Teams Are Not Built on Paper

The five stages of team development are widely studied in business schools and are typically taught in nearly every executive management program in the modern business environment.? We can all recite the stages: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning (using your conference session voice). Studying these stages can be helpful, but my suspicion is that over time we have become overly reliant on the implementation of these academic steps believing that simply being aware of them will help in team formation and subsequent execution.? Let's be clear, teams are not built on paper.

Ask any veteran or law enforcement officer about the subject of team building and they will immediately begin to regale you with stories of what can only be described as a form of hazing (from my generation) or an equally miserable experience where they were purposely pushed beyond their comfort zone and commanded to operate in a high-stress environment with limited food or sleep in an early team building exercise. The objective was often executing some minor task, which required quick, open and effective collaboration usually butting up against an artificial timeline.? If you ask an athlete (of a team sport) about the subject of team building you will again hear tales of physically stressful situations and its ability to form bonds.? These stories are wonderful to share in social environments, but are not easily replicated in modern business environments. So what’s the modern day leader to do when you can’t command your new team to live in the mud for a week and operate on minimal sleep?

I mention both the scholastic approach of studying the concept and the other end of the spectrum, the military/athletic approach so that we can begin to understand that there’s value in both methods.?Our job in business is to see what will work and is suitable for the business environment.? To be clear, I’m not advocating for one over the other, but I will again double down on the idea that it takes more than a mere document to form a team; have them believe they have shared fortunes, conjoined outcomes or deliverables and then get them to be productive in some kind of repeatable meaningful fashion. Like most things in life, the preferred landing is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.

I had a unique experience with this in my own leadership background.? My attempt at building a team on paper ended in the team under-performing and somewhat silent protest that there was even a team that had been assembled.? It took me a while to see where I might have failed the process.? I essentially cut corners in a business environment believing I could skip even an amalgamation of the tough team building I had experienced in the military and as a law enforcement SWAT operator.?

The simple truth of it was that I had not exercised any of the necessary steps in ensuring the team members began to see individual outcomes as shared outcomes.? I had skipped a vital step in the formation of the team and desperately wanted to skip to an idea of the team that simply did not exist. I would chalk this up to a hard learned lesson; not a complete failure, but certainly not the level of productivity the team might have been capable of had I simply built upon what I knew to be the right path. Learn to listen to your experience.

Maybe you have had a similar experience?? Team building is a special art.? It requires the right combination of strategy, transparency, the creation of team champions and buy-in from senior team members who can evangelize on behalf of the team without prodding.??

Here are some recommended steps business leaders should engage as you delve into the really hard concept of standing up a new team:

1. Draft a mission and the beginnings of a strategy?- Writing helps to clarify your ideas. If you can't write it out you will likely have trouble verbally explaining it.
2. Take time with the principals in a face to face retreat (YES, this is unavoidable), especially if the team members are unfamiliar with one another.?If feasible and small enough this should actually be the entire team.
3. Have the principals brainstorm and draft the expected operational cycle and deliverables of the team. They should also put the finishing touches on the strategy.
4. After launch, bring the principals together in transparent and open sessions to determine what’s working and what needs to be tweaked.? They will self-correct if given the opportunity. Explore the concept of radical transparency. Real transparency can be illusive, but its worth the time to build it into your interactions with one another.
5. Celebrate minor and major successes because it lets the team know it's on the right track.

Team building is more art than science.? Performance, when aligned to measurable metrics and identified outcomes, is as clear as sunlight.? Teams in practice are better than those which live on the plane of the theoretical.? What has worked for you in building highly effective teams?

#leadershipstudent #leadershipmatters #teambuilding #mentoring #leadership

MK Palmore?is a senior leader and strategic advisor, a retired FBI Special Agent and a veteran of the U.S. Marines Corps.