ACHIEVING OBJECTIVES WITH TEAMS
PART TWO:
PREPARATION
Leaders and their teams are there to get things done but there are lots of things to do before you act. Time spent planning should be inversely proportional to the time spent doing. Don't fool yourself that quick solutions deliver the best results.
Options
Once you accept your objective, it is pretty much up to you and your team to deliver it, on time and on budget. You have choices to make but first you need to create your options. Options are the alternative ways you could achieve your objective.
Working with your team to create those options can be a challenge. To lead creativity you first need to understand how creativity works. Once understood, the formula will make sense. Then you analyse the possibilities, finally reducing the choices to a decision.
Plans
Think of a plan like a map; like taking a road journey. You know your destination, you just aren't sure what the best route is to get there. Now it is the time for details. Lots of them. Your biggest muscle is your team. They all have experience, of life, if not your work. Use them.
There are only three things you have to plan with: time, people and money. You balance your resources and limitations. Finally you have to be aware of the bad actors who often pop-up in organisational teams; I call them the Menagerie of Death.
Teams
You have a destination and you have a plan. Now who does what? Apart from skills, there are only two types of attitude. People who care and those who don't. Find and keep the people who care. They are diamonds and can make anything work, even with little experience.
Once you have selected your players, you have to train them in you plan and processes. Take time training as a team until you are confident everyone understands how and when to play. The final stage of team-building is the forge of the real world.
EXECUTION
Tyson's Law - 'Everything changes when you get punched in the mouth', neatly sums up crossing the start-line. The stresses of urgent change in the face of adversity is one of the key tests of leadership. As Kipling observed '... when all about you are losing theirs'.
Risk
We are back to the scary side of the safety paradox, unless you love the frisson of danger - but many don't. Through detailed training and plannng, leaders and their teams can minimise risk but cannot eliminate it. Sometimes, just expecting things to change, helps.
Decisions are inherently unstable. You are often not the only player so the outcome is always unknown. Risk can only be offset. The strengthening of individual skills and team processes being the essence of mitigation. Train in detail to create optimize success.
Control
Control is about sharing timely information. Information on it's own is unreliable. It has to be cross - referenced, analysed and made relevant if it is to be of any use. This is a lot of work. You have to trust your teams to be diligent in their insights.
Your team understand the consequences of their professions. They understand the failure points. Their feedback is critical to maintaining control. But there will still be times when you have, as a leader, to take command.
Integrity
We are all part of a bigger team in a bigger picture. What Stanley McChrystal call a 'Team of Teams'. You as a leader, together with your team, are following someone else's plan. It may not 'suit' you but as a team leader you are there to do your part as a team.
Your challenge is to anticipate the needs of other team's objectives and support them; to contribute your best ideas to the bigger team without expectation of praise and to influence your own team to bring their collective best-self to the game.
REFLECTION
When you look back at your team's performance it is easy to focus on the outcome negatively.
A mistake in itself. Learning to use experience constructively; how to treat others well and how to keep yourself sane; these are very important aspects of the leader's role and responsibility.
Nobody ever learned anything by winning - other than how to win. Winning better next time, losing less badly, understanding what can be done better or change entirely - you only get these from the experience of failure.
Good leaders use experience to learn to improve, strategically and tactically. Experience creates better choices and deeper reasoning. Treating teams badly when things go wrong leads to systemic failure in your corporate culture, limiting everyone's progress.
You are almost always a part of someone else's bigger plan. As a leader, with a peer group of your own, you must understand your importance in the scheme of things and the risk others take if you fail to achieve your objectives. Work as a bigger team.
Your team follow your behaviour before they follow you. Values show the way you treat your customers. Your culture is how you treat each other. Your team's culture sits within your organisation's culture but has it's own personality. This is an opportunity for you as a leader.
It is not just about you. It is about your people and your team. The greater part of their self-worth comes from you and your understanding of their needs as individuals. Everyone has backstory. If you don't know each person's story in your team, you hardly know them.
You have to keep yourself and your team safe when you are a leader. Be aware of the power of your decisions as well as the context. Keep your bubble strong; you have a right to be there too. Your touchstone is your objective, it's the purpose for your team's existence.