FACTOR VI: PERSONALAND INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
CLUSTER Q: INSPIRING OTHERS
60 Building Effective Teams
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships. Michael Jordan – U.S. basketball
player
Section 1: Your Development Need(s)
Unskilled
 Doesn’t assemble, build or manage in a team fashion
 Manages people on a one-to-one basis
 Doesn’t create a common mindset or common challenge
 Rewards and compliments individuals, not the team
 May not hold many team meetings
 Doesn’t create any synergies in the team; everyone works on his/her own projects
 Doesn’t manage in a way that builds team morale or energy
 Doesn’t have the skills or interest to build a team
 May be very action and control oriented and won’t trust a team to perform
Select one to three of the competencies listed below to use as a substitute for this competency if you decide not to
work on it directly.
Substitutes: 3,7,18,36,37,39,42,52,63,64,65
Skilled
 Blends people into teams when needed
 Creates strong morale and spirit in his/her team
 Shares wins and successes
 Fosters open dialogue
 Lets people finish and be responsible for their work
 Defines success in terms of the whole team
 Creates a feeling of belonging in the team
Overused Skill
 May not treat others as unique individuals
 May slow down reasonable process by having everything open for debate
 May go too far in not hurting people’s feelings and not making tough decisions
 May not develop individual leaders
 Might not provide take-charge leadership during tough times
Select one to three of the competencies listed below to work on to compensate for an overuse of this skill.
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Compensators: 9,12,13,18,19,20,21,34,36,56,57,64
Some Causes
 A loner; an individual contributor
 Can’t set common cause
 Control oriented manager
 Don’t believe in or support teams
 Excessively action oriented
 Incentives are all based upon individual achievement
 Not a motivator
 Not a skilled process manager
 Poor time management
 The idea of a team is resisted by people
 Treat all people the same
Leadership Architect® Factors and Clusters
This competency is in the Personal and Interpersonal Skills Factor (VI). This competency is in the Inspiring
Others Cluster (Q) with: 36, 37, 65. You may want to check other competencies in the same Factor/Cluster for
related tips.
The Map
Everyone would enjoy being on the dream team. That’s a group of performers each skilled in his/her own
specialties, pulling together accomplishing greater things than the added total of each performing separately.
Most organizations talk teams, but primarily reward individual achievement. They also attract and promote
people who sometimes resist the idea of tying their performance to that of others. But teams, although
uncomfortable to some, are the best way to accomplish integrated tasks like creating systems, producing
complex products or sustained coordinated efforts. They are also useful in cutting across boundaries to get
things done. The key to successful team building lies in identifying roles, jobs, tasks, rewards and objectives
with the team, not with individuals.
Section 2: Learning on Your Own
These self-development remedies will help you build your skill(s).
Some Remedies
 1. Team confused about its direction? Establish a common cause and a shared mindset. A common
thrust is what energizes dream teams. As in light lasers, alignment adds focus, power and efficiency. It’s
best to get each team member involved in setting the common vision. Establish goals and measures. Most
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people like to be measured. People like to have checkpoints along the way to chart their progress. Most
people perform better with goals that are stretching. Again, letting the team participate in setting the goals
is a plus. More help? – See #35 Managing and Measuring Work.
 2. Need a clear course of action? Create a game plan. Once mission and outcomes and goals are
established, in order to be resource efficient, a plan is necessary to avoid duplicate work and things falling
through the cracks. More help? – See #47 Planning.
 3. Want to raise the odds that the team will excel? Inspire the team. Follow the basic rules of inspiring
team members as outlined in classic books like People Skills by Robert Bolton or Thriving on Chaos by
Tom Peters. Tell people what they do is important, say thanks, offer help and ask for it, provide autonomy
in how people do their work, provide a variety of tasks, ―surprise‖ people with enriching, challenging
assignments, show an interest in their work, adopt a learning attitude toward mistakes, celebrate
successes, have visible accepted measures of achievement and so on. Each team member is different so
good team managers deal with each person uniquely while being fair to all. More help? – See #23 Fairness
to Direct Reports and #36 Motivating Others.
 4. Team stuck in a rut? Create a climate of innovation and experimentation. When how to do
something is too rigidly specified, motivation and creativity decrease. How things are done should be as
open as possible. Studies show that people work harder and are more effective when they have a sense of
choice and ownership. Encourage quick, short-cycle experiments. Many will fail so communicate a learning
attitude toward mistakes and failures. More help? – See #28 Innovation Management.
 5. Not getting through to team members? Work on understanding people without judging them. You
don’t have to agree; you just have to understand. To build a team, invest in their learning, education, trips
to customers, and time to think problems through. Give them the benefit of your thinking and particularly
what the key objectives of an effort are. The goal is to have them say, ―We did it.‖ More help? – See #27
Informing.
 6. Too much individualism? Shift the focus from “me” to “we.” Resistance to the idea of a team is
best overcome by focusing on common goals, priorities and problems, selling the logic of pulling together
repeatedly, listening patiently to people’s concerns, protecting people’s feelings but also reinforcing the
perspective of why the team is needed, inviting suggestions to reach the outcome, and showing patience
toward the unconverted. Maintain a light touch. More help? – See #13 Confronting Direct Reports.
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 7. All work and no play? Build a sense of joy and fun for the team. Even though some—including
you—will resist it, parties, roasts, gag awards, picnics and outings build group cohesion. Working with the
whole person tends to build better teams. Use humor and support it in others. Learn to celebrate wins.
 8. Some team members underutilized? Leverage the variety of talent on the team. Dream teams are
usually made up of a variety of talent, not sameness. While dream teams have all of the talent they need to
accomplish the task, not any one member has all of the talent. High-performing teams learn how to take
advantage of each person’s strengths and avoid unreasonable exposure to each person’s weaknesses.
High-performing teams have more disclosure to one another about their self-appraisal of strengths and
weaknesses. A weakness is not considered bad. The team just adjusts to it and moves on. Successful
teams specialize, cover for each other, and only sometimes demand that everyone participate in identical
activities.
 9. Unsure of how to assign team roles? Allow roles within the team to evolve naturally. Some
research indicates that in well-functioning teams people gravitate to eight roles. More help? – See #64
Understanding Others. Generally each of the eight roles needs to be played by someone on the team for
the whole team to be effective. One member can play more than one role.
 10. Not operating at peak performance? Learn how to operate effectively and efficiently. Read
Overcoming Organizational Defenses by Chris Argyris. Half of the book is about some of the common
problems teams run into that block peak performance, and the other half offers strategies and tactics for
undoing those chilling team behaviors.
 11. Need an outside perspective? Engage a team coach. Because a team coach is external to the
team, he or she can objectively help you problem solve and provide you with feedback to avoid some of the
temptations that can demotivate a team. The team coach could be a Human Resources partner or an
external professional that specializes in coaching.
 12. Slow to act as advocate for the team? Run interference. Effective team leaders run interference for
the team by eliminating obstacles that slow down or impede effectiveness. This may mean using the
position power of the role to get the needed support from the organization, negotiating for resources, etc.
 13. Struggling to build or lead a virtual team? Keep virtual teams motivated. Virtual teams are
everywhere now, so it’s hard to avoid them. Use common-sense tactics to stay connected. Schedule
frequent conference calls. Identify regular times when you can be available for mutual teamwork and
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communication (work out compromises for multiple time zones). Leverage multiple technologies (video
conferencing, groupware, etc). And, be mindful of cultural differences, if the virtual team is global.
Section 3: Learning from Feedback
These sources would give you the most accurate and detailed feedback on your skill(s).
 1. Direct Reports
Across a variety of settings, your direct reports probably see you the most. They are the recipients of most
of your managerial behaviors. They know your work. They can compare you with former bosses. Since
they may hesitate to give you negative feedback, you have to set the atmosphere to make it easier for
them. You have to ask.
 2. Human Resource Professionals
Human Resource professionals have both a formal and informal feedback role. Since they have access to
unique and confidential information, they can provide the right context for feedback you’ve received.
Sometimes they may be ―directed‖ to give you feedback. Other times, they may pass on feedback just to
be helpful to you.
 3. Past Associates/Constituencies
When confronted with a present performance problem, some claim, ―I wasn’t like that before; it must be the
current situation.‖ When feedback is available from former associates, about 50% support that claim. In the
other half of the cases, the people were like that before and probably didn’t know it. It sometimes makes
sense to access the past to clearly see the present.
Section 4: Learning from Develop-in-Place Assignments
These part-time develop-in-place assignments will help you build your skill(s).
 Create employee involvement teams.
 Manage a temporary group of ―green,‖ inexperienced people as their coach, teacher, guide, mentor, etc.
 Manage a group of resistant people with low morale through an unpopular change or project.
 Manage a group that includes former peers to accomplish a task.
 Manage a group of people who are older and/or more experienced to accomplish a task.
 Manage a group of people where you are a towering expert and the people in the group are not.
 Manage a group of people who are towering experts but you are not.
 Manage a group of people involved in tackling a fix-it or turnaround project.
 Assemble a team of diverse people to accomplish a difficult task.
 Manage a project team of people who are older and more experienced than you.
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Section 5: Learning from Full-Time Jobs
These full-time jobs offer the opportunity to build your skill(s).
 1. Fix-Its/Turnarounds
The core demands to qualify as a Fix-it or Turnaround assignment are: (1) Clean-ing up a mess. (2)
Serious people issues/problems like credibility/performance/morale. (3) Tight deadline. (4) Serious
business performance failure. (5) Last chance to fix. Four types of Fix-its/Turnarounds: (1) Fixing a failed
business/unit involving taking control, stopping losses, managing damage, planning the turnaround, dealing
with people problems, installing new processes and systems, and rebuilding the spirit and performance of
the unit. (2) Managing sizable disasters like mishandled labor negotiations and strikes, thefts, history of
significant business losses, poor staff, failed leadership, hidden problems, fraud, public relations
nightmares, etc. (3) Significant reorganization and restructuring (e.g., stabilizing the business, re-forming
unit, introducing new systems, making people changes, resetting strategy and tactics). (4) Significant
system/process breakdown (e.g., MIS, financial coordination processes, audits, standards, etc.) across
units requiring working from a distant position to change something, providing advice and counsel, and
installing or implementing a major process improvement or system change outside your own unit and/or
with customers outside the organization.
 2. Significant People Demands
Core demands required to qualify as a Significant People Demands assignment are: (1) A sizable increase
in either the number of people managed and/or the complexity of the challenges involved. (2) Longer-term
assignment (two or more years). (3) Quality of people management is critical to achieving results. (4)
Involves groups not worked with before (e.g., union, new technical areas, nationalities). Examples of
Significant People Demands jobs would be: (1) Downsizing a department—making staff changes. (2)
Leading an organization through a reorganization or restructuring. (3) Managing a newly merged business
unit comprised of people from disparate units/cultures. (4) Rebuilding a team that has a history of conflict or
hardship. (5) Mentoring and coaching inexperienced people. (6) Leading geographically distributed teams.
(7) Absorbing a new team/unit into an existing structure. (8) Leading a company or function with a rapidly
growing employee base.
 3. Small Entrepreneurial
The core demands for qualifying as a Small Entrepreneurial assignment are: (1) Founder or core team
member of a company or brand. (2) Personal financial stake in the business’s success or failure. (3)
Success and failure will be evident. (4) Build business case and secure funding from investors. (5) Chart
new market strategy for new product line. (6) Manage all aspects of the business—from product
design/development, supply chain, marketing, sales, finance, HR. Examples of Small Entrepreneurial jobs
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would be: (1) Small business owner. (2) Among the first employees of a growing company. (3) Starting an
incubator business or a new business line. (4) Launching a new brand or new product line. (5) Entering a
new market. (6) Responsible for a new product/system through entire cycle.
 4. Start-Ups
The core demands to qualify as a start from scratch are: (1) Starting something new for you and/or for the
organization. (2) Forging a new team. (3) Creating new systems/facilities/staffs/programs/procedures. (4)
Contextual adversity (e.g., uncertainty, government regulation, unions, difficult environment). Seven types
of start from scratches: (1) Planning, building, hiring, and managing (e.g., building a new facility, opening
up a new location, moving a unit or company). (2) Heading something new (e.g., new product, new service,
new line of business, new department/function, major new program). (3) Taking over a
group/product/service/program that had existed for less than a year and was off to a fast start. (4)
Establishing overseas operations. (5) Implementing major new designs for existing systems. (6) Moving a
successful program from one unit to another. (7) Installing a new organization-wide process as a full-time
job like Total Work Systems (e.g., TQM/ISO/Six Sigma).
Section 6: Learning from Your Plan
These additional remedies will help make this development plan more effective for you.
Learning to Learn Better
 1. Form a Learning Network with Others Working on the Same Problem
Look for people in similar situations, and create a process for sharing and learning together. Look for a
variety of people inside and outside your organization. Give feedback to each other; try new and different
things together; share successes, failures, and lessons.
 2. Use a Tutor to Learn Something New
Set up a tutor relationship in the areas you’re working on; open up, listen, learn, and try new things. Learn
from the tutoring/learning process. Do you learn more easily from a tutor or do you get blocked? Test out
your thinking with the tutor; do debriefs after trying the tutor’s advice.
 3. Examine Why You Judge People the Way You Do
List the people you like and those you dislike and try to find out why. What do those you like have in
common with each other and with you? What do those you dislike have in common with each other and
how do they differ from you? Are your ―people buckets‖ logical and productive or do they interfere? Could
you be more effective without putting people into buckets?
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 4. Form an Advisory Group to Help You
Assemble a one-time ad hoc group of people you respect and ask them for help solving or facing a
significant issue. Outline what you know about it, and ask the team to lay out a plan. Have them examine
your thinking and suggest changes and improvements.
 5. Envision Doing Something Well in a Group
Take the people you want or need to be involved through an envisioning/creativity exercise to come up with
different ideas and solutions.
 6. Preview a Plan with a Test Audience
Before committing to a plan, find someone agreeable to a wide-ranging discussion about the issue or
problem you face. Explore all sides and options; go with the flow; let what you need to do emerge from the
process; develop a plan as you go.
Learning from Experience, Feedback, and Other People
 7. Using Multiple Models
Who exemplifies how to do whatever your need is? Who, for example, personifies decisiveness or
compassion or strategic agility? Think more broadly than your current job and colleagues. For example,
clergy, friends, spouses, or community leaders are also good sources for potential models. Select your
models not on the basis of overall excellence or likeability, but on the basis of the one towering strength (or
glaring weakness) you are interested in. Even people who are well thought of usually have only one or two
towering strengths (or glaring weak-nesses). Ordinarily, you won’t learn as much from the whole person as
you will from one characteristic.
 8. Learning from Observing Others
Observe others. Find opportunities to observe without interacting with your model. This enables you to
objectively study the person, note what he/she is doing or not doing, and compare that with what you would
typically do in similar situations. Many times you can learn more by watching than asking. Your model may
not be able to explain what he/she does or may be an unwilling teacher.
 9. Learning from Limited Staff
Most managers either inherit or hire staff from time to time who are inexperi-enced, incompetent, not up to
the task, resistant, or dispirited. Any of these may create a hardship for you. The lessons to be learned are
how to get things done with limited resources and how to fix the people situation. In the short term, this
hardship is best addressed by assessing the combined strengths of the team and deploying the best you
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have against the problem. Almost everyone can do something well. Also, the team can contribute more
than the combined individuals can. How can you empower and motivate the team? If you hired the
troublesome staff, why did you err? What can you learn from your hiring mistakes? What wasn’t there that
you thought was present? What led you astray? How can you prevent that same hiring error in the future?
What do you need to do to fix the situation? Quick development? Start over? If you inherited the problem,
how can you fix it? Can you implement a program of accelerated development? Do you have to start over
and get new people? What did the prior manager do or not do that led to this situation in the first place?
What can you learn from that? What will you do differently? How does the staff feel? What can you learn
from their frustrations over not being able to do the job? How can you be a positive force under negative
circumstances? How can you rally them to perform? What lasting lessons can you learn from someone in
distress and trouble? If you’re going to try accelerated development, how can you get a quick assessment?
How can you give the staff motivating feedback? How can you construct and implement development plans
that will work? How can you get people on-line feedback for maximum growth? Do you know when to stop
trying and start over? If you’re going to turn over some staff, how can you do it both rapidly and with the
least damage? How can you deliver the message in a constructive way? What can you learn from having
to take negative actions against people? How can you prevent this from happening again?
Learning from Courses
 10. Supervisory Courses
Most new supervisors go through an ―Introduction to Supervision‖ type course. They are designed to teach
the common practices a first-line supervisor needs to know to be effective. The content of most of those
courses is standard. There is general agreement on the principles of effective supervision. There are two
common problems: (1) Do the students have a strong motivation to learn? Do they know what they don’t
know? Is there any pain? Because motivated students with a need for the knowledge learn best,
participants should have had some trying experiences and some supervisory pain and hardships before
attending. (2) Are the instructors experienced supervisors? Have they practiced what they preach? Can
they share powerful anecdotes to make key points? Can they answer questions credibly? If possible, select
supervisory courses based on the instructors, since the content seems to be much the same for all such
courses. Lastly, does the course offer the opportunity for practicing each skill? Does it contain simulations?
Are there case studies you could easily identify with? Are there breakout groups? Is there opportunity for
action learning? Search for the most interactive course.
No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it. Halford E. Luccock – Professor of
Homiletics, Yale Divinity School
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Suggested Readings
Ancona, D., & Bresman, H. (2007). X-teams: How to build teams that lead, innovate, and succeed. Boston:
Harvard Business School Press.
Bradt, G. B., Check, J. A., & Pedraza, J. E. (2009). The new leader‘s 100-day action plan: How to take charge,
build your team, and get immediate results. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Capretta Raymond, C., Eichinger, R. W., & Lombardo, M. M. (2004). FYI for teams™. Minneapolis, MN:
Lominger International: A Korn/Ferry Company.
Cohen, W. A. (2010). Heroic leadership: Leading with integrity and honor. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Dyer, W., Dyer, W. G., Jr., & Dyer, J. H. (2007). Team building: Proven strategies for improving team
performance (4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Guttman, H. M. (2008). Great business teams: Cracking the code for standout performance. Hoboken, NJ:
John Wiley & Sons.
Hackman, J. R. (2002). Leading teams: Setting the stage for great performances. Boston: Harvard Business
School Press.
Halverson, C. B., & Tirmizi, S. A. (Eds.). (2008). Effective multicultural teams: Theory and practice (Series:
Advances in group decision and negotiation, Vol. 3.). New York: Springer.
Harvard Business School Press. (2004). Creating teams with an edge. Boston: Harvard Business School
Press.
Harvard Business School Press. (2004). Harvard Business Review on teams that succeed. Boston: Harvard
Business School Press.
Karp, H. (2002). Bridging the boomer-Xer gap: Creating authentic teams for high performance at work.
Mountain View, CA: Davies-Black.
Katzenbach, J. R., Garvin, D. A., & Wenger, E. C. (2004). Harvard Business Review on teams that succeed.
Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Katzenbach, J. R., & Smith, D. K. (2003). The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization.
New York: HarperBusiness.
Leigh, A., & Maynard, M. (2002). Leading your team: How to involve and inspire teams. Yarmouth, ME:
Nicholas Brealey.
Lencioni, P. M. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Marquardt, M. (2001). Global teams: How top multinationals span boundaries and cultures with high-speed
teamwork. Mountain View, CA: Davies-Black.
Nemiro, J., Beyerlein, M., Bradley, L., & Beyerlein, S. (2008). The handbook of high performance virtual teams:
A toolkit for collaborating across boundaries. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Parker, G. M. (2002). Cross-functional teams: Working with allies, enemies, and other strangers. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Runde, C. E., & Flanagan, T. A. (2008). Building conflict competent teams. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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Schuman, S. (Ed.). (2010). The handbook for working with difficult groups: How they are difficult, why they are
difficult and what you can do about it. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Schwarz, R. (2002). The skilled facilitator. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Van Buren, M. E., & Safferstone, T. (2009). The quick wins paradox. Harvard Business Review, 87(1), 54-61.
Van Ness, G., & Van Ness, K. (2003). Being there without going there: Managing teams across time zones,
locations and corporate boundaries. Boston: Aspatore Books.
Wysocki, R. K. (2001). Building effective project teams. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
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