This article continues the discussion on Structure, specifically as it relates to team performance. However, before we pick up where we left off last time with the remaining key approaches used by successful teams, I believe it’s important to set the record straight on Leadership and Management. Too many texts on organizational management classify “leadership” as a management function and lead readers down the wrong path in understanding the relationship between these two distinct but complementary and critical disciplines for moving your company forward.
Truly effective organizational leaders exercise “whole-brained” leadership by balancing and integrating management and leadership throughout their enterprises. Each side of the brain represents different skills, mindsets, and approaches to business execution. The left side focuses on logical, rational, analytical thinking while the right side focuses on emotions, passion, and relationships. Relating brain functions to past discussions on Character, performance character (doing the best job possible) resides within the left brain while moral character (being the best person you can be toward others) has its home in the right brain.
Both disciplines are necessary for sustainable business success and understanding distinctions between them is important when building your Organizational DNA. The functions of management and leadership within individuals and organizations are summarized in the charts below.
| Management: | Leadership: |
| · Administers | · Innovates |
| · Maintains | · Originates |
| · Controls | · Develops |
| · Initiates Action | · Inspires Others to Act |
| · Has a Short-term, Immediate View | · Has a Long-term, Strategic View |
| · Accepts the Status Quo | · Challenges the Status Quo (for Change) |
| · Asks Questions of “How” and “When” | · Asks Questions of “What” and “Why” |
| · Focuses on Doing Things Right | · Focuses on Doing the Right Things |
| Management is about: | Leadership is about: |
| · Process | · People |
| · Stability | · Change |
| · Hierarchy and Structure | · Influencing by Communicating, Motivating, Inspiring, and Envisioning |
| · Transactions and Disciplined Routines to Keep Things Rolling | · Transforming Organizations to Do Things Differently |
Teams reflect Grass-roots leadership, which is leadership by the people who are closest to the processes that influence customer decisions. Teams are about both people and process, and the most successful teams, regardless of industry or size of organization, are those that tap into the diverse and unique human capital that exists within their teams. With this foundation, let’s look at the last four approaches used by successful teams, as cited in Katzenbach and Smith (1993, p. 5):
- “Set and seize upon a few immediate performance-oriented tasks and goals.” “Immediately establishing a few challenging goals that can be reached early on” sets the team on a path toward performance and achievement. “The sooner results occur, the sooner the team congeals.” Don’t forget to plan for and execute a small celebration of the team’s success in meeting its first goal, which sets expectations for achieving even more.
- 6. “Challenge the team regularly with fresh facts and information.” This approach is vitally connected to “information,” which is another of the four Organizational DNA building blocks. “New information causes a team to redefine and enrich its understanding of the performance challenge,” which helps the team “shape a common purpose, set clearer goals, and improve its approach.” Progress is about learning new things and possibly having to unlearn or discard past experiences that are no longer relevant in the face of new information, knowledge, and challenges. “Teams err when members assume that all the information needed exists in the collective experience and knowledge of its members.” Growth is about facing the future with a new lens and perspective on what can be, not what presently exists.
- 7. “Spend lots of time together…Creative insights and personal bonding require impromptu and casual interactions just as much as analyzing spreadsheets and interviewing customers.” Today’s post-COVID world makes this approach more difficult, yet it is not impossible. Successful teams “give themselves the time to learn to be a team, which is not always spent together physically.” Zoom meetings and some old-fashioned phone time can be used effectively to learn others’ perspectives and build bonds of trust through the process. Senior leaders must embrace the challenge of finding new and creative ways to bring teams together to support bonding in hybrid or remote settings.
- 8. “Exploit the power of positive feedback, recognition, and reward. Positive reinforcement works as well in a team context as elsewhere.” To be an effective teammate, one needs to encourage others to share ideas, create harmony by showing trust and care, help others achieve their mutual goals, and foster good communication by being mentally present and listening to others intently. In short, effective teammates strengthen their team and its unique culture when they exemplify the rules of behavior and company’s values. Although direct compensation for team success should always be considered, it’s not required to reward a team for results. The presence and interaction with a senior executive who acknowledges the team’s contributions can underscore the team’s performance and generate cherished satisfaction in a job well done.
Additional Suggested Reading:
Katzenbach, J., & Smith, D. (1993). The discipline of teams. Harvard Business Review, 71(2), 111-120. Reprint R0507P
Questions for the Week: What does my organization look like today? How has COVID changed the ways in which we work? How do my teams interact today? What can I do to facilitate team performance through better design? Which of the eight approaches described in these last two articles need my immediate attention?
| About the Author: Dr. Ray Benedetto is co-founder of GuideStar, Inc.® a practice in organizational leadership for performance excellence (www.guidestarinc.com). He is a retired Air Force colonel with a distinguished active-duty military career. He is board certified in Healthcare Management and a Life Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE). Dr. Ray taught leadership for 12 years for the University of Phoenix Chicago campus. He holds degrees from Penn State (BS), the University of Southern California (MSSM), and the University of Phoenix (DM). He is co-author of “It’s My Company TOO! How Entangled Companies Move Beyond Engagement for Remarkable Results” (Greenleaf Book Press Group, 2012) and numerous ezine articles available online. You can reach him at ray@guidestarinc.com. |