#5 – A Healthy Organization is Effective at Building and Nurturing Successful Teams – (12 Vital Signs Of Organizational Health)

In my introductory post, 12 Vital signs of Organizational Health, I listed the 12 signs. Here is sign #5:

A healthy organization is effective at building and nurturing successful teams.

We live in an era of collaboration. We work with other people – we work together. We work in teams, on teams. And, no matter which team members you have on your team on any given day, you have to make that group into a cohesive, all-on-the-same-page team. The people simply have to work together as a team.

Consider these thoughts:

Either  we heal  as a team  or we are going to crumble…
You are going to see a guy  who will sacrifice himself for this team  because he knows when it comes down to it,  you are gonna do the same thing for him.  .. That’s a team, gentlemen,  and either we heal now, as a team,  or we will die as individuals.
Al Pacino’s Speech, Any Given Sunday (watch the speech here. Great speech!)

The art of transforming a group of young, ambitious individuals into an integrated championship team is not a mechanistic process. It’s a mysterious juggling act that requires not only a thorough knowledge of the time-honored laws of the game but also an open heart, a clear mind, and a deep curiosity about the ways of the human spirit.
On a good team there are… great players who show they are great players by being able to play with others as a team.
On every successful team I’ve coached, most of the players had a clear idea of the role they were expected to play. When the pecking order is clear, it reduces the players’ anxiety and stress. But if it’s unclear and the top players are constantly vying for position, the center will not hold, no matter how talented the roster.
A team leader’s number one job, I explained, was to build up his teammates, not tear them down.
The key to sustained success is to keep growing as a team.
Phil Jackson, Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success

New Year’s Resolution. You should rededicate yourself to the idea that this is a team. We play for a team. A team with many players… A team’s made up of a group of individuals – individuals who forsake their own individual needs to pursue a common goal. It’s the team goal.
Dan Rydell (Josh Charles) to Casey McCall (Peter Krause), from Sports Night (from the scene in the video clip below)

Collaboration isn’t an airy concept but a practice that’s found in our daily reality… Time to plant the fields? Everybody pitched in and got it done. Harvest time? The community raced to get the crops in before the rains came. Where were those crops stored? In barns built by teams of neighbors….
A celebrity is made up of many people, usually a team…
You can’t force people to collaborate. You can make them share offices and serve on committees together, but if their hearts aren’t in it, the process is an empty shell. Personal, emotional commitment is crucial…
Be sure everyone on the team gets acknowledged…
As a choreographer, my task is to make the best possible work with the dancers I find in the room on any given day.
Twyla Tharp, The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons for Working Together

Let me remind you of the obvious. For a team to “gel,” to “come together,” they have to spend a lot.of.time together simply being together. They’ve got to bond, meld, become one — call it what you want. Strangers who do not know each other do not make for a very good team.

And each team in the organization has to know its role in the overall pursuit(s) of the organization. And each individual on the team knows his or her role on the team. And for each team member, team success trumps any individual success. Any lone wolf who is out for his or her own success and reputation, more than the success and reputation of the team, is a cancer to the team.

Since spending time together is critical, you need lots of meetings. And those meetings need to include, with intentional frequency, a “human element” — to get to know one another. You know, in order to “feel like” a team.

Now, there are plenty of terrific books on teams. Phil Jackson’s Eleven Rings is a welcome addition. And, of course, everyone needs to remind themselves of the principles found in the long-lasting best seller The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni. From the book:

To succeed as a team requires practicing a small set of principles over a long period of time. Teams only work when the five dysfunctions described in this book are acknowledged, identified, and overcome.

Here are the five dysfunctions:
1) Dysfunction one: an absence of trust among team members. –
(resulting problem: invulnerability)
2) Dysfunction two: fear of conflict. –
(resulting problem: artificial harmony)
3) Dysfunction three: lack of commitment. –
(resulting problem: ambiguity)
4) Dysfunction four: an avoidance of accountability. –
(resulting problem: low standards)
5) Dysfunction five: inattention to results. –
(resulting problem: status and ego)

• Another way to look at this model – imagine how members of truly cohesive teams behave:

1) They trust one another.
2) They engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas.
3) They commit to decisions and plans of action.
4) They hold one another accountable for delivering against those plans.
5) They focus on the achievement of collective results.

But, if I were asked “what is the best book to read about building a team?,” my current answer might be The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons for Working Together by Twyla Tharp, which I quoted above. Because, it will really help you think about the need for collaboration — team building and effective team functioning and maintaining team health.

Here’s a suggestion. At your next team meeting (you do have regular team meetings, don’t you?), read this blog post aloud. Talk about one of the quotes from the books that are included. But, before you do anything else, show this video to your team. It is from Aaron Sorkin’s first television show Sports Night, it is about 6 ½ minutes long, and it is a terrific, valuable, let’s-talk-about-team conversation starter. So, show this video, and discuss it…

If you don’t make sure that your organization has effective teams, then your organization will not be very healthy, or very effective.

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You can purchase my synopsis of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencione, with handout + audio, at our companion site, 15minutebusinessbooks.com.