The LETTER:
Official Report Of The L Group

Team Speed
by Lee J. Colan, Ph.D.

Your team might not have to rebuild a Jeep in four minutes, but they will certainly need to achieve goals faster than ever to remain competitive in today’s high-velocity market.

I don’t know about you, but I did not believe the title of this video when I first read it. I thought to myself, “Physically impossible! It’s some kind of play on words and the trick will be revealed at the end of the video.” Well, you saw it for yourself. No tricks – just one completely aligned team!

Very few tasks are completely in isolation for today’s leader. Leaders harness diverse resources and collaborate across functions. In fact, my favorite definition of teamwork is “connected independence”. The success of most organizations is directly proportionate to their leaders’ ability to lead and inspire excellent teams. Accessing top notch talent is necessary but not sufficient for team excellence – just look at the Dallas Mavericks. Most would say that the Miami Heat had a more talented team, but the Dallas coach (its leader) harnessed his team’s unique abilities to build a better team and win the NBA title. That’s the leader’s job – to create synergy so the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

So what did this team of soldiers in this video do to accelerate its success?

Whether these soldiers were aware of it or not, they used TEAM: Team Effectiveness and Alignment Model.

The team of soldiers had crystal clear goals, roles and procedures. As a leader, do you know for certain that your team members have clarity in not only their goals, but also roles and procedures? You may find that lack of clarity in one of the top three levels of the model (goals, roles, procedures) masks itself as lacking initiative or not being a “team player”. Lack of clarity opens the door for misperceptions that can lead to interpersonal conflict. For example, if team members do not agree or understand your common goal, they might start accusing each other of having personal agendas. Or if team roles are not clearly defined, one of them might think the other dropped the ball. And certainly, if procedures are unclear, team members might easily become frustrated with bottlenecks, re-doing tasks, and missed handoffs.

Clear goals, roles and procedures eliminate 90+ percent of what looks like an interpersonal conflict on the surface. So, the next time your team is getting bogged down, try this model to assess the root cause. It’s a fast, easy way to speed things up.

TEAM Questions

GOALS:

• Does the team have a clear vision?
• Do the team members buy-off on it?
• If not:
• How was the vision presented to the team?
• Was the team involved in creating the vision?
• Does the team perceive a direct connection between its goals and the mission of the company?

ROLES:

• Are the roles clearly defined and documented?
• Are the manager and employee’s role expectations consistent?
• Is the level of authority for the role clearly defined?
• Do the current role definitions efficiently support your team processes?
• Do the roles conflict, overlap or leave important tasks unattended?
• Does each team member have the necessary skills to effectively perform his/her role?

PROCEDURES:

• Are there clear processes on how the team will:
• Make decisions
• Share information
• Coordinate hand-offs
• Review work
• Challenge prevailing thought
• Prioritize
• Resolve conflict
• Support each other’s efforts
• Be recognized?

RELATIONSHIPS:

• Is there a reasonable amount of (job-related) respect amongst team members?
• Do team members know and appreciate the different knowledge, skills and perspectives that each of them brings to the team?
• Do team members trust each other?

I hope this model and set of questions accelerates your team speed!