The Characteristics

Here’s what a high-performing leadership executive leadership team has that others don’t.

Meaningful purpose

There is a clear and compelling reason to work together. That purpose isn’t always obvious. Normally, an executive team’s members are each responsible for a specific company function. While the CEO should be the glue that coordinates the activities, everyone’s primary concern is his/her assigned areas of responsibility. In high-performance teams a commitment to the team’s purpose should be at least as important as the commitment to the purpose for the area each member leads.

Shared goals

The team needs to focus on a set of outcomes which all members are committed to achieving and which require contribution by everyone. If it’s truly a team goal, everyone will feel equally responsible for its achievement. These are not necessarily the same as the company’s goals. Examples that would require a full-team effort could include: Launching a new service, implementing a new ERP, improving the customer’s experience, increasing employee engagement.

The right mix

The team’s members have complementary skills, experiences, and styles necessary to fulfill the needed roles and responsibilities. People know each other’s strengths, weaknesses, preferences, and aversions. They use this knowledge to create synergy. Members see the value of each person’s presence on the team. There’s a sense of equality among all the players.

Strong interpersonal relationships

People can be themselves because they genuinely like each other and will do what they can to look out for and support their teammates. Members trust each other and are trustworthy. The cohesiveness of the team is obvious to people outside the group. It’s all for one and one for all.

Helpful operating principles

The team has agreed upon ways of working together. These might include a shared set of values, processes for making decisions, ways of communicating within the team and to other employees, tracking activities, and many others. The principles are explicit and everyone lives by them.

Problem-solving

The team recognizes when a problem exists, analyzes it, identifies alternatives, and works through conflicts. Once the decision is made, everyone commits to support it. Often this is best demonstrated by someone’s willingness to raise a thorny issue in the first place and in the members’ willingness to fully engage in finding a resolution to the problem.

High levels of candor

People say what needs saying in a direct and respectful manner. Members are receptive to tough messages without becoming defensive. Heated discussions are not viewed as a problem, but rather a positive activity as long as the discussion stays focused on issues/behaviors rather than on each other.

Mutual accountability

Members hold themselves and others to the commitments they have made. While the CEO often has the primary responsibility for holding his/her employees accountable for keeping their promises, each person shares in this activity.

Measure the important

Whether it’s progress on key initiatives, performance results, or even behaviors expected of each other; effective teams track those things that are most important to their success and take action when things are not meeting expectations.

How Does Yours Rate?

I’m curious to learn which of these nine most challenge executive teams. Would you take another two minutes to think of an executive team to which you belong or know well and rate it for each of these items?

Okay, you’ve formed your opinion. Want to build a stronger executive team? I can help. Reach out, and we’ll discuss your situation and the available options to enable your team’s full potential.

The post 9 Characteristics of an Effective Executive Team appeared first on LaForce Teamwork.

The secret to improving teams is to occasionally assess where they are at and then take action based on what you discover.

The following are characteristics of team effectiveness. Look over the list and see how well these statements apply to your team.

1. Clear purpose

People know why the team exists. Extra points if they think the purpose is at least a little cool.

2. Measurable objectives

Team success is clear because it can be measured.

3. Supports the organization’s purpose

The team is bigger than itself, tied into the greater organization.

4. Know how the team will be evaluated

Everyone can tell you how the team’s performance will be evaluated.

5. Understands customers’ expectations

Team members know who they serve and what they want.

6. Individuals that support the team understand the team’s expectations

The team lets others know what they need to succeed.

7. Members agree on the process for completing their work

The steps are clear, and people follow their processes.

8. Members each do their “fair share” of the work.

Nobody is consistently slacking off or taking advantage of others willingness to work hard.

9. Access to the resources they need

Whether it’s tools, training, information, authority or whatever they need to succeed. They have it.

10. Effectively makes decisions

The team has a decision-making process that keeps them moving forward.

11. Openly communicate with each other

Everyone feels informed and heard.

12. Communicates openly with interested external groups

The team knows their stakeholders and keeps them in the loop.

13. Effectively resolve conflicts

The team isn’t afraid of disagreement, because they know how to work through it.

14. Quickly address problems that are hurting the team

When a problem is noticed, someone points it out and the group takes it on.

15. Understand what is expected

Everyone knows what it means to be an effective team member because the expectations are clear.

16. Support one another

Team members have each other’s back.

17. Continuously monitors its performance

The team always knows where it stands.

18. Continuously improves its performance

The team is interested and works to get better.

19. Achieves (will achieve) its goals and objectives

The ultimate assessment comes back to goals. Do they meet them or not?

20. Members feel good about being a part of this team

People are glad to be a member and say they believe it’s a healthy, successful team.

How Did You Do?

If it seems that few of these characteristics describe your team, it’s time to take action. With the right help and the willingness to make a change, your team can do amazing things.

To help assess your team, we’ve created a process called the TeamCheck Assessment. It’s based on some of these 20 characteristics.

Take the TeamCheck Assessment

This is a free tool for you to use in order to organize your own opinions about how your team is doing. You simply rate your team on a list of team effectiveness characteristics. It will take about 5 minutes to complete.

We Can Help

If you are concerned by what’s happening on the team you lead, reach out. We can talk through the symptoms, discover the underlying causes, and make a plan for how to move forward to better team health.

The post 20 Characteristics That Describe Amazing Teams appeared first on LaForce Teamwork.

Have you ever sat back and asked yourself,

What would collaboration look like in my dream organization?

If you did, chances are you would next notice the differences between your collaboration vision and your current reality.

You know, you don’t have to accept the status quo. Instead you could create the vision and then get to work on bringing it to life.

Potential vision components

When considering a collaboration vision, you might first wonder what it could include. Here’s a list of common collaboration activities that may be part of your vision:

1. Keeping others and yourself “in the loop”
2. Sharing ideas
3. Discussing ideas
4. Offering and receiving feedback
5. Making decisions together
6. Working through differences
7. Sharing and tracking work activities
8. Planning
9. Inspiring coworkers
10. Raising issues
11. Asking for help
12. Influencing
13. Addressing problems
14. Measuring success

What would you add to the list?

Your collaboration vision

Are you ready to develop your vision? It’s time to close your eyes and dream a little. Imagine an organization in which teamwork thrives. What would be the key elements of your vision?

I recently reflected on my own business and that what I do is help others with teamwork and collaboration. My business vision could match your collaboration vision.

What this means is that collaboration should be about much more than when a group is gathered in a meeting room (or on a Zoom call).

Information should flow effortlessly regardless or where people are and the time of day. I also wanted to include the idea that status and organizational silos should not inhibit the collaboration process.

The four collaboration pillars

For you to bring collaboration to life in your organization, you could start by examining the four pillars on which successful collaboration stands.

1. Skills

It’s easy to believe everyone automatically knows how to collaborate. That’s just not true.

Communication skills are particularly important in a collaborative workplace. Examples include:

• Assertiveness
• Active listening
• Presenting information
• Writing
• Reading

Additionally there are many skills tied to emotional intelligence (E.Q.) that are necessary as well. Empathy, self-awareness, and caring are three that come to mind.

There are skills related to conflict negotiation and even technical skills required for the tools the group is using.

2. Process

I can think of dozens of process questions that need to be answered in order for a group to effectively collaborate.

They aren’t necessarily hard to answer. The problem is that most organizations don’t think to answer them.

Here are just a few examples:

• Who can initiate collaborative projects?
• How will we decide when we don’t all agree?
• How will we share files?
• Where will we store files?
• How will we maintain version control on docs?
• How will we know when to do meetings in-person vs. virtual?
• What, if any, asynchronous collaboration methods should we use?
• How will we decide when to use email vs. chat vs. phone?
• What expectations will we establish about responding to one another?
• How will we keep everyone in the loop?
• How will we track work status on projects?

Again, these aren’t hard questions. They simply need to be asked, carefully considered, answered, and then implemented.

3. Technology

In case you haven’t noticed, there is a whole lot of collaborative technology out there. Every time I stumble upon a new one, I fall in love.

There are hundreds of tools, but you can put them in a handful of categories.

• Communication
• Video conferencing
• File editing
• Cloud storage
• Project management
• Scheduling
• Creativity tools
• Meeting management
• Decision support

You already have access to some of these. Email is a collaborative technology after all. The tools getting more press these days include giants like Microsoft365, with an emphasis on Teams; Zoom for video conference, Slack for messaging, Asana for project management, and on and on.

The challenge with technology is finding something that works for you and then building adoption through a purposeful change management process.

Warning: There’s always going to be a new shiny tool. Stick with one until you have a really good reason to find something else.

4. Desire

Finally, and perhaps the most important pillar, is having people who want to work in a collaborative environment.

Teamwork isn’t for everyone. Some people are independent spirits and prefer to go their own way. They may be good at what they do, but if they aren’t willing to work as a member of a collaborative team, you’re going to have a big problem building more teamwork.

Some of this can be influenced by you. Your example, the expectations you set, and your rewards systems all contribute to how interested people are in this style of working.

What’s your vision?

It’s time. You’ve got all the background you need.

Do you want your organization to be more collaborative? Why and in what ways?

If you’re not sure how to proceed, I’d be happy to kick around some ideas with you. I’ll help you refine a vision that makes sense for your organization and then craft a plan for how to go about making it a reality.

Reach out if I can be of help.

The post Enable Your Collaboration Vision appeared first on LaForce Teamwork.

As a skinny kid, it was a brutal process, especially when the activity required big strong kids. And yet it worked great for creating balanced teams. The captains knew the skills they needed to win, and they knew who possessed them.

While some in the pool tried to use their connections to get the nod, for the most part the process ignored popularity and focused only on the qualities required by the game. Back then it was all about physical stuff: Size, strength, speed coordination. Depending on the game, a few technical skills came into play as well.

Would You Pick Yourself?

Now imagine picking people to be on your work team. The physical stuff likely no longer needs to be on the table for consideration, unless of course you are picking teammates to lay sod. In that case the circumstances haven’t changed much.

If you are a knowledge worker, someone working with ideas and information, rather than physical objects; you need people with different qualities. I’d suggest nine of them.

As you review the list, think about yourself. If you want to be an effective team member, then you need to take an honest look at the degree to which you possess these.

1. Competent

Your position requires a set of key skills. If the interview process was effective, you likely had the skills when you were hired. As the position changes, you continue to add to and maintain your skills so that you are always fully equipped to succeed in your role.

2. Trustworthy

Your teammates can depend on you. You keep your promises. You show up prepared. You are honest and genuine. People know you always consider their best interests.

3. Committed

You pull your weight. You work hard. You focus your energy on meeting goals and objectives, both your own and the team’s. You fully own your share of the team’s overall responsibilities.

4. Collaborative

You approach problems as part of a team. You know that everyone has something to contribute, and you fully participate in exchanging ideas, questions, and concerns that lead to better decisions and stronger results.

5. Assertive

You give voice to your wants and needs in a manner that is direct, timely, and respectful. When others express themselves, you listen well and provide helpful responses.

6. Friendly

You like your teammates and they like you. People think of you as kind, cheerful, and respectful. You create a positive vibe within the team. People are happier when they are around you.

7. Supportive

You go out of your way to help your coworkers. You jump in and offer a hand when they are overwhelmed. You cheer their successes, and offer comfort at their setbacks.

8. Adaptable

You enjoy the give and take that goes with teamwork. You carefully consider all ideas with an open mind. When a situation calls for you to be flexible, you make your best effort to accommodate the situation.

9. Courageous

Working through difficult issues, advocating for new ideas, or challenging higher authority are all risky propositions. You don’t wait for someone else to do the tough stuff. You step up when the need is before you.

How did you do?

My guess is that you have some strengths and a few opportunities for development. We all do. For example I think trustworthy and adaptable are at the top of my list. At times I struggle with committed and collaborative. That’s what happens when you work on your own for 27 years.

Pick your areas for improvement. Make your plan for changing them. I’d be interested in knowing what you picked.

If you’re interested in conveying these ideas to people within your group, I’ve built a short workshop around these qualities. I’d be happy to come in and lead a session for your team.

The post Only the Best Teamplayers Possess These 9 Qualities appeared first on LaForce Teamwork.

Collaboration isn’t a mindset or attitude. It’s action. It’s the way you behave with others on your team.

Here are eight behaviors your teammates ought to see from you if you want to claim that you are collaborative.

Share information

You are transparent because you’d happily welcome people jumping in with an opinion or assistance. They can’t do so unless they know what you are working on. Need some ideas about what to share? Consider this list:

• Availability
• Goals
• Current work priorities
• Progress on projects
• Ideas for improving a process or service
• Concerns
• Questions
• Reactions

It’s all about being open with people. If this isn’t your normal approach to interacting with coworkers, it will feel risky. Work through your fears and do it anyway.

Openness is the foundation for effective collaboration.

Ask for feedback

The reason we collaborate is because we want better results. The idea is that others have different skills and perspectives that can help us improve our performance.

The problem is that for most people, their operating principle is to “Mind your own business.”

To overcome that natural hesitation, you can invite feedback from others. Here are some opportunities for you to consider.

• When you finish running a meeting, ask others for how they thought you could have improved the meeting.
• When you are writing a challenging email, run the draft past a teammate to get a second opinion.
• When you have a big idea, toss it out to your team and ask them to make it better. Try this question, “What am I not thinking about that I should consider?”

Collaborative team members constantly invite feedback, not because they want ego strokes, but because they truly want others to share their thoughts.

Provide feedback

It’s possible some of your teammates aren’t asking for feedback. So what? Go for it anyway.

When you notice something and believe your feedback would help a coworker be more successful, proactively offer it.

There are two reasons for offering feedback:

1. You want to make sure your teammate understands that what they did was helpful so that they can repeat the behavior.
2. You want your teammate to understand that there may be other approaches that could be more effective, so that the person can change and improve.

Just make sure your feedback is timely, specific, and given with a supportive spirit.

Receive feedback well

There’s a third aspect of feedback that is the lynchpin in a culture where people ask for and volunteer feedback.

You’ve got to show the person who offers it that you are glad they gave you feedback.

If you think the feedback is the best advice ever, tell the person.

If you think the feedback is the worst advice ever, thank the person for offering it. It might sound like this, “Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me. I’m always glad when you offer your insights. You’ve given me something to think about.”

Problem-solve with others

You don’t need to solve every problem on your own. Being collaborative means bringing other brains into your process and working on solutions together.

This might look like a formal problem solving meeting.

It could also be as simple as having some one-on-one conversations with coworkers to kick around ideas and see if they can help you find a better solution.

Look out for stakeholders

Collaborative people have a strong external focus. They want to be sure that they aren’t recklessly pursuing their interests to the detriment of their teammates.

Behavioral success on this means they…

1. Try to identify all the stakeholders who might be affected by an action they want to take.
2. Talk to those stakeholders to see what they think.
3. Rethink their actions if the cost on others is too great.

Offer support whenever you see an Opportunity

Collaboration means recognizing that you and your teammates share a common set of interests.

While someone else may have direct responsibility for a problem, they need not be all alone in getting it done. When you see a way to help, offer it.

You can provide emotional support. You can also jump in and take on some of the work when it makes sense for everyone.

Engage in healthy debate

Finally, solving problems in a collaborative manner means hashing out differences.

While this may feel like a fight, collaborative people know it’s all about vetting ideas and figuring out the best path forward by working together.

This means you need to engage. You also need to be kind.

These actions aren’t mutually exclusive. Work it out together.

Are you collaborative?

Collaboration is about better ideas and mutual support.

There are specific behaviors associated with it. Now that you’ve read what they are, your next step is to determine if you are behaving in this way.

If not, pick one. Make a plan for how to do more of it. Practice. Get some feedback from others.

When you’ve mastered it, pick another and repeat.

Then enjoy the benefits of being a member of a highly-collaborative, wildly successful team.

The post Collaborative Teammates Demonstrate 8 Behaviors appeared first on LaForce Teamwork.

I’ll buy that idea. Over the years I’ve found to also apply to ropes, shoe laces, and rubber bands. Yeah, I know they don’t have links, but they do have bad sections.

But what about teamwork? Can you apply it to your coworkers?

My experience suggests that you cannot. The problem is that the so-called weak link isn’t easily identified.

Sure, you might quickly point to one person, but would that person or others on the team agree? Also, what criteria do you use to judge a person’s strength? I’m sure you have an opinion or two, but again, others may not agree with you.

Two perspectives

Take a look at these potential weak links and tell me which deserve the label:

People who do the least because they don’t do their fair share
OR
People who do the most because they cover for the slackers

People who are cranky because they bring everyone down
OR
People who are sunny because they aren’t realistic

People who are loud and opinionated because they make everyone uncomfortable
OR
People who are quiet and timid because they don’t contribute their insights

People who have the least knowledge because they don’t catch on quickly enough
OR
People who have the most knowledge because they don’t examine basic assumptions

Then there are those folks who fall in the middle on everything. Nice and safe, but we can’t remember their names. Maybe they’re the weak links.

To identify the weakest link, there are usually at least two perspectives. The problem is that we think our styles and preferences to be the best and those not like us to be problematic.

If problems on the team surface, avoid the path of least resistance which is to assign blame to the people who aren’t doing things as you would. Instead, consider everyone’s contribution (including your own) to the problem and build your solution based on that understanding.

Capitalize on the differences

Better yet, examine those differences and figure out how to capitalize on them to create a stronger team. Diversity is strength, but only if you appreciate it and find creative ways to use it.

The post Identify Your Team’s Weakest Link—If You Can appeared first on LaForce Teamwork.

GROUP PROJECT

I hated group projects. From my perspective they made my life harder and my expectations were always that the results were going to be worse than if I just did the work myself.

As I have shared stories about this with others, it’s clear that a lot of people have similar reactions to group projects.

Because you’re reading, I’m willing to bet you are one of them.

What’s the problem?

The complaints are all too familiar. If this were Family Feud, the audience would likely have provided these top answers:

1. One person does the bulk of the work, and others contribute little to nothing.
2. Working with people you don’t like.
3. Working with people who have different ideas about what needs to be done and how to do it
4. Everyone shares equal credit for unequal effort.
5. Hassles associated with getting everyone together.
6. Wasting time in pointless meetings.
7. Slow progress because of the challenges in making a decision.
8. Being dragged down by weak teammates.

Have I missed any?

The moment I saw the light

I remember sharing a story about a time that I scanned a classroom and quickly identified the classmates I didn’t want on my team. I didn’t want to work with them because I thought they wouldn’t do their fair share.

Imagine my surprise when a workshop participant shared his view that

“Maybe they didn’t want to work with you either because they thought you would be a control freak and try to do everything yourself.”

Touché. Had not considered that…until then.

I already knew that solving major problems, creating new innovations, overcoming market competitors all require the efforts of a team. Still, I didn’t like being forced into a team.

It was the challenge from the participant that finally helped me change my emotional response to group projects.

Group work is the work

While individuals still do the majority of process-oriented work (Pay invoices, answer customer questions, give performance reviews), project work usually involves making some sort of a change. Almost all significant workplace initiatives will be done in a group.

Take note of all the projects happening around you. Are there any that don’t involve a team?

In many organizations, work is nothing more than a never-ending group project. There are task forces for this and cross-functional teams for that. It’s all about collaboration.

If you are some sort of creative genius, perhaps you can work by yourself and invent cool stuff. For the rest of us, our cool stuff will likely be created with others. Few can say, “I did this.” It’s almost always going to be, “We did this.”

So if you don’t like group work, and find yourself constantly working with others; I image work is a tough place to be. Perhaps you can think of another type of work to do.

How to change your perspective

Maybe you can learn to appreciate group work. It happens when you change your focus from the hassles to the benefits. There are many. Do any of these resonate with you?

1. Gaining access to skills and experience that you don’t have.
2. The support of others who are working toward the same goals.
3. Learning from people who do it differently than you do.
4. Being around someone who can carry the load when you are having a bad day.
5. Returning the favor for someone who needs you to step up.
6. The camaraderie and friendship of having teammates.
7. Building on an idea you would never have had on your own.
8. Teaching others what you know and seeing them grow.

Speaking from personal experience, when I struck out on my own in 1996, I lost my colleagues. When I woke up in the morning with a new idea, I could be on it that day. There was nobody whose buy-in I needed. I didn’t have to work through other’s opinions about how my idea might be better.

It was liberating.

But over time I began to miss my colleagues. I had a growing sense that my ideas would be better if they were refined in collaboration with others. I felt the anxiety of not having backup. I missed the intense debates about goals and process. Perhaps it’s always easier to appreciate what you don’t have.

Yes, there are challenges associated with team projects, but informed by the years, I’ve reached the conclusion that the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.

To tip the scale in your favor, the secret is using solid teamwork practices. Set your team up for success and be amazed by what you can accomplish, together.

The post I Hated Group Projects appeared first on LaForce Teamwork.

• Giving Jason his performance review.
• Talking to a department manager whose employees are complaining about unfair treatment.
• Giving Winnie the information she needs for the RFP.
• Convincing your boss that you need another team member.

These kinds of activities are all dependent on good communication skills. And when that’s the case, it means your to-do list is also filled with numerous opportunities for error and misinterpretation.

Communication is hard work. We often assume it’s a simple act of sending an email, leaving a voice message, or stopping by for a quick conversation. And yet our experience reminds us of all the times when things didn’t work out as expected because of a misunderstanding. Why? The problem is barriers.

Common barriers

Whenever there is a difference between the message you intended to send and the one that was actually received, it was blocked or distorted by a barrier. There are plenty of them to be on the watch for. Any of these sound familiar in your recent interactions with coworkers?

• You make assumptions about what the person intends.
• Your bias about the message or sender clouds your understanding of the message.
• Noise prevents you from hearing everything clearly, but you figure you have the “gist” of what the person wanted you to know.
• You drift in and out of paying attention because you have other, more pressing matters, weighing on your mind.
• The person accidentally pushes one of your hot buttons, and you fall deep into you own emotional reaction.
• You just can’t find a reason to care, so don’t pay attention.

Overcome the obstacles

While these are just a few of the barriers that will derail your communication efforts, there are many others. To prevent misunderstanding and increase solid connections; it’s critical to do the following:

• Be aware of the barriers that exist in any communication situation. Before sending a message ask yourself this simple question, “What might cause the other party to not understand what I intend?”
• Take whatever action you can to eliminate or minimize those barriers which are within your control.
• Never assume the message has been accurately received without confirming that to be the case. Check understanding using a back and forth process of feedback with the other party.

Communication is far more difficult than it appears. Recognizing that is an important first step towards becoming a more effective communicator.

The post Barriers Mess Up Communication with Coworkers appeared first on LaForce Teamwork.