By George McQuain
The last two entries in this series discussed some practical
ways that you can identify and hire great people to be on your team. We looked
beyond “experience” to address a process for hiring people with the attributes
and attitudes that would lead to success in the position you are filling and at
three crucial attributes (humility, tenacity and a willingness to learn) that
are very valuable in a team member.
In this entry, we are going to examine taking those great people
you’ve hired and building them into a great team.
It is unlikely that a single individual will excel in all the
areas that are needed to make a team great. It is also impossible for a team
leader to be everywhere, do everything, take every decision, and be involved in
every interaction that leads to her or his team winning and being great. As a
result, the ultimate test for a great leader is not whether he or she makes
smart decisions and takes decisive action, but whether he or she teaches others
to be leaders and builds an organization that can sustain its success even when
he or she is not around.
As I said in the first post in this series:
Throughout
my career, I have noticed an interesting pattern. I have observed that great
leaders have surrounded themselves with great people, while mediocre leaders
have not. This observation poses an interesting “chicken or the egg” question:
Do great leaders create great teams or do great teams create great leaders?
Actually, this
question, in my opinion, is not an “either/or” question, it is an “and”
observation that should be restated as “Great leaders create great teams and great teams create great leaders”.
To get the ball rolling, a great leader can start the process
of creating a great team by taking people, and by challenging them and creating
a connection with them, unleash their potential to achieve extraordinary
results. He or she shouldn’t just accept people as they are; they need to see their
co-workers’ potential and care enough to push them past self-imposed
limitations to realize that potential. This also involves ensuring that your
team pursues a set of shared goals.
The most effective way for a leader to do these things is to
build and sustain effective relationships with her/his teammates and to ensure
both learning and teaching on the part of everyone on the team (including him
or herself). Said another way, the leader must create a two way learning process
and the development of leaders in every position on the team they are
leading.
This is neither a top-down nor a bottom-up approach to
leadership. It is a “Side by Side” approach.
In his book Side by Side Leadership: Achieving Outstanding
Results Together, Dennis Romig points out that often the most effective way
for leaders to influence others is to "change their own behavior." Romig’s
model recognizes that leadership involves facilitating and coordinating a
two-way influence process. Not managing in top-down or bottom-up manner.
Such leadership is mutual, interactive, and shared. It
involves getting to know your individual team members, letting them get to know
you, learning from one another, understanding one another’s goals and the vision
and goals of the team, and expecting one another to do the right thing in pursuit
of the team’s goals.
Some of the action steps of this approach are:
1.
Foster two-way communication, participation and
cooperation in an adult to adult manner. Remember that both you and your
co-workers have a lot riding on your team’s success. You must be open and
honest with one another.
2.
Mutually create a vision that elevates and transforms
the meaning of your team’s efforts. People seek significance. Work together to
make your team’s work significant.
3.
Actively encourage new ideas to improve quality and
profitability. Do NOT rely on the proverbial “Suggestion Box”. Engage your
co-workers in an active discussion of improvement ideas. Expect this from one
another.
4.
Involve your team in setting goals, developing plans
and implementing the plan. People are more likely to work to achieve something
if they are involved in what that “something” is. People generally react
negatively to “change” because it is often forced upon them.
5.
Use your knowledge, skills, experience and leadership
to work with your team to prioritize goals, plans and ideas. You can’t do
everything all the time. Focus on what’s important.
6.
Create workplace ownership by explicitly allowing team
members to affect positive change and best service customers in ways that are
in alignment with your team’s vision and goals.
7.
Make sure that your team has the resources it needs
to win.
Leaders who build great teams involve their team members in
that building process and they take direct responsibility for the development of
every person on their team as leaders. Through mutual and continuous learning,
both the leader and the team will continue to improve and win.
