True Team Building

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by
Kevin
Eikenberry True
Team
Building
More Than a
Recreational Retreat continued >
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This manifesto will provide a look at team performance that will
put traditional relationship-focused team building in its proper
perspective—that improved relationships are only a part of an effective
team’s performance puzzle. It will introduce new ideas and more
importantly it will put many known facts into a comprehensive model
that you can use, starting today to create and maintain more highly
effective teams.
It was like many emails I had received before. The gist of it was, “We need some help with
team building. Can you help us?”. I replied with a request for a phone conversation to bet-
ter understand the situation that prompted the email. Soon, I connected with Carol, a very
capable and energetic adminstrative assistant. Over the course of our cal , I probed to learn
more about the request, and eventual y, after realizing the limitations of her role, I asked to
have a conversation with the manager of the team that needed “building.”
Sophia and I had a wonderful conversation, but it became clear after a short while that my
line of questioning was irrelevant to her. She said, “Kevin, I have a team of smart and talented
people, but they don’t get along. I need team building from you or someone to solve this
problem.”
I never did any work for Sophia and Carol. Let me explain why.
Teams are everywhere and everyone wants to build a better team. Consultants and trainers
hear it al of the time, “Can you do a team building session for us?” But from my experience,
there are incorrect assumptions underneath that question, including (continued next page):
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• Team building is about getting people to like each other.
• Al team building is the same. If I can find a good consultant/facilitator, they can give
me a solution that wil work for any team.
• The right team-building event wil solve many of a team’s problems in an afternoon.
And, apparently, most trainers and consultants either:
a) agree with these assumptions, or
b) are wil ing to play along for a payday.
Most of these events are fun in the eyes of most participants. And while deemed “a waste of
time and money” by the most cynical (or those who have been through many of these events
in the past), they are viewed positively by most.
Some of these events even include time designed by the facilitator to help people translate
the good feelings and laughter into learning—helping people get some value back at work for
the time spent together in “team building”. (This is often a touted component in the consul-
tant’s plan, but is often missing in actual application.)
Al of these assumptions and experiences lead to a vicious cycle in the team building busi-
ness. Budgets get built each year that include funds that wil be used for team building. The
events don’t necessarily provide any real return on investment, but people like them, and
managers get kudos for much the same reasons as cruise directors on ships are appreci-
ated—they know how to put on a great event.
So team building events continue.
And teams stil struggle to be as effective as they could be.
A single retreat, however good or fun it is, won’t suffice.
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Relationships alone aren’t enough.
It takes much more than that to take advantage of the synergy that can be created by a
highly effective team.
The CARB Model
Dr. Robert Atkins made a living and created a cultural phenomenon teaching people to reduce
their intake of carbs. In a strange way, team building efforts have taken this advice unknow-
ingly. My advice counters Dr Atkins; I teach teams to indulge, even delight in their CARB
intake.
CARB is an acrostic representing the four major dimensions ultimately responsible for a
team’s effectiveness:
Commitment to the team and each other
Alignment and goal agreement
Relationships among team members
Behaviors and skil s
This manifesto then could be described as the anti-Atkins diet for teams—it takes more
CARBs (or more of each of the CARB components) for teams to be successful.
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Commitment to the team and each other
Commitment is a very powerful thing, and without it, the work of teams won’t be as success-
ful as possible.
Why?
Because people are busy. They have many tasks and priorities. The work of the team will
just fal into that long list of priorities people accrue unless team members find a reason to
be truly committed to the team itself and its goals. With only so much focus and energy to
spread around, without commitment they won’t be ful y participative and effective on the
team.
There are two parts to this commitment. People must feel a commitment to the team and its
purpose, and they must have some commitment to the individuals on the team, believing in
them and their contributions to the team.
Thinking about commitment in this dual way helps undermine the assumption we started this
manifesto with—that people who know and like each other wil make a great team. There is a
difference between liking people and liking the team. And there is a huge difference between
being committed to the people on a team and being committed to the work and purpose of
the team itself.
Both are required. Ignore this fact at your own risk.
Of course commitment can (and often wil need to be) built—it won’t pre-exist when you
put people on a team. Since team formation, development, and success is a complex thing,
several of our other CARB factors wil aid in the development of this commitment. But recog-
nizing its importance is a good first step.
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How wil you know when you have built a level of commitment, or what are the factors that will
build that commitment? High levels of commitment correlate with several factors, including:
• Belief - People wil believe in each other. Individual motivations are clear and gener-
al y understood. People are able to believe in the team, its individual members and the
work of the team.
• Agreements—People have a mutual y agreed to set of behaviors that are acceptable
to the team. By building a set of agreements on performance, behavior and “how
things are done,” productivity is greatly improved. Why? Because effort and energy
isn’t spent on these distractions. Effort can be directed to the work at hand.
• Trust—A major underpinning for team performance is trust. Trust in team members
and trust in leadership. It is clearly necessary for the levels of commitment required
for high-performing teams.
• Support—Support is a critical factor, but it is also a bel wether for the rest of these
factors. If people are supporting team decisions, commitment is likely present. If
people are supporting each other through tough parts of a team’s life, they are likely
committed.
Is it possible for a team to get results with low commitment? Sure, you can get some results.
But you wil never approach the results that could be achieved with people who are commit-
ted to the team and each other.
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Alignment and Goal Agreement
Teams can’t succeed in a vacuum. Yet far too often that is what organizations expect them to
do.
Sometimes this vacuum is created by omission—leaders just aren’t thinking about it or are
“too busy” to set a context for team success. Other times the reason is optimism—leaders
believe in their team members and their skil s. After al they hired bright people—and bright
people wil figure it al out. Assumptions like these can frustrate or burn-out talented people
and kil teams.
And sometimes the vacuum is caused by a far more pervasive problem—that no clear or-
ganizational goals, objectives or strategies exist. Leaders must create clear strategies and
they must create a clear line of sight throughout the organization, so people (and teams) can
connect their work to the important strategies of the organization.
It takes effort to get a team in alignment with the organization’s goals and strategies. It is
impossible when they don’t exist.
Yes, strategies and goals may exist. And yes, they may have been communicated. This is a
good start, but isn’t enough. Teams can’t gain the clear direction they need without con-
versation. It is the responsibility of leadership to provide that opportunity for conversation.
Conversation implies a dialogue—not a one-way email or set of PowerPoint slides provided
by leaders. This conversation wil provide a context to help the team to clarify their goals and
make the decisions that come along during their work.
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If you want to build stronger alignment between the team’s work and the organization’s
goals, consider the fol owing:
• Start at the beginning. Make sure the organization’s goals and strategies are set. If
not, there isn’t much chance of the team being highly successful. At a minimum the
team needs to understand, from the start, why their work product matters in the big-
ger picture and how they can make a positive impact.
• Generate conversation. Don’t deliver the goals in the email when you ask people
to join the team. Don’t put it in the packet of materials people get when being hired.
Make the time to have conversation. The alignment we are searching for needs to be
deep—almost visceral. Help individuals and the team develop meaning and purpose.
Help them understand how they can create work that matters.
• Get the team’s help. Get their input. Remember that you are trying to create align-
ment and agreement. When people have the chance to shape the goals of the team,
and when given the opportunity to have input into those decisions, they wil have
greater agreement with the goals.
• Provide a connection. Teams need someone in leadership “above” them that can
provide support and resources—someone who can answer questions and keep them
on track. Some people cal this a team sponsor. The sponsor doesn’t need to be on the
team; rather they provide leadership, support and connection. The sponsor keeps the
team from feeling like they are al alone.
• Make them accountable. If the alignment is clear and the goals set, then the team
needs to be held accountable for results. In organizations where accountability has
been lax in the past, this may seem like a jolt, but it won’t be long before this ac-
countability not only drives results but improves team dynamics too.
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It is easy to see how these steps wil help a team succeed. But more than helping them de-
liver a desired result, the sense of clarity, meaning and direction that these steps create help
teams get over many other hurdles.
Why?
Because people want to belong to something that matters; they want things to believe in.
When we give them those things, col ectively they wil work through many personal issues
and chal enges, and they wil also become more committed to the end product.
A non-aligned team could enjoy each other and their work. They could accomplish much …
but al of that productivity and results of their efforts could be completely counter to what
the organization real y needs. Can you see this happening?
It isn’t just a fantasy, I’ve seen it.
And unfortunately, these are often the situations when a leader might look for some “team
building,” because “the team just isn’t getting the results we need.”
Relationships Among Team Members
Ah yes, the Holy Grail of effective teams—relationships.
“We need people to get to know each other better. Once we have done that we wil be fine.”
As previously mentioned, this is a terrible and dangerously limiting view of teams.
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This isn’t to say that the relationships between team members don’t matter, they do. When
teams that have good relationships also have the other CARB factors in large amounts, look
out—team performance can soar.
Traditional team building events can be helpful. They can help people get to know each other
and they can help people find common ground. They also, at least in the short term, build a
sense of camaraderie. And while al of these things are important, they aren’t the things that
cause lasting improvement—they only set the stage for that improvement.
The best designed relationship-focused team building events do more than create laughs—
they create learning. These events help people do more than get to know each other, they
provide opportunities for teams to:
• Learn each other’s strengths. Strong teams not only like each other, they know each
other’s strengths. They are col ectively able to tap into the strengths and experience of
the members of the team.
• Find ways to capitalize on those strengths. The best teambuilding activities give
people a chance to be themselves, without al the structure and trappings of the work-
place. And when people are themselves, others wil see them in new, and often flatter-
ing ways. This gives their strengths a chance to shine, and helps others see how those
strengths can be tapped by the team.
• Get comfortable with asking for help. Highly effective team members are wil ing
to ask for help, regardless of their role on the team. Teambuilding activities can help
raise people’s comfort with asking.
There are other factors about team relationships that matter, that might not get addressed in
traditional team building, but they are quite important. Again, these require effort and time
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