If we could amass the volumes of information written about team leadership, teamwork, leading teams, participating in teams, we could probably fill a stadium full of paper. In my early years I honestly did not pay much attention to the dynamics that exist within teams. While the intricacies of making a successful team can compare in some ways to making an organization successful, they are two different beasts that usually require different leadership skill sets and behaviors. Try leading a team the same way as an organization and one is bound to experience a whole subset of unexpected problems.
When it comes to the dynamics of teams, I have two favorite books, one of which is the Secret of Teams by Mark Miller. The Secret of Teams is a delightful story of a struggling organization that finds that developing high performance teams is the burning imperative for fixing the company. In the story, the team responsible for figuring out how to fix the team problems, goes out and interviews experts in military, sports, healthcare, and other areas. Through these interviews they start formulating a framework to building a high performance team in their organization.
On top of this framework is an umbrella of leadership. It doesn’t matter how good team members are or what skills they bring to the table; if a team leader does a poor job leading, the results will be mediocre. Under this umbrella of leadership lie 3 vital ingredients to make a high performance team: Talent, Skills, and Community. They seem like 3 simple enough principles, but I was surprised by a few aspects of how these principles were described in the Secret of Teams.
Talent in High Performance Teams
A team leader needs to identify the talent needs of the team, both in the present AND the future. Understanding the talent needs and always being on the lookout for talent is important to create results. It is important to not just look outside the organization for new talent, i.e. recruiting, but also trying to understand the talents of the existing team members, even those that might not be well-known or might not seem like they apply. Mark also teaches that in regard to talent development, a team leader should never compromise on character, competency, or chemistry.
Having the right talent starts with having the right leader.” ~Mark Miller Tweet This!
Skills in High Performance Teams
Similar to talent, a team leader needs to identify the skills needed for success, and understand any gaps that exist within individuals or the team as a whole. Learning should be a huge part of the culture of a team as they strive to learn new skills and close the skill gaps that exist. Team leaders should provide resources to help close skill gaps and help increase the chance of success for the team and each individual.
The real power will be unleashed when your #team members have individual skills and team skills.” ~Mark Miller Tweet This!
Community in High Performance Teams
I have personally seen the positive effects of community in teams, as well as the negative effects when it is missing. I was pleasantly surprised to see Mark include this as a critical ingredient of high-performance teams. This ingredient should be considered just as important as the other two ingredients. Team leaders need to foster transparency and vulnerability. They need to ensure that the teams invests appropriate time on community– building activities and always look for ways to help the team “do life” together.
Great teams don’t just occur; they are created over time, through hard work and good leadership” ~Mark Miller Tweet This!
Many organizations are moving to a team type of infrastructure and even your organization is not, there are still teams, though you may not call them teams. I invite you to purchase Mark Millers book, The Secret of Teams: What Great Teams Know and Do
Please share your thoughts on leading teams and your experience with the ingredients from Mark;s book below.
About Todd Nielsen
The concept of having a single team leader gets blurred in an environment of -say- Scrum teams. Discovering the level of actual and future skills requires a deep understanding in the various domains (developing, testing, analyzing etc.), and this becomes increasingly difficult for a single leader. To tackle this problem, we make sure that team members have a home base where they can connect to their peers in the different disciplines – outside the teams, though. Each discipline is led by a person with in-depth skills of this single domain. The domain leaders collaborate intensively and exchange their views and ideas. For us, this works quite well.
I love this topic. In fact I love it so much I wrote a small eBook about the 12 habits of high performing teams. Miller and I agree on many things but our stories are different. You might like it.
http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Done-Culture-Performers-ebook/dp/B009VV0CTI/