How Successful Is Your Team?

In their 1993 book, The Wisdom of Teams, John Katzenbach and Douglas Smith point out that “the disciplined application of team basics is often overlooked.” And a deficiency in those basics can easily sabotage a team and its performance.

This week, Marty Rosenthal, my colleague, friend, and Director of Organization and Process Excellence at Intuit will post his thoughts on what it takes to create high performance teams. His first of three posts is below.

Building High Performance Teams - Chartering the Team

What is the difference between the team that was a high point in your career, and the ones that you may be spending your time pulling out of the ditch today?

Often, it is taking the time up front--the time teams never have because deadlines are so tight--to ensure that you and the team can answer, and agree on, some simple questions about what you are doing, why you are doing it, how you will accomplish the work, and who is involved.   

If the team is already clear about the answers, and in agreement, this will take virtually no time. If you surface disagreement or misunderstanding, it may take more time--but significantly less than the time involved in rework and “team building” to get back on track later.

The key questions a team should answer include:

•    Purpose: What is the purpose for this team? Why is this work necessary and important and what are the consequences for the organization if we do not succeed?

•    Goals: What are the measurable results needed to achieve the purpose (and by when)? What are the constraints we need to work within?

•    Aproach: What is the plan? What operating mechanisms will we use?

•    Roles: How will responsibilities for specific team functions and tasks be distributed?  What is the role of the sponsor? The team leader? Team members?

•    Complementary Skills: What is the team composition that ensures the right combination (across team members) of knowledge, ability, and experience required to perform effectively? How will we address any gaps?

Answers to these questions provide the framework necessary for effective collaboration, enabling the team to get the work done. 

Comments

[Sanjeev Sachdev]

Bagging a prestigious order or achieving incredible sales targets is not an individual effort. Its the team work.