Direction, Interaction, Renewal: The Ingredients of Teamwork

Does your firm enjoy effective teamwork at the top?  Is the Executive Committee [insert other supreme governing body here] a "high-functioning" group, that is, does it:

• embody a common set of goals and values?;
• interact well—productively, frictionlessly, healthily—within the group itself?; and
• share an ability to renew itself?

Altogether too few firms are so blessed.  Assuming your firm is in the majority—where "teamwork at the top" is more aspiration than reality—what's to be done?

Trust McKinsey to have asked the question.  First, they explode a few myths of leadership.  To begin with, there is no such thing as The Mythic CEO, or managing chairman.  (Aren't you relieved?)  No one person can do it all, and since one's daily round of actual contacts is perforce limited, with any decent-sized organization one has no realistic choice but to really on trusted lieutenants to get the word out.

Nor can you assume that all it takes to create a high-functioning team is to assign some seasoned managers to the right slots and let nature take its course:  "Teams don’t magically coalesce overnight."  But they've studied what it takes to bring a team together, and the good news is it has nothing to do with behavioral interventions, facilitated workshops, team-building retreats, or any of the other touchy-feely snake oil solutions that make my teeth ache just thinking about them.  Instead, with a refreshing "just do it" attitude, it turns out the best way to build a team is, well, to act like you already are one.

McKinsey, of course, puts it a bit more diplomatically:

"The most effective teams, focusing initially on working together, get early results in their efforts to deal with important business issues and then reflect together on the manner in which they did so, thus discovering how to function as a team."

For starters, it helps to make sure everyone agrees on where the firm should be headed.  Do not assume you can take this for granted.  At one McKinsey client, five top executives were asked to list the companys top 10 priorities:  Of the (alarming already!) total of 23 they came up with, only 2 appeared on every list and 13 appeared only once. 

Once everyone knows where they're going, the focus must be on the big picture.  Resist the temptation to second-guess more junior management; don't re-run analyses, and in general stay out the weeds.  Devote yourselves, instead, to (a) nurturing talent; and (b) driving significant growth initiatives.  If it takes hard conversations to get everyone on-board in this effort, have those conversations; that's what you are presumably being paid for.

Even if you  have a coherent, high-functioning team in place, realize that nothing in life is forever.  In other words, plan for renewal.  Be open to new sources of ideas, approaches, and techniques that aren't necessarily within your comfort zone.  Insularity is deadly.  And the best way to improve the team's performance is not to retreat to your analytical cloister, but to jump in, do your best, reassess, and jump in again:

"Teamwork is a pragmatic enterprise that grows from tangible achievements. The action-reflection cycle—supported by improved direction, interaction, and renewal—complements the work style of most senior teams. [T]his approach pushes them to address their own performance just as directly and forcefully as they would address other business performance issues."

Lastly, don't be afraid to be candid—while sensitive, obviously—with other team members. Tolerating consistent underperformance will catch up with you eventually, and permitting it at a senior level is almost a dereliction of duty.   But at the same time, make sure you ask open-ended, new and different, questions. What might be learned from this unexpected success or that interesting failure (at your firm or elsewhere)? Travel—particularly to places outside your usual rounds. Read books you can't find in airports. Go to the [museum/play/opera/concert/gallery exhibit] that got diametrically opposed reviews and come up with your own perspective. And take your job, but not yourself, seriously.

 

Posted by Bruce at October 14, 2005 12:14 PM | TrackBack
Posted to Compensation | Cultural Considerations | Finance | Leadership | Partnership Structures | Strategy

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