Tag Archives: Teams

Plants & the 5 E’s of Building Effective Teams

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Seeds contain the information necessary to germinate, grow and reproduce. However, absent the amounts of soil, air, water, and sunlight most appropriate for that species, the seed may fail at any point along its maturation cycle. We can reduce the risk of failure and multiply the eventual yield by preparing the soil, planting at an appropriate time, cultivating the field during the growth phase and harvesting at the most opportune time. These external factors do not change the basic capabilities of the seed; however, they will heavily influence the quality and quantity of the harvest.

This intelligent design from nature provides us a wonderful example for building effective teams. Akin to the information encoded in seeds, the people on your team bring to any effort certain raw talents and capabilities. Similarly, certain external environmental elements of the organizational culture will influence whether individuals flounder or flourish.

My leadership experience has distilled five environmental elements leaders must provide to build effective teams.

1. EXPECTATIONS. At the broadest level, we establish expectations by painting our vision and defining the mission for the organization. At the project or team level, we define success in terms of desired outcomes. In other words, we identify where we’re going without getting into “how” the team should accomplish those objectives. Equally important, we set boundaries for acceptable behaviors in terms of the values and culture which will define the character of the team.

2. EQUIP. Provide the resources necessary to achieve the expectations. These resources commonly fall into four buckets

  • Talents – Staff the team with the necessary blend of talents; identify other resources (such as subject matter experts) available to the team
  • Tools – Allocate suitable amounts of money, equipment, space, software, etc.
  • Techniques – Define and inculcate reusable standard methods and processes into the daily habits of the organization; particularly around problem solving and reporting
  • Training in the skills needed to effectively leverage the available tools and techniques

3. ENABLE. Emotionally prepare the team for the challenge. This emotional element is crucial for building self-reliant teams that are not constantly running back to you for guidance or encouragement. Effective emotional preparation addresses at least these three components:

  • Define success so people know it when they see it. Defining success establishes a built-in course correction mechanism that allows the team to adapt to the inevitable surprises of any human endeavor
  • Clarify why it’s important to get there. Understanding not just “what” (the expectations) but “why” equips the team to deal with ambiguity which arises in the course of the journey. Whenever possible anchor “why” messages to the broader organization’s vision and mission.
  • Explain the challenge (“what will it take”). Understanding the scope and scale of the challenge prepares team members to mentally and physically calibrate themselves for the journey. This is especially true if the challenge will impose upon their private lives. Anyone who’s done open road running or cycling knows the frustrations of struggling to reach the crest of the rise only to discover the hill continues.

4. EMPOWER. The crucial element of empowerment is transferring ownership for the objective. Ownership involves two elements—transferring authority and establishing accountability. Transferring authority to accomplish the objective(s) means transferring relevant decision-making. If you’ve effectively defined expectations, the team will already know the measures of accountability, but also establishing the method of accountability (when and how the team reports on its progress) creates a healthy transparency and makes interventions an exception. If you find your team frequently seeking guidance or clarification, look first to your ineffectiveness in enabling, equipping and setting expectations.

5. EMBRACE. Once you have empowered the team be available but resist the natural urge to jump in and start dictating solutions. These disempowering actions will rapidly deflate the team and make you the chokepoint. Remain resolute. Adversity will come. Expect it and commit to remain in a coaching mode. Spend more time questioning and listening than talking (take a lesson from the LEAN leader practice of going to the gemba). It is important to display consistency in your behaviors, because unpredictability will undermine your credibility.

Don’t Spin Your Tires

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My project is stuck. My team is under performing. We are falling behind the competition. We are missing our earnings projection. Why? What is the problem? Where do I start?

There are five discovery factors an effective leader must assess before launching any countermeasures to get a project/team/business back on track.

Before I proceed, please understand that I strongly support using one of the powerful problem-solving methodologies developed and rigorously field-tested over the past several decades; including the Lean Plan-Do-Check-Act or the Six Sigma Design-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control. Those methods define a series of effective process steps for continuous improvement. However, they do not tell you where to start. While the discovery nature of those methodologies and related tool sets would eventually discover the root cause of your team’s poor performance, the urgency of the business situation typically allows for few, if any, false starts.

Even the best processes perform more efficiently (i.e., quickly uncover the root cause) when we seed or start the process by first assessing the most likely problem areas. If you discover oil in your car’s radiator (as we did recently in our household), it is a waste of time investigating the car’s electrical system. Instead, you will focus attention on the automobile fluids and look for sources of cross-contamination.

Where do I start when my project/team/business is under performing? Two fundamental principles undergird the elements and sequence of the five discovery factors I have developed and used over the years; one, people want to do a good job; and two, the selection of your team heavily influences the fate of your team/organization/business.

So, what are those five elements? Where should we begin an evaluation to identify the root cause of under performance?

  1. Talent. Do we have the right players on the team? Even the most well-intentioned person will fail in certain circumstances. I watched the movie “Lone Survivor” with my son last night and was again struck by the realization that there is no way I could become a Navy Seal. Their combination of mental and physical determination makes them a breed apart.
  2. Target. This is a combination of strategy and priorities. In short, are we working on the right stuff? If a particular baseball game requires the team to play “small ball,” but my batters are all trying to hit a home run, that’s a problem. If I am spending my team’s resources on improving the distribution system when we have a problem of product quality, we are focusing on the wrong target. The more typical problem is that everything is a priority, which means nothing is a priority.
  3. Tactics. Evaluate our processes. Do individuals or teams use their own work methods? Are performance standards widely deployed and rigorously tracked? Do we have documented processes for performing repetitive functions, including how to solve problems? Do we have documented processes that we frequently ignore?
  4. Training. Do we explicitly know the skills (as distinct from talents) necessary for high-performance in a particular project or organization? Do we know how team members’ skills align with those success factors? Have we provided appropriate training to fill in the gaps or cross-training to build sufficient depth and enhance flexibility.
  5. Time. Is the team investing enough time? More bluntly, are they working hard enough? This factor is intentionally last, because the answer to a business problem is rarely work harder. However, there are circumstances where solution requires working faster and longer. So, don’t ignore it.

The next time you find your team stuck, pull out this list and use it to start your own assessment of why the team is spinning its tires.