Posts Tagged ‘organizations’
25 Attributes of Effective Teams
If you take a magnifying glass and hold it up to most organizations recognized for their effectiveness, you will see that they have two characteristics in common; they have effective Leadership and they operate through effective Teams. If you believe the chicken came before the egg, then you would agree that it takes effective leadership to establish effective teams. Many organizations understand the value of teams and may even experiment with them when it comes to small projects, but I suspect this is still an ad hoc practice with no design or long term purpose. Companies in their early stages of growth or more mature organization losing growth momentum should assess how effective they are at nurturing and using teams to move their enterprise forward. If they do not focus on a team oriented culture, their quest for success will certainly be a more challenging one.
Let’s explore the attributes of effective teams:
Definition of an effective team- An effective team “is a small group of people who are mutually accountable to achieve a common purpose and performance goals through their collective talents and collaboration.” (Kristiina Hiukka, BigAgendaCoaching.com)
8 Attributes of an effective team leader:
- Creates a compelling mission for the team
- Knows the priorities: 1. team mission, 2. team, 3. individual members and 4. themselves
- Communicates concisely, clearly and openly (communication occurs when both sides understand what the other is trying to convey–until then it is just talking)
- Encourages feedback
- Supports and encourages diversity
- Supports members by mentoring and coaching
- Delegates authority and accountability
- Selects members for their skills and desire to participate
- Promotes continuous improvement
- Fosters a positive team culture
7 Attributes of an effective team member:
- Strong discipline skills
- Good communicator
- Proponent of working in teams
- Enjoys collaboration with other member
- Self motivated
- Strong work ethic
- Self-directed within team roles and responsibilities
10 Attributes of an effective team:
- Clear purpose
- On-going supportive leadership (coaching/mentoring)
- Enabling processes and structures
- Supportive organization
- Members possess the “right” skills
- Commitment and trust of members
- Clear roles and responsibilities
- Clear team ground rules and protocols
- Open communication
- Performance goals and accountability
- Adequate resources
- Support group diversity
- Members are us-directed
- Self-directed
- Driven to continuously improve
“You Get What You Pay For”-Rewarding Incorrectly Will Hurt You!
Most organizations will say they reward “results”, yet that is not necessarily true. Organizations establish a formal or informal process to incentivize their workforce to achieve a desired level of performance. Depending on the size and culture of the enterprise, this compensation plan may include all employees, just management or something in between. All such plans establish some target or metric that the company measures in order to determine if the plan’s thresholds are achieved or not. The establishment of these metrics is where the error usually occurs, which truly hurts the overall performance of the company. The metrics will fall into one of three categories; Intentions, Actions and Results.
Intentions-These are deliverables that are planned to be delivered in the future. This is the weakest of all metrics. It is difficult to see how an organization could build a compensation plan around rewarding for nothing more than “hope”. Yet, many corporations reward senior management for just that, “they had great intentions”. We even re-elect politicians based on their “intentions”, and we seem to accept that metric over and over again. I am not sure why? If you want to grow a culture of discontent within your company, reward your management for intentions.
Actions-These are deliverables that are focused on activity. An associate of mine uses the tag line “doing=1/2 done”. One of my favorite sayings is “don’t confuse efforts with results”. Rewarding actions or effort is a way to move initiatives forward, but not a way to get them done. I can see a compensation program that would breakdown a larger project into steps or stages, and reward based on the number of steps completed, but there are very few other examples to support rewarding actions. Rewarding actions will not hold the workforce accountable for the end result, yet there are a large number of organizations that do just that; reward the starting of something, but not the completion of it. Unfortunately, it appears many governments (local, State and Federal) seem to have adopted this method for rewarding their agency officials.
Results-Results are definite deliverables. These are usually dates, dollars, ratios, numbers or other such “objective” measurements. They are tangible events that can be tracked and measured. Compensating your management and workforce based on results will provide a greater level of accountability to your company. Without accountability, the enterprise will aimlessly move forward in a manner much like a sailing ship without a rudder.
Organizations-Playing Offense or Defense
Organizations in today’s economic times are either playing offense or defense, whether they know it or not. What determines which style of play? Cash or operating capital availability. With the credit markets shrinking, cash on hand has become a significant criteria for survival and the opportunity for growth. Those organizations that have lived from month-to-month off their line of credit are now in trouble. Those lines of credit are being reduced or foreclosed on due to a lack of payment. Organizations that have kept their on hand cash balances in proportion to their debt have a chance to survive the current slumping economy. The organization that maintained a healthy cash position now have a chance to take advantage of that strategy and take advantage of great bargains on asset purchases, merger/acquisitions with competitors, product development, etc. Everything is discounted, and if you have the cash you can make short term deals that will multiply in the long run and make your organization more successful.
The Influences of Organizational Cultures
Organizations are like societies, they each have their own culture that has developed over time due to the actions of their personnel (leaders and employees/volunteers). When working to bring about change within an organization, one of the biggest mistakes leaders make is they discount the impact that the existing culture has on their efforts. I believe “culture clash” is the number one reason for change failure. Knowing how to build a culture that does not impede your organization’s plan for change, requires a focus on seven areas. These seven areas are Hiring, Training, Goal Setting and Tracking, Communication, Responsibility, Accountability, and Advancement Opportunities. These areas must be addressed and taken seriously to create an organization and positive culture that is ready to support the organizations change plans.