teams that work key terms term definition introduced in

Teams that Work Key Terms

Glossary

Term Definition Introduced in:

Four Stages of Team Development Stages defined as Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing developed by Bruce Tuckman Module 1

Mentor To provide instruction, leadership, and support to a chosen candidate Module 1

Orchestra conductor In music, the individual who directs the orchestra; keeps pace and organization. Module 1

Work groupA work group is typically defined by some external competition, is task focused, is static, and the boss is decision-maker Module 1

TeamA group working together toward a goal or objective; demonstrates more internal competition and innovation Module 1

Circumventing Maneuvering, avoiding, and/or going around an object or person Module 2

Team charter Documentation created to define the team's purpose, expected outcomes, and mode of completion. Module 3

ConsultantAn individual or group that lends assessment and expertise to an entity, e.g. an organization or business, for improvement Module 3

MetricsProvide a method of measurement or assessment to analyze business effectiveness, efficiency, constraints, and productivity Module 3

Abdicate To step down from a position of authority Module 4Delegation The assignment of tasks to be done by several in order to more effectively complete projects Module 4Accountability A being is held responsible for actions and/ or inaction(s) Module 4Budget constraints Limitations set due to cost or the availbility of funds Module 5

Active listeningA type of communication technique where the listener is engaged and entirely focused on the speaker Module 5

Teams That Work Module 1 Page 1

TEAMS THAT WORK MODULE ONE – FUNCTIONAL TEAM DEVELOPMENT Module number one – Functional Team Development. Now certainly as we begin here,

it’s important to understand that a team just doesn’t form and instantly become

effective and successful. And if you’re a new manager, you may not be aware of

that. But many years ago, an American psychologist, Bruce Tuckman, stated

that there are four stages of team development: there’s forming, storming,

norming, and performing. And depending on what stage your team is at will

determine how healthy and how driven your team is. So don’t get frustrated if

your team isn’t at the performing level. This is a process. So let’s go through

each of those stages so you can recognize where your team might be. I want

you to think about today what level is your team at? We’ll talk a little bit more

about that in a minute. So in the forming stage, team members can be cautious.

They’re non-committal. They may have been just thrown together in a group.

They don’t necessarily know what they’re doing yet. They don’t know everybody.

Their walls might be just a little bit up. Maybe they worked on another team

where it just didn’t work out so well. And maybe they’re just a little shy about this

whole team idea. So we have to keep that in mind when they’re in their forming

stage. They’re not going to be a high performing team the second they come

together. It’s going to take some time. Storming is the next phase. During this

phase, there’s some things that are going to happen that you need to be aware

of, such as conflict, blame, finger pointing – this isn’t unusual during this stage.

Unfortunately a lot of times, this is the point at which the team gets killed. The

team is just starting to figure things out, just starting to put things together, and


upper management might say, “Well, you know what? This isn’t what a team is

supposed to look like,” and dissolve everything. We have to be careful. We

have to allow a team to go through a little bit of this phase because that is

normal. Now the norming phase, if you stay with it and work through some of

these conflicts in a positive way, you can move the team to the next stage, which

is norming. During the norming phase, team members develop roles. They start

to see how they fit in. They start to see how the team can work best. This is

when rules are made. This is when relationships are bonded. And there’s a

considerable amount of growth in the team during this phase. This is where

almost all the growth occurs. This is where the team really starts to come

together. But it does take going through the norming and storming stage to get

here. So if your team isn’t quite here yet, you may still be in the forming or

storming phase and you may not be yet in norming. Now of course the team

we’re all looking for is the performing team, and that’s the final stage, and at this

point, the team has taken on a life of their own. The leader knows when to be

back and when to let the team just run with it. And during this period, the team

leader also needs to be looking for leadership candidates. So while the team is

developing, you’re now looking at who can you mentor? Who can you take to the

next level? Because these are the folks who are willing to carry the flag. They

are willing to run for the team. And so you want to be aware of these four stages

– the forming, storming, and norming stages. So doing a quick – a little

assessment right now, where is your team at? Are they forming, storming,

norming, or performing? Depending on that will tell you a lot about the health of


the team and the motivation of the team. Certainly during the streaming phase,

motivation is going to be a bit lower than in the performing phase. Now your role

is almost like an orchestra conductor. As an orchestra conductor, your job is

really to define the purpose of the group, just like a conductor does. They define

the musical purpose of the group. They decide what type of music the members

are going to play. And say, for example, if the orchestra conductor all of a

sudden said, “you know what? I know we’ve been playing classical Bach forever.

We’re all of a sudden going to do country music”. Some of the members might

say, “you know what? That’s just not me. That’s not who I want to be. That’s

not what I want to do”. And they may find themselves withdrawing. So it’s

important as an orchestra conductor you understand the purpose that you set

forth for that group, and that if you decide to change that purpose midstream, you

may lose some of your members. We want to remember that this is important

and that we work for the results. So a second analogy I want you to think about

is that of the geese. Some of you may know this, but when geese fly in a V, each

goose’s wing creates an uplift. So when you combine all of that, the geese can

fly 71 percent farther than if they were flying by themselves. This is really kind of

true of a team. When a team is put together and they’re cohesive and they’re

feeding off of each other, they can certainly get a lot more done a lot faster. But

again, it’s putting together that team in a way that works. On top of that,

something else you might not have known is that to ensure the success of a

flock, when the lead goose gets tired one of the other geese from the front takes

over. So it’s not always the same goose up front. And if you’ve ever seen a flock


of geese, you might have heard them honking at each other. Now why do they

honk? Well researchers believe they’re actually cheering one another on. So

another thing you may not know is if one goose is shot down or is injured and

falls to the ground, two other geese will follow it down and stay with it until it dies

or it’s healed. Then they rejoin the flock. This is really the epitome of teams –

it’s taking care of one another. The thought came to me, do we have that kind of

care for our people and our teams? And it’s something to consider. Are our

teams that strong that if one were to go down the others would bring them back

up? That’s a healthy team. We also want to remember the term “work group”

was thrown around quite a bit in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and early ‘80s and that’s not

really the same as a team. See, in a work group, you’ve typically got external

competition where in a team, you’ve got more internal competition. In a

traditional work group, you’ve got more task focused whereas in a team, you tend

to have more results focus. As a manager, as a leader of a team, you want to

remember you’re going to manage the results – not the task. Oftentimes if you

put a group together, they’ve got much more creative ways to solve the problem

than the one you currently know. And really in the end, all that we’re looking for

as leaders and supervisors of our teams is to get the results done. Now next,

oftentimes work groups, they’re static where our teams are more innovative.

Word groups tend to be the decision by the boss. They do the work, then they

bring it to the boss to decide. In teams, that’s not the case. In teams, the

decision is influenced by the person closest to the work. So the person who has

the most information is the one that gets to decide how that really should be


done. Now the next point is the kick starters who simply take action to avoid

negative consequences. But teams, they tend to be made with self-starters who

have internal motivation. A work group tends to have either overly dependent

people who are waiting for others, or people who completely act independently

and not really caring about the effects on others. Teams are much more

interdependent where they consider how does this affect everybody else in the

group – not just me? And lastly, teams tend to have a little bit – excuse me, work

groups tend to have a little bit of a scarcity mentality where teams operate on

abundance. And when things are scarce, think about it – how do people behave

when things are scarce? They hoard them. They don’t want people to get them.

In the workplace, they hoard knowledge, they hoard power, they hoard praise. If

you believe that you give something up, somehow it diminishes it. And in teams,

that’s not the case. They work in an abundance where there’s enough for

everybody – there’s enough credit for everybody so we don’t have to fight for

credit. There’s enough power for everybody, so we don’t have to fight for power.

These are things you want to keep in mind. So take a moment and look at your

team. Are they more of a work group, or are they really a team? And mentally,

you may have to make that shift. I know it took me a while to convert my mental

thinking from work groups, which is what I was accustomed to, to really having

self-evolving teams that were able to operate almost solely without me.

[End of recording.]


TEAMS THAT WORK MODULE TWO – EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP Module number two – Effective Leadership. Of course we want our teams to work. We

want our teams to do the best that they can do. But the truth is: the team that

works starts with the leader. See, there’s an old Turkish saying that says the fish

stinks first at the head. What that means is when an organization is not working

like it should, or it fails, it’s due to the leadership. It starts at the head. So to

ensure our teams work, we need to make sure the leader is prepared for running

a winning team that can work. I mention this because if we take a look at your

leadership – let’s just take a moment and evaluate ourselves. On a scale of 1 to

10, 1 being you couldn’t lead somebody if they pushed you in front of them, 10

being you can lead just about anybody on the planet. You have that much

influence, you have that much power, you have the ability to influence people like

the President of the United States – that’s your leadership level. Where would

you rank yourself? Maybe a 5? Maybe a 4? Maybe a 6? Where are you at?

This is what I want you to think about. You will never lead somebody who is not

at your level or below. Think about that. So imagine I’m a 5. I’m an average

leader, and someone who is a 6 comes into my organization. They’ve got

stronger leadership skills. They are now able to influence me because a 6 has

more influence than a 5 does. Am I leading them anymore? No. They’re

leading me. And now, what ends up happening is they probably aren’t going to

stay in my organization and they’re going to move on to somewhere else where

there’s someone with a higher leadership. And I oftentimes hear managers and

supervisors tell me, “well I wish I had stronger leaders on my team”. It starts with


your leadership. And if you consider, say for example your leadership was a 3,

you’re only going to ever bring in 2s or 1s. A 3 may stick around, but they’re not

going to stay. They’re going to find someone else that can lead them, because

3s often create conflict with other 3s. If your leadership is a 5, then you’ll

probably attract 4s, 3s, 2s, and 1s. But as you progress up the leadership scale,

you’re going to find that you bring in higher level leaders into your team, and they

stay. Sometimes great people won’t stay in in a group, or they’ll escalate

themselves up to a higher leader. When I was in the Netherlands at a very large

organization, one of my leaders was not very strong. And consistently on a

weekly basis, I would have their people coming to me because their leadership

wasn’t strong. They were circumventing their own leader. And that’s what

happens when our leadership is not where it needs to be. Now everyone wants

to bring in an awesome leader into their team. But that leader’s not going to stick

unless we work on our leadership skills. And it starts with remembering the law

of the lid. In John Maxwell’s book, 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, he talks

about the law of the lid. The way the law of the lid works, if you were to put a flea

in a jar, the flea would simply just jump out. But if you were to put that lid on the

jar and the flea would eventually jump and bang its head, jump and bang its

head, jump and bang its head, eventually it would only learn to jump as high as it

could without banging its head. What’s interesting is you could now remove the

lid, and that flea would never jump out. Sometimes, depending on our

backgrounds, we’re like that flea. Someone told us we couldn’t do something

that has limited us, and it’s become our lid. Or maybe you’re at another company


where the lid was very, very low and now you’ve changed positions. It’s time to

jump higher. And I want to say to you, take a moment and ask yourself, are you

really jumping as high as you can? Or is an old lid holding you back? The only

way you’re going to jump higher is you’re going to have to learn more. You’re

going to have to realize that you’ve got a lid, and you’re going to have to learn to

jump higher. Now if your current company has put a lid on you, there’s always

other opportunities out there. You may need to learn to jump higher, or you may

need to find other opportunities in order to jump higher. And I will tell you

whether it’s reading the newest book on leadership by John Maxwell, or listening

to an audio training by Anthony Robbins, when we hear new ideas or ideas

presented in a new way, it expands our thinking. And the more our thinking is

expanded, the higher we can jump as a leader. The higher we go as a leader,

the higher our team can go. See, our leadership determines the leadership of

our organization. So in order to help you polish your leadership skills, let’s look

at the five leadership skills that really are the secret to motivating a team,

because if you’re not doing your part as a leader, it’s very hard for the team to do

their part. So let’s talk about these five. First is being a servant. Second is

having compassion. Third is sharing your vision. Fourth is managing

expectation. And fifth is being the example. So let’s start with being a servant.

The best way to be an effective leader is to be an effective servant. That might

be a new term for you. It may not sound like the two things fit together. I mean

how can you be a servant and yet a leader? Let me explain. A servant leader is

someone who has a clear idea of what needs to happen. They don’t make


apologies for it. They know what needs to get done, and they’re willing to

sacrifice themselves for the sake of the team. There’s no room for ego or self-

indulgence here. The servant leader lets people know that they’re there to lead

because they care about the people. For example, let’s say you had an

employee who wants to have Friday off, but you’ve already given everybody else

Friday off. The serving leader might say, you know what? I’ll take your Friday off

so you can go see your kid in school in the school play. A serving leader is

selfless. They take the time to understand their people, and that’s the first role of

a servant, is understanding your people. Many years ago in Seven Habits,

Steven Covey wrote, “Seek first to understand, and then be understood.” As a

serving leader, you understand your people. You understand where the team is.

Your job is to remove roadblocks. How can we help them to run faster on the

road that they’re on? Empowering your people – providing them the tools, the

information to be a conduit for their success. It’s not to take all the credit. It’s not

to be the one that gets everything done. It’s really to be a servant to their

success. Now compassion, sometimes I hear people say, well do you want to be

respected or liked? And that’s an old controversy in leadership. I want to be

respected. Well, then you can’t be liked. Well I want to be liked. Well, you can’t

be respected. Well I say why can’t you be both? Why can't you be liked AND

respected? The people that are liked and respected are the people that truly

care about the people that they work with. The old saying goes “people don’t

care how much you know until they know how much you care.” And part of that

compassion is really sitting down with each individual, understanding their


situation, becoming more of a coach for them. And this might be a biweekly

event. This might be a monthly event – certainly nothing less than quarterly

event. But it’s taking the time to understand them. What’s important to them?

What do they need? And this includes understanding their strengths. Not every

person is going to have the same strengths. Oftentimes, as a manager I knew I

found myself sometimes trying to work on people’s weaknesses instead of

focusing on their strengths. And part of being a good leader is understanding to

make their strengths their key and making their weaknesses irrelevant. And this

is all part of having compassion for people and understanding that people really

have four parts to them – they have their head, they have their smarts, their

intelligence; they have their heart, what they’re passionate about; they have their

conscience, what they believe in; and of course they have their body, what they

physically can do. As a manager, we want to make sure that we cater to all four

of those parts. In the Eighth Habit by Steven Covey, he really talks about when

you can align all four of those, people will run through walls for you. They will go

the extra mile. They’ll do whatever it takes, because you’ve aligned everything

that they are with everything that they’re doing. Oftentimes when we hire, we

hire people just for their head and their hands. We want to know what they

know, are they smart enough, and can they do the work? We don’t always look

at do they want to do the work? And do they believe in the work? And when we

can do that, that’s having compassion for our people – understanding them,

taking the time to know them before we try to get them to understand what we’re

doing. And the next one is sharing your vision. In the old book, it says without a


vision, the people perish. It’s easy to think that well, their vision is get the work

done. Well, it takes a little bit more than that. And I’m sure you’ve probably

heard the story of the old bricklayer. There was three bricklayers, and one

bricklayer was building a church. Someone came up to him and said, well what

are you doing? He goes, well can’t you see? I’m laying bricks. I’ve been doing it

for 20 years. It’s what I do every day. The person said okay. Went to the

second bricklayer and said, tell me what you’re doing. He goes, I’m building the

most beautiful church in this town. He goes, oh okay. He talks to the third

bricklayer, all working on the same project. What are you doing? He says I’m

building a place where people are going to commune. I’m building a place where

people are going to celebrate births, celebrate deaths, celebrate the most

important moments of their lives. And I’m so excited about building this

community location. They were all building the same thing. The third one had a

vision. He had an idea of something bigger – something that was more

motivating for him than just laying bricks. Admittedly your team might be just

laying bricks. But what is the bigger vision that you can share with them? And

here’s what I want you to remember. A small vision, a medium vision, even a

large vision is not motivating. It has to be a compelling vision. It has to be

enormous. It has to be huge. And it has to be something that impacts people’s

lives. See, you want to remember what is it your product does? What is it that

that team’s result is going to do for somebody else? When you paint your vision,

paint it with broad strokes. Show the massive effect it could have. Give them

something to work for, something to believe in, something to dedicate


themselves and something to be willing to make sacrifices for. I know personally

I wouldn’t many sacrifices to lay bricks. But I might make a whole lot more

sacrifices if I knew I was building one of the most important buildings in the entire

community where people are going to celebrate the most important events of

their lives. I’ll make more sacrifices for that. So remember that as you paint your

vision. Share with them where you’re going, and roll them in your vision. Help

them see their part of what’s happening and you’ll find this will be more

motivating than any of the other things that you can do. Now another area that

we have to talk about as being a good leader is managing expectations. People

have a tendency to live up to or down to the leader’s expectations. And knowing

what to expect colors so much of our life’s experience so often, and so much

more than the experience itself. Take for example, if you expected to pay

$21,000 for a car, $20,000 seems like a deal. If you expected to pay $19,000 for

a car, it seems like highway robbery if the car was priced at $21,000. Either way,

the car is still $20,000. But your expectation determines your color of it. And

here’s what happens. When we set expectations way too high, they become

unrealistic. And unrealistic motivations unfortunately demotivate people. When

people become demotivated, they dis-attach. So too high of expectations is

ineffective. Too low, and unfortunately people don’t even give it an effort. They

figure I can do that in my sleep, and they don’t even try. So both are ineffective.

This is where coming to know your team is critical, is you’ve got to manage their

expectations. Are you setting high expectations, low expectations, where are

you setting the expectations? What are the standards for your team? Say for


example you said that your meetings start at 9:00 AM, and you expected them to

be there at 7:30. That’s a little too high of an expectation. An hour and a half

early? People won’t even try. But if you say it starts at 9:00 AM. If you’re not

five minutes early, you’re late. 8:55, you close the door. Anyone who’s late has

to walk and open the door. It makes them feel really uncomfortable. Now all of a

sudden, you’ve got a meaningful expectation. When setting effective

expectations, make sure they’re clearly defined. Make sure you’ve

communicated what they are. Many times I see leaders who don’t communicate

what the expectations are and then get frustrated when people don’t meet them.

You have to tell them what you expect. Make sure they’re effectively

communicated, and then frequently enforced. When you can do this, you can

have your team performing to the expectations that you’ve given them. Lastly,

be the example. I know you might be thinking, but they’re the team. I’m the

leader. I get exceptions. They have to rise up to the level, but I don’t have to.

Well, that’s not true. People follow you. And people do what you do – not what

you say. I’ll give you a real good example. Take for example you’re the type of

leader that tends to fudge the numbers on your reports each month. You tend to

make them look a little better than maybe they were. But you notice your team is

fudging their numbers, and you get mad at one of the team members for

providing inaccurate numbers. We call this hypocrisy. You can’t set a standard

different for yourself than you set for them. If you’re fudging your numbers, you

can expect they’re going to fudge their numbers. If you’re coming in late, you

can expect them to come in late. Whatever standard you’re holding yourself to is


the standard they’re going to expect you to hold them to. So when you hold

yourself to a higher standard, and you expect more out of yourself, you’ll find that

you’ll get more out of your team as well. And these are just five tips to be able to

help you get the most, and really get a team that truly works.

[End of recording.]


TEAMS THAT WORK MODULE THREE – TEAM DEVELOPMENT ESSENTIALS Module number three – Team Development Essentials. I’d love to believe that a

successful team just happens – that somehow, some way, when you put it

together it just – it all works. It’s magic. But the truth be told, of all the teams I’ve

put together, very few of them have come together effortlessly. In other words, a

very few of them did I do anything. All the rest, I had to put in work. I had to put

in a plan. And that plan allowed me to be able to put that team together in a way

that was going to ensure it was going to work. Now many of us have never been

trained in how to assemble a team so that we get the best results. So this area is

an area you may want to pay specific attention to. So let’s go over some

specifics of the plan. We’re going to look at the logistics of putting a team

together; we’re going to look at assembling a team; and then we’re going to look

at the development of the team leadership. Let’s start with the logistics. The

logistics are quite interesting. There’s several areas we’re going to look at.

We’re going to start with establishing a vision and values. Unfortunately, it’s a

big mistake to assume that although people have worked together in the past

that they are already a team, because a lot of times they’re not. Each time a

group of people come together around a new project, regardless of their past

experience together, they need to clarify expectations. Even ongoing teams

need to clarify expectations when they approach a new initiative. So Jesse Lyn

Stoner at the Seapoint Center uses a team charter in order to set up a team, and

that’s what you see here. And it starts with establishing a vision and values. So

consider, what is the purpose of the team? Why does it exist? Why is it worth


investing their time and effort into? What shared values need to guide how they

approach their work and how they work with each other? Let me give you an

example here. I recently worked on a course for a very large organization where

they’re having a hard time deciding whether a project should continue or not.

And the reason they were having a hard time is because they didn’t have shared

values in deciding when it was still valuable and when it wasn’t. So because of

that, until we can establish those shared values of what’s most important, is it

most important that we get a patent? Or is it most important that we get

something that’s sellable? And sometimes, depending on what was most

important determined whether they continued to keep a project alive long after it

should have been laid to rest. So when you have a team, it’s important you set

up the values. What is more important? When you come to a roadblock, is it

more important that we get it right, or that we get it done? Should we spend

more time on it even though we know it’s not right? Is 80 percent good enough?

Is 90 percent good enough? These are things we have to decide when we set

up the teams so they have a common structure to make decisions around. Next

is establishing the team process. This is how we’re going to organize the work to

get accomplished. What’s the best structure? What roles are needed? What

planning and problem solving are we going to use? How are we going to make

decisions? Next is establishing the goals. What are the deliverables? How are

we going to measure our success? What are our time frames? Next is

establishing communication and coordination. So what information needs to get

shared? When will we meet? How frequently? How will we keep up each other


up to date on the team’s progress? How will we communicate between

meetings? Next is establishing authority and accountability. What is the team’s

decision making authority? What decision requires outside approval? How is

approval obtained? What decisions can be made by subgroups? How will we

track and report the progress? And lastly we have to define resources. Who are

the members of the team, and what are their roles of expertise? Is there any

other expertise needed? What other groups can be consulted with? How is the

team financially supported? And these are all things we have to consider in

order to get the best results. Now a lot of times, we throw a team together and

we don’t consider any of this. But if we can follow this team charter established

by Jesse Lyn Stoner at the Seapoint Center, we’ve got a much better chance that

our team is going to stay focused, regardless of the economic situation,

regardless of the outside distractions. They have now got a focus, they’ve got a

paradigm, they’ve got a road to run on. Next comes to assembling the team. For

a team to be effective, you need to make sure you’ve got the right team

members. It’s not how many people on our team that makes it successful. You

need people who work well together. They must share the common goals,

vision, agendas, and timelines. If they don’t share these things, it can be

extremely difficult for them to move forward and accomplish anything, no matter

how many people are on the team. And a person should never be added to a

team simply because they wanted to be on the team, or because they whined

and complained long enough. The needs of the team should be considered

above the desires of the individual. You want to ask yourself, does this person


have something to offer to the team? Can they fit in and flow with the team

dynamics? Will adding this person increase the effectiveness of the team? And

these things should be considered before making any changes. Take a

basketball team, for example. The coaches invest a lot of effort into making sure

they choose the right players. If the players don’t decide – and the players don’t

decide who gets to be on the team or what role they have or what they’re going

to play. It’s the job of the coach. It would be unwise for the coach to take his

focus off the team and put it on just one player that does all the work and gets all

the glory. And it would be equally unwise for him to make decisions about the

team based on the whining and complaining of one person. The coach’s job is to

consider the overall needs and effectiveness of the whole team. The dynamics

of a team is a significant part of its success. And the best, most effective teams

are able to accomplish a lot, partly because they’ve established relationships.

They know and understand each other, and they enjoy working together. If you

add the wrong person to the team, the whole dynamic can be destroyed. The

wise manager understands the importance of team dynamics, and will not try to

force someone on a team who doesn’t fit. He’ll put the needs of the team before

the needs of the individual, and will not allow the complaints and demands of one

person to affect his decision regarding the whole team. He’ll recognize in order

to have a successful team, you absolutely have to choose the right people on

that team. Now once the team is up and performing, we’re at the fourth level –

now is leadership development. And many leaders I hear say, well what do I

have to do? They’re doing all the work. What am I supposed to do? We’re there


as a consultant. You’re there to help them. You’re there to remove any

roadblocks, you’re there to escalate anything, you’re there to run interference as

needed, you’re there to remove anything that can stop them from getting their job

done – and your second job is to develop your leaders. And here’s what’s

interesting. I truly believe leaders are born, not made. What I mean by that is

someone either has a desire to be a leader and wants to be a leader somewhere

deep, down in them, or they don’t. And I’ve met many people, and you probably

have as well, that you’ve tried to put into leadership roles that absolutely hated it.

They didn’t want to be a leader. They wanted no part of it. They didn’t want the

responsibility. It was a burden to them. So we have to consider when we

choose our folks that we’re going to monitor, do they want to be a leader? And if

they don’t, we don’t want to force somebody into a role that they absolutely do

not want to be in. So we want to consider that. Now in considering that, we want

to identify our leaders. And I joke that there’s ducks and there’s eagles. Some

folks, they’re ducks. They don’t want to be leaders. They don’t want anything to

do with leadership. They don’t want a part of it, they don’t want the responsibility,

and I call them ducks. And others are eagles. And the rule we have is don’t

send ducks to eagle school. It’s very simple. Don’t send ducks to eagle school.

Here’s how you know if you’ve sent a duck to eagle school, is they don’t want to

be a leader. They don’t want to lead people. They don’t want to have

responsibility. You’re getting a lot of resistance. And you know at that moment,

you’ve sent a duck to eagle school. Now when you’re coaching people for

success, you want to consider – you’re coaching your potential new leader for


success, I want to talk about some coaching principles here. And coaching is

different than monitoring, which is different than consulting, which is different

than counseling. Coaching really means that you’re asking questions and you’re

allowing them to provide the answer. As a coach, when you’re in your coaching

role – not your manager role, not your leadership role, your coaching role – your

job is to get them to provide the answers. They’re smart. They already know the

answer. Your job is to ask the questions in the appropriate way to help them get

the answers. And it starts with understanding what are their goals? These can

be personal goals. These can be business goals, because remember, when

we’re coaching, we’re coaching for success. And we’re dealing with a whole

person here. If they’re struggling in their home life, they’re going to have a hard

time potentially being successful at work. Many people have a hard time

separating home from work. We’re whole people. We don’t just turn off when we

walk into the office. And it’s important as a coach to understand that and help

them put some things in place in order to mitigate any challenges that they are

having in the home place. Ask them questions. Well, what could you do about

that? What options do you have? What could you try to maybe overcome that

hurdle? And help them come up with some ideas – not give them answers, but

help them come you with the answer – so that they can get past it. Remember, it

starts with understanding their goals. What are they trying to accomplish?

Where do they want to go? Remember this isn’t you saying, okay, here’s your

five year plan, here’s your eight year plan, here’s where you’re going, and just go

do it. No. It’s where do YOU want to go? Where do you see yourself in three


years? Where do you see yourself in five years? What are you looking for?

Then establishing the metrics – how are you going to know that you’re on the

right track? What are we going to measure to get there? And then establishing

milestones – okay, within the next 30 days you’re going to do this. For the next

six months you’re going to have this accomplished. Then lastly is reviewing it

regularly. How are they doing per their goals? Being a coach is really a lot more

than telling them what to do. It’s really helping them stay on track. It’s holding

them accountable to where they want to go and allowing them to flourish and

grow without telling them where to go and how to do it. Effective leadership

development, so as you’re developing your leaders, there’s a couple of things

that kills leadership development. The biggest is ego. We have to be careful.

Sometimes, especially if our management isn’t doing it with us, if they’re not

encouraging us and they’re not giving us power and telling us we’re doing a great

job, and maybe there’s a little bit of competition there, we might find that flows

over into our teams. We have to be careful of that. We can’t let our own ego,

our own desire or need to be important, destroy our own teams. I see this

happen in organizations where there’s ego issues at the upper level, and the

middle management picks that up, and then they put it into the lower levels as

well. We have to get rid of ego. And ego really comes from insecurity, maybe

lack of confidence, and some things like that. We have to set our egos aside in

order to have success. Ultimately this is about having a successful team, and

helping our people get where they need to go. And this comes back to being a

servant. This comes back to serving our team and not serving ourselves. Now


we have to also make sure that our up and coming leaders are getting trained.

Although I truly believe leaders are born, not made, I do believe that leaders that

are born may not be born at a level 10. They may be at a level 1 or 2 and they

have to develop it. So leadership training becomes critical for them - helping

them understand what is leadership, how to be an appropriate leader. And I

know sometimes leaders themselves get nervous. Well what if the people I’m

training get better than me? It’s okay. Any good leader will tell you they smile

widely when they can produce a leader that’s better than them. Leaders really

work for bragging rights. They work for the ability to say, look what my people

have done. And when you can do that, that’s when you know you’ve gotten past

some of the challenges. We also have to be able to release tasks. Sometimes

we get so hung up that we’re the best person to do it, we stay focused on our

tasks and we don’t give it to the team. We need to be able to give it to the team,

and that’s the next thing we’re going to look at, is how do we delegate those

tasks to the team?

[End of recording.]


TEAMS THAT WORK MODULE FOUR – EFFECTIVE DELEGATION Module number four – Effective Delegation. Being able to let go of tasks takes growth.

That takes your confidence in your team. It takes growing as a person to be able

to have that confidence. And I know a lot of mangers in a leadership role really

struggle with delegation. I know for some people, delegation is natural. But for

some of us, I know for me, I was really worried about other people doing it the

way it needed to get done. And you really have to practice delegation, because it

allows not only growth for yourself, but growth for your team members. And it

builds stronger people. It helps you create synergy. And this is where 1 + 1 + 1

= 4, 5, 6 or 10 sometimes. And it frees you up to be effective in other areas.

Now I can hear you, and I know what you’re thinking. There’s a lot of reasons

why you might not delegate. And trust me – I’ve had them all. And I’ve used

them all. Unfortunately there’s only a few of them that are really acceptable. If

you look here, here’s some of the common ones: the work is too important;

delegation will undermine my authority; no one else can do it like me; I don’t have

the time to delegate. And I understand. Some of those, and I’ll highlight two of

them, are absolutely valid – the work is too important. I agree. There are some

projects that absolutely YOU and only you are qualified to do. They’re too

important. I get that. Some of them, your staff might be incapable of doing.

They might not have the skill set. They might not have the ability. I get that.

Certainly that might be an opportunity for growth by bringing in another person,

or assigning a project to another group. But that might be one you have to keep

because the skill set is not there. I get that. But the rest of those – those are


really just excuses. We need to be able to get over that, because some of them

you’ll notice, like delegation will undermine my authority, that’s really an ego

issue. That’s saying, you know what? I’m afraid of someone else taking over.

And you know what? As a leader, your job is to make your people better than

you. That’s when the team really wins. And when your people are progressing,

and your people begin advancing, that’s where you want to go. See, the smart

leader knows that when his team advances, he advances. Now I understand not

all companies are set up that way. And if yours is not set up that way, I do

apologize. But there are many that are set up that way. And there are many that

understand this concept and understand that when the leader’s winning, the

team’s winning, everybody moves up the line. It’s a much better way to work.

So it’s important that we learn the process of delegation. And sadly, having

worked with many, many managers across 20 different countries, I’ve come to

find out that typically there’s two levels of delegation, and these two levels are

just do what I say. I’ll tell you exactly what to do, and just do it. And the second

level is, just go do it and tell me if you need help. So it’s the all or nothing

approach. It’s, let me micromanage you, and I’ll tell you exactly what to do, when

to do it, and when not to do it; or the just go do it, and let me know how it works

out approach. Neither one is appropriate. Most of the time, you need something

in the middle. So let’s go over those four levels and help you understand when

each of those levels is appropriate. So let’s start with level one – just do what I

say. This is really for the new person. This is for a new employee, or those on a

disciplinary plan. If you have employees that have been with you more than a


couple of months – maybe even a year – that are still on this level, you need to

replace those employees. Those are not effective employees. If you have to tell

them exactly what to do step by step, this is the wrong fit for your team. You’ve

mis-hired. You need to move that person on to a different role, and you need to

replace them with somebody else. But oftentimes as managers, we don’t

recognize that. So level one is really for new employees or disciplinary plans.

They should be on it for a limited time. This is not a normal operating method.

Level two, do what we talked about and let’s confirm shortly. That’s for some

employees that will need close supervision. That’s okay. That’s usually a small

amount of employees. It happens. There are some folks that need that. They

need that reminder, they need that updating, they need that supervision. The

third level is do what we talked about, and then let’s confirm in a while. This is I

trust you. Let’s check in, maybe it’s every couple of weeks, maybe it’s every

couple of months, depending on the project they’re working on. But you have set

times to check in with them, and you make sure to give them exactly what they

need. But you’re checking in with them. This is most employees. Now level

four, just do it and ask me if you need help. This is the person who is highly

competent. This is going to be probably only a few employees. It would be nice

if there were more. Sadly, many employees need help along the way. They

need to be held accountable. They need to be checked in on. So very few of

your employees are probably going to be a level four or a level one. Most are

going to be level two or level three. And this is why most managers get

frustrated with delegation, is because they do level one and level four, ignoring


levels two and three, which is where your employees really need the help. So

let’s go through the process of delegation. If you’re taking notes, take a few

notes on each of these. Define the task is first. Oftentimes we try to define the

process instead of the task. And I mention that because sometimes as a

manager – especially if you were an employee to begin with, or a staff member to

begin with and you got promoted up, you know exactly how to do the job. You

know exactly how it should get done. You know probably step by step, and if you

were good, you probably even know one of the most effective ways to do it. But

here’s the problem – not everybody is going to do it your way. And maybe

you’ve had this experience. Have you ever asked somebody to do something

and they did it in a way totally different than yours, and they got the same

results? It amazed me the first time that happened to me. I’m like, but you did it

differently and it still got the results. We need to define the task – what are the

results that we’re asking for, and make sure that we define those for the

employees and not focus on the process. Let them define the process. Number

two is we’re going to select the appropriate team or individual. Sometimes we

delegate information or delegate programs or projects to the wrong groups. So

it’s important that we do delegate it to the right group. Number three is explain

the reason. Why are you giving it to them? Let them know why you’ve chosen

them. Number four, provide appropriate resources. Let’s go on to the next one

here. Provide appropriate responsibility, accountability, and authority. These

resources, responsibility, accountably, and authority all go together. A couple of

things we need to talk about here – even though it is your task to get it done, you


are the manager of that department. It is your task. You have ultimate

responsibility. You cannot abdicate your responsibility. So in other words, if you

give it to your team and your team does not do it, you cannot go back to your

higher powers and say, well I gave it to them and they messed up. You cannot

abdicate responsibility. You can abdicate accountability and authority, but not

responsibility. You are ultimately responsible for the success, and that’s

important that you remember. Now accountability is: you’re going to hold them

accountable for the results. If they don’t get it done, they are responsible for

fixing it – not you. You need to set up accountability. At what points are you

going to check in on them to make sure they’re doing what they need to do? And

lastly, you need to give them authority. What I mean by that is oftentimes, let’s

say for example you have a janitorial team, and the team was responsible for

purchasing and cleaning – purchasing all the supplies and cleaning all the areas.

It would make no sense for you as the manager to make the purchasing choices

when they’re the ones using the supplies. So you give them responsibility to

order the supplies, but what if you don’t give them authority with any budget? If

you don’t give them a budget, they have no authority. They still have to come to

you, and that’s not an independent team. So it’s important that with authority

comes the appropriate resources, which can be financial. And again, if you’re

concerned about it, instead of giving them a whole year's worth of budget, give

them one month and check in on them. Give them two months and then check in

on them. See, the more authority you give people, the more responsibility they

have, the more they’re likely to take their position seriously and to have success.


Number six is establish the required result. Once we define the task, what needs

to get done, we want to make sure we’re communicating the results that we’re

excepting to the team or the individual. Number seven is make sure we agree on

deadlines. What are the deadlines? Where are the milestones? Where are we

going to check in on them? If they’re a level four team where they just go do it,

the check in point is at the end. But too often, our teams aren’t level four.

They’re maybe a level two or a level three delegation where we need to check in

with them maybe weekly - maybe monthly, depending on the size of the task that

we’re talking about. Next, we need to communicate as agreed. So if we said

we’re going to meet weekly, we need to meet weekly. If we said we’re going to

meet monthly, we need to meet monthly. We need to check on them. It’s not a

slap in the back and a kick in the butt and a go-get-them-tiger. That’s what

doesn’t work. Number nine, we have to have feedback on the results.

Depending on how they did, we need to let them know. And if we see that

they’re off track, it’s our responsibility as leaders to let them know and help get

them back on track so they do meet their deadlines. The result of an effective

delegation is that the work gets done defined to the standards. Too often I see

managers – I’ve been guilty of it. I tell them what I want, I don’t clearly define it, I

don’t manage the process, can the work doesn’t get done to the standards that I

need it to get done. Then I get frustrated. I have to redo it, and I say I’ll never do

that again. Wrong. It started with me. I didn’t delegate appropriately. But when

you can follow those nine steps, your delegation goes so much easier. It’s so

much sampler when everyone knows what to expect. In the end, when you can


effectively delegate and transfer the expectations, you can have the higher

performing team.

[End of recording.]


TEAMS THAT WORK MODULE FIVE – KEEPING THE TEAM ON TRACK Module number five – Keeping the Team on Track. Certainly with tough economic

times, cut backs, budget constraints, irritability at work, teams can get off track.

You know, people are people. Sometimes we focus inward and bickering starts.

Sometimes stagnation occurs. Let’s look at some of the common derailments.

Sometimes it’s trust issues. Sometimes it’s a lack of role definition. Sometimes

it’s even weak leadership or ineffective feedback. All of these things can cause

our teams to get off track and not to be performing as high as they can be. So

we’re going to go over ten ways to eliminate toxic team dynamics and to really

help you to be able to keep your team on track, regardless of what’s going on.

The first dynamic is to encourage frequent and open communication. We want to

have a policy where people can communicate with us if there’s an issue.

Oftentimes, and I know I used to be one of these managers where if there was a

problem, I kind of didn’t want to hear about it. I didn’t want to hear the

complaining and the issues and the whining, and there certainly is a difference

between complaining about issues and whining and communicating. Sometimes

a team has an issue and they need to talk with someone. We are that someone

that needs to have that communication. Now is this communication always easy

or fun? Absolutely not. But is it necessary? Absolutely. So let’s take a look at

five communication rules that we want to use when we engage. First is focusing

on the main thing. Have you ever had a team member that comes up to you with

things that just are irrelevant? They get caught up in the silliest of things. I know

I’ve had it happen, and it gets frustrating. And sometimes we’ll even get caught


up into it and we end up in this spiral. It’s important to remember what is the

main thing? And if it’s not important or it’s irrelevant, we’ve got to remember to

de-focus on those and focus on the things that really are important. Second, we

need to actively listen. Actively listening doesn’t mean we’re thinking up an

answer while we’re listening; it doesn’t mean we’re interrupting; it doesn’t mean

that we are interjecting. It means that we’re quietly listening without thinking

about the answer in our head, but hearing what they’re saying. We’re listening to

them fully. We’re listening to their emotion. We’re listening to what they say and

how they say it, and maybe even what they don’t say. Another communication

rule of engagement is re-stating the issue. Sometimes when people

communicate, they don’t always communicate effectively. I know that sounds

crazy, but I’ve been guilty of it myself. I’ve had things fall out of my mouth, and I

went ooh, that didn’t sound right. But because they already fell out of my mouth,

it was really hard to correct. So when we restate what we see the issue, it gives

the person who’s communicating with us a chance to correct it, because

sometimes it’s not correct. Sometimes it fell out of their mouth. They really didn’t

mean it that way, but unless you give them a chance to correct it, they’re not

going to be able to correct it. Number four is empathetically listening.

Empathetically listening is not judgmentally listening, it’s not critically listening.

It’s really listening with empathy for the individual. And number five: make sure

you put your objectives in writing. This way, you can always refer back to them,

the team understands what their objectives are, and it makes communication

flow a whole lot easier. Number two: take time to create team cohesion. What I


mean by that is these are people you’re working with. Take time to build the

team. Take time to invest in the team. Take time to create that team. You want

to remember you’re a farmer and your team is your soil and your seeds. You

need to prepare the soil. Where are they going to be working? What’s their

environment? You need to choose the right seeds, choose the right team

players, choose a good place to plant those seeds. Make sure they’re in an

environment where they can win. Nurture the seeds and then you can be able to

reap the harvest. So it’s important that we take the time to invest in our teams to

make sure that they’re working together. Number three: make sure to give

honest and regular feedback. I know part of my challenge being a leader is I

hate having to give negative feedback, especially when I know somebody’s

trying. For me, it’s one of the toughest things. But we really need to care

enough to confront. And where there’s an issue, we as the leader need to take

that on. And we need to do it sooner than later. We don’t want to wait until it’s

been six months or a year. As we start to see an issue developing, we need to

address it immediately. And remember, when we do address an issue, separate

the person from the action. They’re not a bad person. They just made a

mistake. So focus on the specific action or specific behavior that you want to

have changed and not the person. And confront the person only on the things

they can change. Remember, it’s very hard for people to change attitudes. They

can always change actions. But it’s very hard to change attitudes. Say for

example you have somebody on your team that’s arrogant. This person is just

so arrogant. Trying to come to them and say, you know what? You need to be


less arrogant. They don’t know what that means. They don’t have a perception

of being arrogant. But when you say, you know, look, when you interrupt people,

it makes them feel less important. Can you work on not interrupting? That’s’

something they can do. They can track not interrupting. But being arrogant is

very hard to change. And also consider giving the person the benefit of the

doubt. We all make mistakes from time to time. It could have been an innocent

error in judgment. So do give them a little leeway. But when you do address an

issue, make sure it’s specific. Just like we talked, identify the specific actions.

And if you need to, tell them how you feel about what was done. It could be

something like, “Jane, when you interrupt Joe in the meetings, it really makes me

feel like we’re losing control and we can’t stay on track.” And establish a game

plan to fix the problem. In the end, lastly, make sure to affirm they’re a valued

person and a valued part of the team. Something like, “Sue, I just want to make

sure that you know I’m addressing this because I feel you are a valued member

of the team, and I want to make sure we can keep you on the team.” You want

to make sure to let them know that we care, and that we’re addressing this

because we do care. Now a couple of things – never, never, NEVER use

sarcasm. In fact, some of you are not going to like me for suggesting this, but

remove sarcasm from your vocabulary completely. Sarcasm is a prickly, prickly

thorn and it’s often used to keep people at bay. I know some people think they’re

being funny when they use sarcastic remarks, but what happens is people don’t

know how to read you then, and they get off balance with you. And that’s where

the prickly thorn part comes in. So as a general rule, avoid sarcasm. I know


sometimes it’s funny. It’s good to get a laugh. But honestly, it doesn’t do much

for your leadership style. And of course avoid the words always and never.

Number four: make sure you’re building cooperation into your team. Get your

team members to work together. Try to avoid anything that will push your team

members away from each other. Number five, your team should be functioning

democratically. You shouldn’t be favoring one person or another. It’s not a

monarchy, so one person is not the king of it all. It’s important that it is a

democracy. And make sure your team members are well trained. Make sure the

people who are on the team are getting the training and information you need.

Number seven, play to their strengths. Remember people’s strengths, and they

have weaknesses. Ideally you want to put them in a role that acknowledges their

strengths and makes their weaknesses almost irrelevant. And of course

celebrate diversity. This may be something that may come as a little bit

uncomfortable, but when we put people of a different nationalities together, of

different ages, different backgrounds, what happens is we have different thinking

styles. When we have a problem, each person addresses it slightly different. So

depending on their background and where they come from – their education and

all of that – will determine how they go about solving that problem. And

oftentimes, teams that are flat, where they’ve got all, say white females age 20 in

there, they all have the same thinking style, and that doesn’t create a dynamic

result for the group. So it’s important to create diversity. Now with that, is there

going to come some conflict? Absolutely. And that’s okay. We need to learn

how to manage conflict in order to get the best results. But the best teams come


from diversity – not from similarity. And lastly, number nine – oops, number nine,

manage results, not tasks. This is important that we decide what our results are

going to be, and we’re going to manage them – not the tasks that are given. And

lastly, leverage your competitive spirit to create competition. When you can do

that, you’re going to have a winning team. You’ll have a team that will run harder

and faster and farther than you could have ever imagined.

[End of recording.]

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