posted 10-19-2000 15:39               

Open dialogue to develop a shared picture of success that includes task and relationship components. The relationship components built on creating a shared community without hierarchy.

Building on each team member's intrinsic needs and making it possible for them to relaize intrinsic rewards.

Setting an expectation that we would work together for and celebrate each other's successes.

Building a learning community in which we all learned from our mistakes, learned from each other, worked together on our own project with the help of others in the group to create new solutions (two, three, four heads are better than one when they synergize.

Always having stretch goals so we had to contiue to learn. Making sure that the picture of success for the stretch goal was measurable.

Each person developed a sense of control, i.e., they knew they could be successful on their own terms but not at the expense of others in any situation.

We worked hard to create an environment in which people felt psychologically safe (we already worked in a physicall safety culture). Thie environmnet was a result of many of the other things we were doing mentioned above.

We administered our financial reward system in a team way even though the organization used the typical dysfunctional corporate performance appraisal and merit salary increase system. Overall we were creating an environement in which all people could be "A students." This environment required equal rewards for the high performance this people achieved.

We were very careful in selecting people that were going to fit into this kind of environment. In a culture that was highly differentiated along individual contribution and performance lines, not all people fit the "member of a community" profile.

Results.

We used a formal new team member integration process to welcome people to the team and to set them up for success. Even though we had developed a reputation as a community organization, people who were new to the team didn't initially believe that we really functioned the way we were reputed to. After three months, we noticed a "blossom effect." This is a physically observable change that the people went through. They now believed that the environment was real and that they could trust it to remain that way. They became radiant with an observable glow. They knew that all there energy could go into creation and they didn;t have to engage in CYA or any of the other dysfunctional corporate games. It is an amazing sight to see the blossom transformation and it is incredibly rewarding.

posted 10-20-2000 11:31               

1. Ask the team to list its current "projects" (whatever it is trying to get accomplished at the moment.)
2. Rate each project on two dimensions:
A. Who is able to get the project done? (on a scale that runs from "Us/This team" all the way up to "The Board of Directors" with intermediate choices including such things as "Our manager" and "Other departments.")
B. How soon can the appropriate people accomplish the project? (This scale runs from "This week" through "Never.")
3. Create a two-dimensional grid from the ratings, with "Who" on one axis and "When" on the other.
4. Notice that the scales on each dimension run from "close to us"/"now" to "far away from us"/"a long time out."
5. Create two regions on this grid: The single quadrant that is "close to us" and "soon" is referred to as "Dry Land." Only those projects that fall into this quadrant are likely to be accomplished. The other three quadrants (representing things that either require people "far from us," or will take too much time, or both) is referred to as the "Swamp." Any projects falling in the Swamp are very unlikely to ever get done.

So, what can the team do if important projects/tasks fall into the Swamp? The simple answer: Move them onto Dry Land! How?

posted 10-22-2000 18:35               

quote:

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Originally posted by RodWilliams:
We often tell people they are empowered, but empowerment cannot be imposed, and teams who have been told they are empowered do not always act autonomously. What tools can we use to develop a shared model of action for the empowered team?
—Submitted by Malcolm Jones

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