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A few days ago, my son came to me with a difficult decision. He was debating whether or not to stay in his position. The problem was that he had been having some difficulty with his team leader. As a member of a team, he felt a responsibility to keep this leader informed about the project he was supporting. However, whenever my son met with this leader he became frustrated and often felt devalued. This leader is addicted to his Blackberry. He acts as though the device and what it was conveying was more important than any information my son had to give. Because of this lack of attention, this leader too often missed the important information my son tried to convey.

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During the past few months I have facilitated several team development training sessions. Teamwork is a favorite topic of mine and one I have a lot of passion for. World class teams, in my opinion, are something that can be achieved as long as the right ingredients are present and consistently used. Lately, I have recognized an interesting pattern in these team development sessions - one or more individuals will approach me during a break with the same question. Their question goes something like this, “I am on this team that just doesn’t quite reach its potential. What can I do about it?”

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The summer Olympics, which just ended, reminded me of a personal experience during the 2001 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. Since this was in our hometown, my wife and I really wanted to go to an Olympic event, but we didn’t have a lot of money. Tickets for medal rounds of any event were very expensive, so we purchased tickets to go see the men’s figure skating event as it was one of the more affordable tickets. Obviously my wife won the debate about which event to go see! During this preliminary round, we were able to watch about 24 skaters from different countries. Some skaters had fantastic routines and it was easy to see who would be the finals. Their ability and skill were noticeably better than others, even to the untrained eye. While this event was not my first choice to see, I did gain a greater appreciation for the talents of others, especially since I knew I couldn’t skate very well. It made me think about how much we truly rely on others’ skills, talents, and expertise to accomplish tasks and especially to make good things become great.

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I was recently shown an article that described a newer “video game” that involved teamwork in order to achieve success. As the “controller,” you are in command of a group of one or more teams. Communication to the team is critical. Sounds simple enough, but the trick is you’re communicating everything remotely to players around the world.

The article and game caused me to think of Generation Y. Throughout this past year I’ve been asked on numerous occasions if companies are experiencing difficulties with teamwork between older employees and younger generation employees. I have heard this from multiple organizations and I am sure that it’s a challenge that won’t go away anytime soon.

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Have you ever worked with someone who always seems to be at odds with you, someone who is unresponsive when you talk to them, or one who knows everything about everything? Sure you have! In fact, one of them may be thinking the same thing about you. After all, you are on the same team if you work for the same organization. So, how do you work effectively with the other members?

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Currently, I am reading Daniel Goleman’s book, Social Intelligence. He begins his book with a story from the early days of the second Gulf War. For me, this story is a remarkable example of strong team leader and a well developed team.

The story involves Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Hughes and a local mosque. His mission was to ask for help from the cleric in organizing the distribution of relief supplies.

However, fearing the soldiers were coming to arrest their spiritual leader or destroy their mosque, a holy shrine, a mob gathered. As hundreds of devout Muslims surrounded the soldiers, waving their hands and shouting, pressed in toward the heavily armed platoon. Hughes thought fast.

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Never Too Young
My grandson has a passion for the Disney movie “Cars.” I’m sure you know the movie well but as a quick reminder, the story centers on a rookie car, Lightning McQueen, who is so intent on winning a cup race to get a big name sponsor that he ignores everything and everyone. In the movie, he learns to care for more than just his immediate dream. After he understands what it means to be a team member, he willingly gives up his win in order to help a competitor cross the finish line.

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The Senior Leadership Team is the crux to successful strategy execution within any organization. A great team can take a flawed strategy and turn it into something really exciting, but a dysfunctional team can wreak havoc on the best strategy in the world. In CMOE’s 30 years of experience in helping organizations around the world, we have seen that a quality leadership team is the catalyst that drives change and propels the organization through difficult or seemingly impossible obstacles.

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In order for your organization to achieve market leadership development, a focused, first class strategy is required. Leadership within the organization must create a truly compelling and distinctive value proposition under this strategy that will cause customers to seek you out in an over-crowded, competitive field. Forming a really attractive value proposition is often the easy part. The harder part is creating a customer oriented culture to support the proposition. You can master the art of improving the value of your products and services and become a very tough competitor, but it is simply impossible to achieve market leadership without being effective in the discipline of customer intimacy. Let’s face it, most of us know those suppliers and vendors whom we refuse to work with because of the poor response we receive when problems develop.

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