Since 2003, Dr. Maria Simpson's weekly eColumn, Two Minute Training, has been a welcomed source of information on leadership and team development for a select group of readers. Now, the first collection of these columns is available to the public in Leading Unstoppable Teams! Written for the organizational practitioner and based on her experience as consultant, executive coach, and mediator, these tips and ideas provide important information on how to encourage a team to higher performance and how to develop the skills necessary to become an effective team leader. Leading Unstoppable Teams! is a handy reference for managers when a quick update or answer is needed, and can serve as the basis of management and leadership training programs. Short and focused on a single idea, each of the 57 articles provides the quick, practical answers to questions that pop up in today's organizations. Its style and approach match the specific needs of today's leaders and managers and those who are preparing to take on leadership roles in the future. Readers' responses are enthusiastic. . . . these communication tips are timely and frankly they have begun to feel like an essential part of my personal growth. I hope you know what a difference you make in . . . people's lives! I wanted to thank you once again for your wisdom . . . and for taking the time to show genuine, positive regard for those who have had contact with you. . . Each time I read the newsletter. . . I trust that I am on the right track. Please continue to enlighten and educate, it is a gift that is appreciated and honored. Sacred work is never easy but you do that work with grace. Brilliant. Simply Brilliant.

Leading Unstoppable Teams!

The Best of "Two Minute Training"By Maria Simpson

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Maria Simpson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-9219-1

Contents

Introduction.........................................................xiPart I: What Makes Teams Unstoppable.................................1Leaders Who Know How to Lead.........................................5A Sharp Focus........................................................27Trust................................................................37Motivation...........................................................57Part II: What Keeps Teams from Being Unstoppable.....................67Weak Leadership......................................................69Clashing Team Members................................................81Meetings That Waste Your Time........................................109Resistance to Change.................................................125Unresolved Conflict..................................................147Part III: From Stopped to Unstoppable................................165Sources..............................................................183Additional Sources...................................................187Index................................................................189

Chapter One

What Makes Teams Unstoppable

While different teams focus on different tasks and exert different levels of responsibility, they all have certain traits or characteristics in common.

Strong leadership. Unstoppable Teams have strong but not authoritarian leadership that allows for the creative process of disagreement; knows how to motivate and encourage people to do their best; is willing to make tough decisions when necessary, including those related to massive organizational change; and can persuade others to support a particular perspective or course of action. Interestingly, this kind of leadership is not limited to the identified leader of the team, but can be exerted by anyone on the team at the appropriate moment.

Fortune magazine devoted an entire issue to exploring teamwork (6/12/06). The articles reinforce the need for strong leadership by explaining that teams are made, not born. Putting five people into a room and calling them a team doesn't make them a team. It makes them five people in a room. "Great teamwork is an outcome; you can only create the conditions for it to flourish ... you cannot simply will it to happen." And creating the conditions is the role of the team leader.

A sharp focus. Unstoppable Teams maintain a sharp focus on goals and a unanimous commitment to these goals. Teams are not effective when there is a conflict between personal and organizational goals, or if the goals are so unclear that no single action or decision is any better or more effective than any other. The team may be Unstoppable, but it is probably going in the wrong direction.

From teams led by Thomas Edison and Steve Jobs to corporate successes such as Mastercard and Levittown, the Fortune articles focus on the dynamics among the team members that made them successful. They cited Lockheed's Skunk Works and Apple's Macintosh as examples of teams that are absolutely committed to the organization's goal. There are no personal agendas to distract energy or attention, and that singular commitment results in meeting impossible deadlines. As the authors report, "The caffeine-fueled software team once debugged for 48 hours straight rather than face [Jobs] without having finished the task."

Another example is Levittown, a "massed-produced suburb," that took the ideas of Henry Ford's production line and moved them to another industry, home building, with one key change: The item being built didn't move as cars on the production line did. The people building the houses moved, and the product remained stationary. It was a remarkable achievement.

Working in teams of two or three in a precise, 26-step choreography, the framers, the painters, the installers, the electricians, and so on would do their assigned task - and move on to the next home, over and over. At the peak of production, the building teams could complete 36 homes a day, a home every 15 minutes.

"Remarkable" is an understatement.

Individual success does not necessarily translate to team success, nor does success on one team translate to success on another. Films with great casts flop, Eisner and Ovitz fought, and American all-star teams in both baseball and basketball lost badly to teams with far less experience and talent. As the authors quote Herb Brooks, the coach of the 1980 USA Olympics miracle hockey team, "I'm not lookin' for the best players ... I'm lookin' for the right players."

Mutual trust. Unstoppable Teams have a strong sense of mutual trust that allows the open communications so necessary to explore issues, disagree productively, and maintain the relationships necessary to be successful. Unless team members trust each other, personally and professionally, the team will not be able to engage in the sometimes difficult conversations so necessary to being Unstoppable. Teams with trust and good communications raise difficult issues, disagree without getting personal, know how to settle the disagreement, and are not afraid to ask questions that challenge the current wisdom.

The Fortune issue on teams describes the development of the "Priceless" campaign by McCann Erickson for Mastercard. One of the team members explains, "We were very comfortable working together, so we debated everything freely." As we'll see in one of the articles included here, leaders embrace conflict, not avoid it, and use the process productively.

Trust and open communications also mean sharing important information, not hoarding it as a sign of control or power. Thomas Edison's team included people from all over the world. "He was never the lone inventor," says Bill Pretzer, curator of the Edison collection at the Henry Ford Museum." It was "his ability to tap into their skills that turned his half-formed visions into an astonishing stream of workable products."

Motivation and recognition. Members of Unstoppable Teams are motivated and recognized to maintain their commitment to the goals and to each other. Something has to make team members want to be Unstoppable. An effective leader will understand what that motivation is for each team member, and whether that motivation comes from internal or external sources. Teamwork doesn't just happen. It has to be nurtured by leaders who create an environment for success and team members who are committed to ensuring that success.

In this section, we'll look in detail at these four characteristics of Unstoppable Teams, and see how this information can be applied to your leadership style and the success of your team.

Leaders Who Know How to Lead

In The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes and Posner define leadership as "... the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations." (p. 30, their emphasis) I'm not entirely sure everyone wants to have a sense of "struggle," but team members will work very hard over long hours if they believe in the leader, believe in the goal, and want to prove they can meet the challenge. The authors also say:

We want [leaders] to be credible, and we want them to have a sense of direction. Leaders must be able to stand before us and...