image by vittonettophoto, flickr artist

it’s true. every team needs a superstar.

balance is important to a winning formula, and i think we all know that. people have to complement each other, make up for each others faults, and bring a certain set of skills to the table — even if those skills aren’t going to make many people stand up and take notice. you hear it many times, “someone has to do the work.”

but there is such a thing as having too much balance.

we’ve become enamored with utility players in our businesses. people that we feel we can take and throw into any situation and they’ll still produce dividends for us (and for our shareholders). we want everyone to be able to do everything. we’re even groomed as such, going all the way back into our childhoods and early adult lives.

we’re told as kids to be well-rounded or we won’t get into a good college, and in college we’re told to be well-rounded or we won’t get a good job. art history anyone? the problem being that very few focus on any one thing long enough or hard enough to become really good at it. but even among it all, somehow true superstars still emerge.

so how do you know who the superstars are in your organization? on your team? they’re the people who never fail you. they’re the ones who do uncommon work. they’re the ones driving the conversations. they’re the ones pushing themselves and their peers to be better than they already are. but it’s not enough to just recognize your superstars; as a leader, you need to ask yourself, “am i doing everything that i can to make sure that my superstars are happy?” in addition to that, on an even broader scale, as an organization you need to be thinking, “are our processes set up to reward these people? are we doing everything that we can to guarantee that they don’t leave our organization for another?”

don’t let your teams become too balanced. you need people who you can depend on to really get the job done — true professionals who excel at their craft. good enough to get by shouldn’t be good enough.

every team needs a superstar. what are you doing to keep yours around?

image by NHLFlyers, official twitter handle of the philadelphia flyers

when your favorite sports team finds issues to work on, they spend more time on it in practice.

powerplay numbers down? you can bet that your favorite hockey team is going to spend more time in the umbrella during practice.

not winning the battles along the boards? eat your wheaties and have yourself a powerbar before you hit the ice, because we’re doing nothing but 2-on-2′s for a solid 15 minutes down in the corners.

sloppy line changes in the second period? get ready to play a lot of dump and chase and listen for your line to be called.

i think we’ve got the individual training down pretty well in industry. we have one day training events to introduce people to new concepts. we have 2 and 3 day seminars to teach solid fundamentals of what makes a good consultant. we have week long “boot camps” for certification training and exams. but what about the rest of your team?

granted, there’s no way you can take an entire 30-40 person project team and send them all to the same PMP boot camp for an entire week. but why don’t we practice as a team on other things, like email communication? or developing presentations? or leading effective meetings? i think you’ll hear people expressing this need often enough (“hey guys, we really need to be doing a better job of sharing information.”), but we don’t ever seem to follow up on that? how come?

here are three things that should help you practice as a team:

1. set a benchmark and a goal.
   you need to know what your current ability level is first. it’s going to be hard to quantify certain things — like effective communication — but try as best as you can to keep from giving yourself an arbitrary ‘poor, average, good, awesome’ rating scale. once you know where you’re at, set a goal for where you want to be. “hey gang, our email strings are on average 6-8 messages long. let’s start using wikis and cut this number down to 3-4 messages by next month.”
2. focus on the bright spots.
   you can’t all be terrible at everything.. or maybe you are. either way, someone somewhere has to be doing things the right way, or at least closer to the way you’d like to be doing things. focus on what these people are doing and learn from them. “the client has always been impressed with julie’s presentations. let’s try to be more like julie.”
3. forgive, forgive, and then forgive again.
   people are going to make mistakes, but you should never hold this against them. how many times do you see a running back in football fumble only to have his head coach call a running play the very next series out on the field to build his confidence? forgive mistakes, use them as learning experiences, and then give that person another opportunity. “hey, trish, you were pretty shaky in speaking with the client today; you’re doing alright on your own, but you’re not there yet. we have another meeting coming up on tuesday, and i’m going to need you to be on your A-game. before the presentation, spend at least one more hour reviewing the materials and practicing than you did last time.”

use these three principles to shape your project team’s practice playbook. rather than individuals returning from training courses to a project team that isn’t fertile enough for their newly acquired abilities to incubate, you’ll see improvements across the board if your whole team focuses on that same thing. change always works best when done in groups.

it doesn’t make sense to practice your 5-on-4 powerplay one player at a time — so why do it with your project teams?

image by wolfsavard, flickr artist

elephants are extremely interesting creatures. they can grow up to weigh 15,000 lbs, but still be afraid of a mouse. they’re massive creatures, and anything that large — you’d imagine — can have quite a bit of influence. they’ll shape their surroundings and modify their environment to suit them. if the fruit is too high, they’ll knock over the tree. if the water’s gone, they’ll dig a hole to find some more.

circuses are interesting in their own right. a collection of sights, sounds, and smells that you can’t find any place else. and with so many different performance acts, everything has to be perfectly choreographed — and the ringmaster is in charge of it all.

so what happens when the ringmaster comes in contact with the elephants? certainly one person isn’t going to be able to move a whole troop of 8,000 lb creatures without a couple of peanuts.

leadership is all about getting the elephants to play along. so whether it’s your own team members or if you’re trying to win over clients, every ringmaster should know that you’re going to have to pack a lot of peanuts. give your employees a reason to do exceptional work… give them dozens of reasons, actually. let your clients see and feel the benefits as quickly as you can. sell them a clear vision, and guide them along the way. make it easy for people to follow your direction.

it doesn’t matter how strong-willed the ringmaster may be, or even how great a performance is in store for the audience. one simple fact remains true: if you don’t motivate the elephants, your circus isn’t going anywhere.

image by unclebumpy, flickr artist

i recently came across a post on wired.com’s science section about american bullfrogs and their leaping ability.   in short: when in the wild, bullfrogs have a certain expectation of maximum leaping distance which scientists have previously measured at 4.3 meters. however, at a county fair in california’s calaveras county their bullfrogs have been known to leap over 7 meters when involved in their frog jumping competitions.  that’s quite an improvement!

in business, it seems everyone is focused on collaboration; on finding synergies and maximizing productivity.   but what if we increasingly looked not towards collaboration on our teams, but towards competition?  how would the game change then?

instead of placing an employee or a team on a specific task, why not place two employees or two teams on a task and have each work independently of each other?  for the duration of the task in question, have periodic reviews — once every week or two weeks depending on the length of the overall task — where each presents their current progress.  they will see what the other is doing allowing them to recognize where they’re stronger, identify areas for improvement, and (most importantly) learn from the other.

this kind of competition may hurt burn rates on billable hours for a project but it might just be worth it when you take a look at the big picture.  this friendly jousting between employees working on the same task could lead to more innovation, better products for the client, different options for the client, and an incentive system that’s actually based on something (winning ‘competitions’).

i understand that this method might not work in all situations, but if you can find a way to implement it just think about how much your organization and clients could benefit.

don’t you want to find out how far can you jump?

image by Round Indigo Rock, flickr artist

we’ve had a big hiring push lately at my firm, and to be quite frank i don’t really like it.

to me it’s not enough to hire bright, intelligent, promising people to add to your workforce.  you have to go beyond that and think about the team(s) those people will be on.  this is hard to do when you are hiring people for their capabilities rather than a particular task.  you need to be asking: can they become the new leaders of this team?  can they handle the pressures of a highly dynamic development process?  will they be able to form those trusting bonds with their coworkers?

i’ve been a part of many teams in both my academic and professional lives to know that just because someone has all the skills necessary, and their resumé checks all the boxes on your list of “the perfect candidate,” that doesn’t mean that they’re the right fit for your organization.  conversely, i’ve known people who have not been the brightest or the most talented but whom have made the organization thrive because they were excellent teammates.

when i was coaching hockey at penn state, we had a fantastic player on our division 1 club.  he won acha division 1 player of the year, and broke just about every record in school history as a forward.  when he had an extra year of eligibility left, he joined our division 2 club.  some thought that he’d score well beyond 50 goals that season.  how could the former player of the year do anything less than spectacular?  but he never did gain a level of comfort in the lower division that he enjoyed in the first tier, and because of that he struggled mightily.  his scoring totals dropped off dramatically and we exited early from the national tournament that year.  the following season after he graduated (along with over 10 other seniors), we reloaded our club with a group of freshmen more known for their work ethic than their abilities to handle the puck and put goals on the board.  it was that season — however — that we had our best run, going deep into the national tournament.

our group of over-achieving, under-sized grinders was just a mere 60 minutes away from a semi-final berth because our team was made up of the right players, not the best players.  they fit our system.  they played the way we asked them to play.  they played for each other more than they played for themselves.  they were nothing we were looking for, but turned out to be everything we were hoping for.

the problem with finding people for your organization is that when you’re looking for the “best available” you tend to overlook the “best for your team.”  what do you look for when you hire?  are  you checking boxes, or are you looking at a bigger picture?

image by virtual sugar, flickr artist

i was reading my most recent copy of espn the magazine when i found a brief article about ‘touch’ in sports called “contact high.”

“berkeley social-psych researcher mike kraus, along with psych professor dacher keltner, decided to track the performance of nba teams by the amount of positive physical contact players made during the 08-09 season. their work — to be published in an upcoming edition of the journal emotion — reveals a strong correlation between touching and win totals.” … “kraus explains that fist bumps, for example, serve to improve team chemistry, spatial awareness and cooperation among teammates.”

i found this to be particularly intriguing because of my liberal use of the #fistbump hashtag on twitter and yammer.  i fist bump people all the time — in real life and in virtual space.  i guess i knew all along, on a certain level, that fist bumps had a secondary benefit aside from serving as the actual congratulatory action — but now i’ve got science to back me up!

if fist bumps and high-fives can help the boston celtics and la lakers reach the nba finals, why can’t they help bring together an executive brief or trade show presentation?

image by foreverdigital, flickr artist

i’m not sure exactly what my favorite part of hockey is.  as a goaltender (in my younger years), i have to admit that few things get me going more than a glove save on a 2-on-1 breakaway.  i can still appreciate a fine dangle, however.

i can tell you with conviction, however, that one of the best moments is the celebration when a player scores a goal.  the unbridled passion, the camaraderie, everything great about the sport of hockey comes through in one moment shared by 5 players on the ice (sometimes more).  it’s one single moment that embodies all of what hockey is about.

teamwork.

so why is it, that hockey players — among other athletes — celebrate their teammates hard work together, but we in business don’t?  anyone who hits a home run in baseball is greeted with a collection of fist bumps when he gets back to the dugout,  basketball players get chest bumps after knocking down a big three late in a game, football players get a firm slap on the butt after a big play, and soccer players… well, they do things differently than everyone else.  but no matter the sport, they all celebrate together.

what is it about business that makes us treat the dolling out of awards and kudos as a function of management?  imagine if home runs didn’t come with fist bumps, and soccer didn’t come with… miko vucinic.  imagine a sports world where goals weren’t celebrated, or big plays appreciated, except when from a coach.

so the next time you see a co-worker putting in long hours, or shoveling tons of crap to keep the client happy, don’t wait for management to step in and give an award.  do it yourself.

organize a happy hour in their honor and pay for the first round.  buy them lunch when you see they’re too busy to stop and grab one themselves.  every day there are opportunities to thank each other for doing the hard work that many — especially management — take for granted.  find some way to express your gratitude.

because what good is scoring a goal if no one’s there to… take off their pants?

image from Crashmaster007, flickr artist

it’s easy to tell people what to do or what’s expected of them, but leading by example says a lot about who you are as a person, not just as a leader.

when you’re a leader, one thing you expect from your team or organization is accountability.  you expect your people to embrace their roles, take ownership of their tasks, and ensure that their work is done when it needs to be, at a level of quality that will positively represent your organization.  if you expect that from your people — shouldn’t you expect that from yourself as well?

everything that you expect from your people, you should be willing to do yourself.  work hard, and let people see you working hard.  be prepared for different situations, and let people see you prepare.  you should do what you expect the people following you to do, and you should let them see you do it.  it’s inspirational, it forges trust, it sets a good example.

you can’t tell your people, “stop working so hard and take time for yourself,” and send emails at 1:00a on a weekday or 9:30p on a weekend.  it seems more like a challenge to work harder than a sincere concern about work-life balance.

so as a leader — when you make a promise, or institute new rules, or try to change habits — it’s best if you start with yourself.

leading by example says a lot about who you are.  what are your actions saying about you?

there are four moments in the life of a team that ultimately determine its success.  those stages are forming, storming, norming, and performing.  here, i’ll define for you the stages and show you why the stage that you probably feel is most important is actually not.

the first stage, as mentioned is…

forming: which is the point where someone makes the decision that a team is necessary and the people on that team are brought together to introduce themselves as well as get to know the others.  it is said familiarity often leads to contempt, or…

storming: the stage of the team life cycle where the inter-personal relationships are challenged.  bringing people from different facets of a company, of a department, of life will all lead to conflicts among the team members.  it’s only after this storming phase where persons jockey for position, or roles, within the team that you then move on to…

norming: when all the personal conflicts and role decisions are made, accepted, and the team really finally forms as a single unit working towards a common goal.  they work towards that goal within the final stage in group and team development which is…

performing: when the actual work is done.  when the team uses its strengths, minimizes its weaknesses, and either achieves its goals, surpasses them, or — as happens from time to time — fails to meet them.

the most important of these stages is the storming phase, and i feel that way because it’s really the stage where the team itself has full responsibility for what happens, and what happens in this phase fully determines the outcome of the norming and performing stages.  in my academic career and recently my professional career i have been part of many teams.  in those teams when evaluating our performance after our work was done, issues we had and areas for improvement often times could be drawn back to this storming phase.  but why?

i’ve found that there are 3 basic classes of workers, each with their own dynamic.  those classes are:

1. the minimalist:  those people who want to do the least in order to meet the goals of the team
2. the seeker:  those people who are always looking for new and better ways to meet the goals of the team
3. the go-getter:  those people who focus on reaching goals in hopes their performance will be a launching pad to something greater

when you bring these different kinds of people together, you almost always guarantee that there will be personal problems within the group.  in addition to these classes, there are sub-classes such as leaders, followers, and — to borrow a term from pixar’s finding memo — delay fish.  and it is within the storming stage of the group life cycle that that you discuss these personal problems, and hope that your team is professional enough to come out the other side better for it and start the norming phase.

i had a team where i assumed leadership because of the introduction i gave in the forming stage.  as leader, i had my own expectations for communication, quality of work, and how that work should be done.  while most of the team had no problems with my expectations, two members did.  and it was a blessing in disguise that i called them out in front of the rest of the team because — while it was pretty unprofessional — it started the conflict that we needed in order to heal as a team.  that confrontation started our storming phase and — after i had talked to both members individually to understand what their issues were — had the information that i needed in order to change my style of leadership and also to talk to the others in the group to calm fears and disdain about their two co-workers.

on the reverse side of the coin, i was also a part of teams where there were problems with people and those problems were never properly addressed.  as a team, we skipped the storming phase (and therefore the norming phase) altogether and went right into performing.  teams that function like this cannot hope to attain the level of performance that they are capable of reaching.  why?  because conflict leads to resolution.  if someone on the team doesn’t respect another, or trust another to do perform their role in the manner expected of them, the team will fail.

the storming phase is the most important because it brings about the norming stage, and it is within that norming stage where the group actually turns into a team. and when a team works well, boy can the results be nothing short of outstanding.