view personally," observes Skinner. "We can't separate the problem from the person, we avoid a conflict and let it fester, or we advocate our own positions too much and explore other people's ideas too little." She uses the ladder of inference tool, developed by Chris Argyris, to help her team understand and surface any judgments or assumptions that members place on each other's words.

Team Learning Opportunities
One of the most powerful ways that teams can improve their working relationships is to seek shared learning experiences. Whether they attend a conference, retreat, or training, by learning together outside the work environment, they can strengthen their connection and develop a common reference point for remembering the tools and concepts they learned as they move forward with the complex work they do.

This shared learning experience is what Pegasus tries to offer at its annual conference. Recognizing the crucial role that high-performing teams play in an organization's success, we have developed special learning opportunities in order to help teams realize their potential. The conference environment is designed to enable participants to gain new skills, deepen their relationships, and reflect in new ways on compelling work issues through exposure to systemic ways of thinking and leading in their organizations.

Greg Zlevor, who will coordinate special coaching sessions for teams at the event, notes that teams typically split up at conferences, attending as individuals without creating a mechanism for bringing back their learning and making a difference as a group in their organization. "To avoid losing the energy and momentum that this event gives participants," he says, "we've created opportunities for teams to meet together and with a coach-facilitator throughout the conference. During these times, they can share their learnings and develop an action plan they can use when they get back to work. There's nothing more powerful than making a public commitment in front of your peers to have action happen. That's what these facilitated sessions allow teams to do."

Wendy Skinner, who was a team coach at last year's conference and will participate again this year, feels she helped people gain new insights into how they might accomplish their goals. She says, "In a conversation with one team, after fielding my questions about their agenda, the members soon realized they were going down a path full-steam ahead without understanding their purpose, what they really wanted to accomplish. As a result, the team developed a deeper sense of their vision and what they needed to do to achieve it."

Other teams who attended were able to talk about "undiscussable" organizational issues and work through roadblocks to advancing their projects. By gaining new knowledge, a renewed focus, and greater appreciation for each others' strengths, these teams have enhanced their performance while serving as models for other groups in their organizations.

Kali Saposnick is publications editor at Pegasus Communications.