If I asked you a make a list of high performing teams - the kind that deliver world class results under tremendous pressure every day, chances are, a management committee wouldn't feature. Obviously, we are missing a trick or two.

Problem

Most teams in the corporate world are flawed in some way or the other. At every level, peers compete in some way or the other to get that next pay raise, that promotion, or the corner office. There is little or no trust, a whole lot of office politics, and no effort spared to win the affection of the supervisor. The result more often than not is a hierarchy of yes-men and yes-women alll eager to show appreciation for the latest inane idea that the the boss has thrown on the table.

The composition of teams is also flawed because it is comprised of largely similar people, with similar education, similar degrees, similar experience. Put simply, teams are 10X, where X is the average white collar Johnny running the rat-race to the CEO's office.

When you have 10 Xs in a meeting room even if half of them are women, chances are you will have the same soultions to the same problems every single time. There aren't any 'cracks' in the room to let the light in. Worse still, meetings are likley to be long and issues passionately debated ad nauseum because everyone in the room has competence and a point of view on precisely the same things.

The outcomes are always predictable and there is little or no innovation or creativity on display at all.

Solution

Let's for a moment dwell on what one might consider high performing teams who routinely deliver under immense pressure, where failure or a mistake can result in the loss of life.

Fire Fighting Teams. Invasive Surgery Teams. Bomb Disposal Squads. NASA Space Mission Teams. SWAT Teams. You get the idea. What's common about these teams?

Here is the list.

1. Each person on the team is a specialist or master in a very narrow area.

2. Each person trusts every other person on the team totally.

3. Each person feels safe and assured about their importance on the team.

4. For each person, the work being done matters on a deep level.

Leaders and teams must understand 'why' they are committing their talents before they will engage fully. Particularly for the younger generation, understanding the deeper purpose for work will improve engagement beyond any incentives or flexible work structures.

In a complex surgery that last 2-3 hours many doctors will walk in and perform highly specialized procedures. While one will do the anaesthetics, another will do the bypass graft. One will do the sutures, another will stabilize the heart beat with the right medication. Very few words will be exchanged during the actual surgery. With each person on top of their game, and in control, there is no need for discussion. Such clarity of thought and role facilitates great team performance. There is also the deep meaning of saving a human life to remind them of their lofty ideals.

In sport top, top soccer clubs don't have a squad of versatile all-round players. They have specialists, who are best in a particular position, at a specific part of the game. A center forward will rarely have a view on the performance of the goal keeper in his team.

Sadly, most teams in organizations don't have any of these characteristics. Which is why increasingly, the most creative, innovative and talented individuals are going to operate outside of large organizations.

Insanely telented people aren't insecure about their ample gifts. They are keen to collaborate, to share, to put their work out for the world to see. They are equally drawn to other people of the same ilk. Cliched as it may be, birds of a feather do flock together. One just has to look over to the Valley to understand what I mean.

High performing teams are going to harness the new technology to collaborate and form teams across the world in a manner that no one has fathomed just as yet. You only have to take a look at Eric Whitacre's awesome virtual choir to get an idea of the intrinsic human commitmment to doing quality work, even when there isn't a single penny being paid for it.

Organizations are going to have to tear down heirarchies and give employees a much more significant say in who they want to work with, and on which projects if they want to retain their best. Organizations are going to have to facilitate the coming together of the best who want to work with the best, and then focus their collective intellect and enthusiasm on the most pressing issues. This might also mean the freedom to take sabbaticals, go back to studying etc.

The best of the best are going to be networked like never before. They are going to come together like never before with a passion and determination like never before. Organizations can either facilitate this revolution, or then sit on the sidelines and watch. The success of Wikipedia is just one of many to come where many with a common goal will collaborate and bring the mighty organization to its knees. Ask anyone who worked on Microsoft's Encrata how it feels.

Assembling a team that comprises players Q through Z, versus having a team of 10 X's is only part of the solution. While Q,R,S and everyone on this team might each be especially competent and world class in their specific niche, magic only begins to happen when they work together. Teaching teams to work together is a much overlooked discipline and one that many organizations don't invest adequately in.

Organizations will need to invest substantially to educate managers to work together. Behaviors and competencies that facilitate great team work will need to be taught and incentivized.

Practical Impact

In practice the hack will work in the following ways.

1. People will be allowed to choose who they want to work with.

2. People will be allowed to choose which projects they will work on.

3. People will be evaluated by their peers, and will have a say in who they want to supervise them.

These are BIG changes. More organizations than not have values that read, 'What is good for my organization, is good for me' written in large letters over the reception of the head office. To allow individuals to choose projects, team mates, and their captain is a huge shift from where things are today.

In most teams the world over, the best performer isn't the captain or leader. That position is often reserved for a senior statesman of the team or someone who can hold the team together. Management is perhaps the only domain where a top performer is rewarded with more and more managerial and leadership responsibility.

The outcome would be more cohesive and collaborative teams who enjoy working with each other. Needless to say, productivity of the team would be much higher too. The opportunity to bring it people from outside with the right expertise to move the project forward will also enthuse full time employees.

First Steps

You can quick start this hack tomorrow morning. Assemble your staff in any sub division or branch office and put up all the projects that you are currently working on. Then ask them to volunteer to staff on a project that interests them. Once that is done, ask them to choose who they would like to be the captain. Then let them know that they will be evaluated by their peers and their project deliverables.

Some projects might have to be force-staffed because of business continuity etc. but just letting people know that they have a say in the matter and that you respect their choices will bring an avalanche of productivity and goodwill.

See what that does to productivity and engagement in your organization.

Credits

Jerrold McGrath

Eric Whitacre

Dan Pink

Lynda Gratton

Hindustan Unilever

Aswath Venkatraman

Deepali Agarwal

Sandeep Ramesh

Sairam Krishnamurthy

Shashwat Sharma

Chanakya Gupta

Nikhil Jacob

Videos

http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=virtual%20choir&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCoQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DD7o7BrlbaDs&ei=LAaxTraXJ4TyrQe2wtxf&usg=AFQjCNGL_-FEVvU1sRb52iJgxj8gtBDdgQ&sig2=wLgSEUlUTBjzT7v9U-XBcA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y

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November 2, 2011 at 10:46am

David Sims

Hi Stephen,
Another interesting trait of the high-performing teams you cite is that, in addition to being composed of experts, they have all been trained to work as a team. I think in most organizations, people focus on developing their own expertise, or if they are managers they learn to manage others. But I think it's less common to see explicit training in how to function as a collaborative group. That's something that organizations are going to have to increase their investment in.
- Dave

November 2, 2011 at 6:33pm

Stephen Remedios

Dear David,

I never thought of it that way. It might we worth writing an entire hack on training people to work in teams. I totally agree that its not just good enough to have a whole set of experts, you also need to train them to work together... Can I build this back into my Hack and credit you? Thanks for writing in...

Cheers,

Steve

November 3, 2011 at 6:38am

Sairam Krishnamurthy

I loved your surgery analogy Steve! The concept of having "like minded people" seems to be a template that many managers follow when forming teams. Somehow, there is a perception of ease in managing people if they are similar. What is lost however is the value that someone with a different perspective can bring.
Free staffing is a great concept, but I think there is one more challenge that needs to be looked at. While trust is a main consideration, equally important is the fear of business continuity. In a dynamic environment, there are bound to be contextual changes and with a free agent, the fear of losing someone at a critical juncture is very high. This insecurity that leads to managers clinging on to people and is a huge factor that will be a barrier to adoption.

I do not understand what you mean by the statement: "When you have 10 Xs in a meeting room even if half of them are women, chances are you will have the same solutions to the same problems every single time."Could you please elaborate? Thanks.
When you have 10 Xs in a meeting room even if half of them are women, chances are you will have the same soultions to the same problems every single time.

November 13, 2011 at 8:37pm

Stephen Remedios

What I mean is that most large organizations over a period of time evolve a stereotype of success that is then perpetuated. Let me explain. Company QRS Inc. hires from only the best management schools. The people that visit and do the hiring are aggressive and pushy in the intervew and stress the candidate out. Over a period of time, QRS Inc. starts to get applications from people who see themselves as aggressive. The company ends up getting more aggressive people and there is a self-reinforcing cycle that is put in place. Gender diversity also gets distorted thanks to this stereotype and sometimes women in the workforce abandon their innate being in order to conform to this stereotype of success.

Thanks for your observations.

November 5, 2011 at 5:28am

Bala Subramanian

The examples in the High Performance teams "Fire Fighting Teams. Invasive Surgery Teams. Bomb Disposal Squads. NASA Space Mission Teams. SWAT Teams. You get the idea " - if you notice are in the execution phase of those endeavors.
Usually, the 10X teams that Mr. Remedios has mentioned, deal with planning/strategical phase of any endeavors.
It makes a lot of difference, what the team is expected to do/solve. If the problem has been solved and only execution is needed your example situations make sense and that is all is needed. Specialist you can trust.
Unfortunately, teams are needed not only for the execution of tasks. Teams are often assembled to deliberate, such as the US Congress. I am not saying 10X teams are the only solution; but that there are things to consider such as the phase/tasks involved for any team to determine how best they need to interact. What is needed is a process for the team members to be effective - a processes that is analytic and moves the discussions away from just the points-of-view (or perspective) to substantive conclusion by providing direction. Team composition be they specialists or generalists does not matter as much as the process of management. Successful team leading/building uses an unspoken yet very clear process to get the best out-of who ever is assembled.

November 13, 2011 at 9:20pm

Stephen Remedios

Bala,

You make a valuable point about all the examples I list being execution oriented. If the desired outcome is an exhaustive discussion or extensive deliberation, the composition of the team will and should be very different from what I propose in my hack.

In Surgery Team, Bomb Disposal Squads, Fire Departments etc. hours and hours of practice, team discussions, precise planning etc. are a part of everyday life so than when it comes to execution, there are no misses.

It is my view the the composition of the team, and the desire of people of the team to work with one another is a critical driver of success and performance. If you look at the team that assembled the first Mac at Apple you get the same kind of principles at work. One was an expert with the power supply, another expert did the casing, another the layout of the circuits, the graphic user interface and so on. Sure Jobs was there doing what you call 'successful team leading / building' but the composition of the team and their shared desire to work together and create something insanely great resulted in the final outcome. I do agree however that a clear process goes a long way in helping.

November 13, 2011 at 7:46pm

Rachel Costa

I completely agree with your comment that most teams in an organizational setting are comprised of similar people with similar skill sets. Your list of high performing teams that consistently deliver under immense pressure is an excellent analogy. In my experience I’ve found that meetings with my department (Marketing) it feels like there are many like-minded people that give, not surprisingly, similar solutions to problems. However, the majority of my work includes the involvement of cross functional teams that provide a diverse set of opinions and skill sets.

Do you feel like cross-functional teams meet the requirement of a high performing team? I believe these types of teams get us part of the way there, but we still need to incorporate your suggestion of letting employees choose which projects they work on. Another interesting part of your write-up is the idea of employees having a say in which manager they are assigned to. This would be an impactful change to the way teams operate and I’d venture to guess this would greatly improve productivity and employee morale.

November 13, 2011 at 9:10pm

Stephen Remedios

Rachel,

I am of the view that Cross Functional Teams are a step in the right direction. The manner in which they are usually put together though isn't always the most effective. A senior management team identifies a problem, suggests a CFT and a whole lot of names are thrown in to ensure all the departments and stake holders are represented. Someone is assigned the resposnibility to lead or mentor the team and a deadline set.

In allowing people to choose who they want to work with and on which project, you are empowering them to make choices and clunteer their strengths. That's the best possible start you can give them!

Thanks for your observations...

November 16, 2011 at 9:19pm

Hi Stephen,

I really enjoyed your ideas and like Sairam, thought the Surgery Analogy was a great way to get your point across.

The idea of Free Staffing you discuss is very refreshing to me. I recently started a new job with large consulting firm where I only have partial say in determining the projects I work on and I agree that there would be benefits to allowing employees to form their own teams and make their own staffing decisions. I know you covered a number of different challenges associated with this idea but was wondering if there is also a concern that like-minded or similarly skilled employees would want to work on similar projects and thus be on the same team. Could we be confident the employees would be able to build teams that had people of different expertise(similar to the Invasive Surgery team)?

Thanks again for sharing your idea.

November 17, 2011 at 2:15pm

Ken Chu

I love this idea – this is entirely the opposite from the old playground rules where the biggest kid, the captain, chooses the team, and you are hoping you don’t want to be picked last, or just even be the odd man out. However, as I was reading this I was more concerned about teamwork and collaboration, and low and behold, David comments about that! As you mentioned that in top sports clubs, they have specialists that perform their jobs that allow them to succeed at a greater level than other teams. However, there are many recent examples in professional sports (Lakers ’04, Heat ’11) where the successes through individual talents are outweighed by the opponents’ group effort, or the synergies between the group’s teamwork. I believe that teamwork is as big of an issue like David commented, and I think it shouldn’t be a secondary thought. In line with David’s comments, would “referrals” be a possible way that can be applied to free-staffing? This is one way to take into the factor of who people want to work with, however, I’m not sure how that might tie into this hack.

As I was reading, while it seems like this hack is based entirely on established employees within a company, I’m wondering if your team had thoughts about “free staffing” within the process of recruitment and hiring. Similarly, a company is looking to fill a need and are looking for specialists, however, instead of trying to hire one specialist that can fit into, for example, the programming team, why not hire an entire programming team based on the specialist’s recommendations . Obviously this would assume resources are available and the levels of experience are appropriate. Through my collegiate years, I have worked with teammates across various classes, some were good experiences, and some were not. However, naturally, as I went through more courses, my teammates remained the same because we liked each other, we specialized in different parts of the project, and we knew how to work with each other. From a management class that I took, I learned that the most effective way to see if a potential employee can complete the tasks is to have the employee try it out with the team. I believe this idea would eliminate that “risk”: in one sense, you don’t have to teach us how to work together.

I think this is a really good concept and if applied correctly can definitely would be revolutionary in our workplaces. Thank you for sharing.