Creating Cohesive Teams
photo by jczart
I never would have imagined that my beloved Boston Red Sox would ever cross paths with my day-to-day work; presenting company and team culture analyses at RoundPegg.
Then, over the weekend, The New York Times published an article by Neil Paine in Keeping Score: Collapse of Red Sox Offers Stark Lesson in Team Chemistry that tied these two worlds together.
“If you could quantify Boston’s chemistry for the 2011 season, it probably would be revealed as the worst in baseball. But therein lies a major problem for objective baseball analysts: team chemistry, as perhaps baseball’s most beloved intangible, defies all measurement.”
The reality is that you can quantify team chemistry – that is, you can assess the cultural preference, personality traits, and communication style of individuals and aggregate those results into a quantifiable profile of the team.
That is the analysis we at RoundPegg are doing for our clients via our automated TeamPegg software. The output is a development guide that summarizes strengths and misalignments of individuals in comparison to the team, and recommended actions to improve team cohesion.
Would the Red Sox have won another Championship had they been aware of team misalignments – probably not, bad pitching is bad pitching. But much of the “historic late-season collapse” may have been avoided had Terry Francona been aware of his player’s attributes and worked to develop a well-aligned squad.
One of the reasons RoundPegg came about was because of this very reason. Quantifying people isn’t easy, but it’s a data point.
Maybe next year the Red Sox will take my advice and even start scouting for players that are well aligned with their clubhouse culture – call me John Henry…
Self-Perception vs. Reality
photo by Victoria Peckham
Another hidden gem from Sheena Iyengar’s The Art of Choosing. Dr. Iyengar had several hundred Columbia Business School students get 360-degree feedback from past managers, colleagues and subordinates.
The lesson? You’re not as great as you think you are so get over yourself.
Turns out that 90% saw “…significant discrepancies between how they saw themselves and how others interpreted their actions. Many who thought they were popular and valuable team players learned that they were seen as average and difficult to work with.”
90%.
Unfortunately for that group, others’ perception is reality.
Even worse news is that Dr. Iyengar references a study by Daniel Ames that reported that “…in the workplace, people who attempted to overtly enhance their position and reputation were seen as disruptive to the group and ultimately performed poorly.”
This speaks to the importance of being able to have those immensely difficult conversations about who we fundamentally are (or perceived to be) as people and how we behave in the workplace.
The more you have in common with others in terms of values and personality the easier these conversations are and the better you understand and appropriately interpret the actions of your colleagues. This gets to the heart of what we’re measuring at RoundPegg and why we so vehemently believe that hiring for fit needs some objectivity and rigor.
And while we may not have the exact answer, we believe we’re taking a big step toward the solution with our internal Touchy Feely meetings. It’s damn hard to discuss our perceptions that rub or (possibly harder) to be on the receiving end of that feedback. But it’s what makes a group and company run more efficiently and effectively. When we can get out of one another’s way we’re better able to put the business first.
We can all improve and we will be far more successful if we’re able to listen to others’ perceptions and internalize that.
Everyone and every company is a work in progress, to be sure, but nothing worthwhile is easy.
Kaizen.
Building Great Teams – A How To
Aligning teams and getting everyone engaged and pulling in the same direction is key to your business’ success. Engaged employees are 50% more productive than under or dis-engaged employees according to Gallup.
To pick up a few action items on how to re-engage your team, follow along with Natalie Baumgartner, RoundPegg’s Chief Psychologist as she outlines the most important things you can do.
Provide Context, Not Control
photo by pattyequalsawesome
Sometimes you run across derivatives of the same idea from multiple sources and it gets you to stop and listen.
Two recent examples have come from Netflix and Miles Davis.
Ultimately, it’s about how best to maintain a leadership position by enabling those around you to explore new boundaries. Leading and corralling rather than managing.
Netflix has posted a rather lengthy, but worthwhile slide show about their culture and how they work. They put it best by asking their managers to provide ‘context, not control’ (slides 76 – 84). In essence, describe where you want to go, not how you want to get there.
And The Miles Davis Story (as relayed by a friend) explored Miles’ proclivity to assemble talented musicians, set the mood for the evening and then walk around the stage as they do their thing. His job was to capture each individual’s wandering explorations and create something cohesive out of it. Sometimes it worked brilliantly. Often it didn’t. But his purpose was to create something that hadn’t been felt before. To do that you have to be willing to try things that don’t pan out.
It takes a unique type of person to be able to lead in this manner.
- You must be able to inspire. Start by focusing on the destination and challenge people to find creative ways to get there. Ask questions rather than provide answers (except for additional context).
- You have to be able to communicate. You can’t over-communicate. Make sure everyone knows where you’re going and what’s on the landscape ahead. Everything is need to know. Everything. Find your preferred method, but most importantly…
- …You must be consistent. While you may start getting self-conscious about saying the same thing twenty times – it will sink in. Also recognize that one action counter to what you say completely undermines the foundation you’re trying to build.
- You have to be confident enough in your abilities to be able to let go. More cattle herder less prison guard. Your job is to recognize good ideas not to necessarily to create them. Trust in yourself to be able to find the pearls of wisdom in disparate ideas.
It’s no wonder that people who are at the top of their game are attracted by this environment. If you’re looking to set the direction for your industry then it’s a leadership style worth considering.
Motivate Intrinsically
photo by becominggreenblog
Dan Pink’s recently posted TED talk makes a convincing argument for why extrinsic, if-then rewards are detrimental to our businesses. If you need an 18-minute break then you could spend your time in far worse ways.
If you don’t have 18-minutes then the gist is:
Extrinsic rewards / contingent motivators limit thinking and block creativity. Extrinsic rewards do work to narrow focus and work well when solution is known. But right brain, conceptual abilities are what are needed in our knowledge-based workplaces today and these are stunted by if-then rewards.
His evidence is partly a study in which people were given a box of tacks, matches and a candle and were asked to attach the candle to the wall so it did not drip on the table. The solution requires some literal ‘out of the box’ thinking. Two groups were given the challenge. One was told their time would help establish group norms and the other was given a monetary incentive to complete it in the fastest time possible.
The result? Those who were given the if-then incentive completed the problem three and a half minutes…slower.
The incentive narrowed their focus and limited their creativity.
Chances are the team you’re leading isn’t building widgets and being asked to push buttons and pull levers faster. Your team operates within a changing marketplace where the solutions to success are not always obvious.
If you want to look good yourself then you need the mental horsepower of your entire team to find the solution. Providing a bigger carrot isn’t going to help. Rather you need to figure out if your team members even like vegetables.
Intrinsic motivation, according to Pink, comes from three things. He only defines the first in his talk so I’ll go out on a limb and color between his lines on the latter two. Those three are:
- Autonomy – giving people the chance to work on the things they believe to be important
- Mastery – allowing people to play to their strengths and having a coach (not a manager) in their corner who is interested in helping to make them better
- Purpose – ensuring people are working on things that are important. Tying their ‘to do’ list to the team and company goals
I’d also like to throw in a fourth which may be a derivative of ‘purpose.’ I’ll call it ‘potential.’
- Potential (should be #4, but c’est la vie) – Find out how the team member views herself. Where she sees herself going. What she wants to accomplish. Help her get there by leaping over the hurdles the team or company faces
Far too often we succumb to the ‘inherent truths’ that turn out to be just not true. Social science has a lot to offer us in the business world if we’re willing to challenge our beliefs and listen. Let us start here.
Turn your people loose with what matters to them, work hard to align company and individual goals, give them the support they need to fulfill the goals and help them reach their potential.
