HOW TO DEVELOP EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT TEAMS?
YOUR CHALLENGE
On your Management Team, you have outstanding individuals reaching great individual or department results but they could perform even better and add more value to the company if they work effectively as a team. They could take more advantage from each other (1+1=3)
How to develop effective management teams?
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YOUR CHALLENGE
A Management Team probably isn't the first image
Teams can achieve great results but it is essential
that comes to our mind, when we hear the word "team“ but even a Management Team needs to work effectively as a team. Some might even say that a Management Team should be the ultimate highperforming team.
that the barriers to team success are identified and addressed. So what barriers are getting in the way of your Management Team success?
Building a team and working as a team is a very tough responsibility. On top of that, the more talented the team members are, the tougher it is. The difficulty is not getting people to work and to work hard. The true challenge is getting people to work together, especially if it is a Management Team, where each member has the tendency to defend and manage his/her own “castle”.
Some possible causes could be identified: Unclear expectations and responsibilities about individuals vs. team; Unproductive conflicts that don’t add value and are wasters of time and energy; To much focus on the individual and departmental goals rather on the global ones; Excessive competitive profile and/or culture; Not have a respected and accepted leader; Keeping on the comfort zone instead making change happen.
The Management Team, when working in a teamoriented environment, highly contribute to the overall success of the organization. Even the Head of a specific department is united to the other organization members in order to accomplish the overall objectives. The bigger picture drives individual actions; each function exists to serve the bigger picture.
The board operates under unique
A group of outstanding individuals does not
circumstances that inhibit its ability to
necessarily constitute an effective board.
function as other teams (…), consists of a
Board performance depends upon the
group of powerful people who are accustomed
interaction of particular people and
to leading their own teams, ad involves fluid
personalities in the boardroom context.
roles and ambiguous power relationships.
Prof. Colin Coulson-Thomas
David Nadler & Mark Nadler
How to develop effective management teams?
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OUR APPROACH We believe that any intervention to make a management team perform as an effective team has to consider three main key layers: 1. CULTURE
3. TEAM WORK
The top management should determine first what are the benefits of a cooperating culture.
It is important to create mechanisms and processes to:
The messages have to be clear and coherent, especially concerning organizational practices. We cannot expect cooperation between management team members if they are just recognized by their individual results; if there are not spaces to discuss and decide together; if cooperation is not valued. 2. AWARENESS The team has to recognize its own strengths and fragilities as well as its stage of maturity. Some key questions should be answered in order to understand the current reality and to determine the ideal one; in order to identify the precise problems that are preventing the management team from being as effective as it should be.
How to develop effective management teams?
Facilitate the team work; Make it worthwhile and pleasant for each member; Improve pro-active cooperation; Make the organizational machine roll-on easily, without entropies; Create dynamic between different parts / teams of organization; Optimize best practices and organizational knowledge; The nature, structure, composition and operation of a management team should reflect the challenges faced by a company and the opportunities available to it. Those seeking to join a particular management team should aim to fill gaps in the experience, knowledge and skills of existing members. Prof. Colin Coulson-Thomas
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OUR APPROACH 1. CULTURE
F ostering teamwork is creating a work culture that values collaboration. In a teamwork environment, people understand and believe that thinking, planning, decisions and actions are better when done cooperatively. People need to recognize and, even, to assimilate, the belief that “none of us is as good as all of us”. In a team-based organization, its culture is more collaborative, empowering, towards the future than in the traditional, hierarchical organizations. This implies that team-based organizations adapt their way of rewarding, recognizing, appraising, hiring, developing, planning, motivating and managing people. For instance it will be important: to reward people who take reasonable risks to make improvements instead rewarding the people who fit in and maintain the status quo; to design reward systems that recognize both team and individual performance; to plan to share gains and increased profitability with team and individual contributors. These team-based organizations have to realize that the more the climate support the teamwork, the more the pay-back from teamwork will be high! One of the most important keys to get great results from your team is the creation of a common vision from all the team members. This is essential to organizational success and team building.
You cannot create a culture of engagement by edict (…). To the contrary the entire management team has to be fully engaged at each step in the process and encouraged by its leaders to step up, speak out, and sign on. After all, that’s what the new culture is about. David Nadler & Mark Nadler
Talents win games. Team work wins championships. Michael Jordan
Some provocative questions: Is the organization really interested in changing? What did the Management Team achieved together?
How to develop effective management teams?
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OUR APPROACH 2. AWARENESS There are 6 topics / issues to be covered in order to reach an appropriate level of awareness from Management Teams about the way they work as team. Competence
Accountability
Coordination
Maturity
Do the members of the Management Team have the right competencies? Do we have the right people in the Management Team?
Do the members of the Management Team feel responsible and accountable for the objectives and the achievements to be reached together as team?
Do cross-functional and multidepartmental teams work together effectively?
Do team members work together effectively?
Communication Do the team members have an established method to give and receive sincere feedback on individual and team performance?
Collaboration What is the maturity / development stage of the Management Team?
There are many key underlined questions within each topic / issue to raise in order the Management Team to fully understand the dynamic of an effective team : 1. Competence
4. Collaboration
Does the team feel that its members have the knowledge, skill and capability to address the issues for which the Management Team was formed? If not, does the Management Team have access to the help it needs? Does the Management Team feel it has the resources, strategies and support needed to accomplish its mission?
Do all team members understand the roles and responsibilities of Management Team? Do team members cooperate to accomplish the team charter? Has the Management Team established group norms or rules of conduct in areas such as conflict resolution, consensus decision making and meeting management? Is the Management Team using an appropriate strategy to accomplish its action plan?
2. Accountability Is reasonable risk respected and encouraged in the organization? Do team members fear reprisal? Do team members spend their time finger pointing rather than resolving problems? Do all of the team members know the role they are playing to support the larger goals of the team or organization? Does everyone know what the goals are? 3. Coordination Have priorities and resource allocation been planned across departments? Are teams coordinated by a central leadership team that assists the groups to obtain what they need for success? Is the organization developing a customerfocused orientation and moving away from traditional departmental thinking?
How to develop effective management teams?
5. Communication Does the organization provide important business information regularly? Are team members clear about the priority of their tasks? Does the Management Team understand the complete context for their existence? Do team members communicate clearly and honestly with each other? Has the Management Team adequate discussion forums? Do team members bring diverse opinions to the table? Are necessary conflicts raised and addressed? 6. Maturity Tuckman’s Model of Group Development (published in 1965) remains one of the most commonly cited model to understand teams’ evolution. It defends that teams have to go through certain process before they can settle down and work effectively. Understanding the stages of development of the team is key to successful team management.
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OUR APPROACH 2. AWARENESS 6. Maturity | The 4 Development Stages (cont’d) Stage 1 | Forming This is the stage when the team members assemble and get together. People are very polite, get acquainted with each other and try to assess their own roles in the team. This stage is marked by easy acceptance of each other, avoiding controversies and direction and support from team leader in settling down. Stage 2 | Storming At this stage, conflicts and competition arise as each individual begins to start work.. Pressure of the workload plus individual differences on several issues start cropping up. Sometimes these issues could be cultural, ethnic or simply an issue of assertiveness of one’s own strength in the overall team equation. Interpersonal and communication issues dominate this stage which conduces often to conflict and confrontation.
Stage 3 | Norming People settle down to more harmonious working relationships. The focus now shifts to common team objectives and performance related issues. A cohesive team which knows its strengths and weaknesses now moves to peak performance leveraging the complementary skills of its members. The team leader begins to delegate more effectively what improves the creativity of its members. Stage 4 | Performing This is the final stage where there is independence and interdependence, learning as well as sharing knowledge, speed and efficiency. All glitches have been smoothened out by the team leader. There are very high levels of autonomy giving rise to emergence of new leaders. The performance is it the peak due to high motivation.
3. TEAMWORK There are 4 main different types of actions that could be included in a action plan to foster teamwork. This plan has to be design with the active participation of the Management Team in order to get its engagement.
MODUS OPERANDI / CONDUCT CODE We walk the talk
PLEASURE & FUN We like to be together COMMUNICATION We know how & what to communicate TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT We develop ourselves
Define cooperation principles – Management Team Work Charter Define methods and best practices Clarify expectations from the team vs. contributions to the team
Foster opportunities for fun and sharing moments – help them to create the relationship Examples: teambuilding events; sport events; dinners / lunches with sponsors Create and prepare spaces for discuss, share and decide together: - Regular workshops: What is Department A doing? - What are the key topics we want to discus together during the year? -Let’s find a solution together (each team present a group solution)? -Share our major successes: what did we learn? According to the Management Team “portrait”, there are skills that should be improved (ex: communication, presentation, planning, delegating, meetings running...). Also there are knowledge that should be acquired in order Management Team “talk the same language”. These skills can be worked through coaching sessions, training lessons, workshops.
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OUR APPROACH 4. PROJECT STEPS
A lthough each management team has its own differences, there are some steps you should take into account developing effectiveness strategies for the management team.
STEP 1 Prepare the field
STEP 2 Awareness Management Team Portrait
Why should Management Teams work as a team? Reinforce values to encourage the key behaviours Underline the added-value of behaving as a real team Encourage the top managers to act as a Role Model
Who are we as a team? Recognize team stage Identify strengths and areas of improvement of the Management Team to work as a team Understand roles and responsibilities and define the expected one
What should we do to be and work as a team?
STEP 3 Design
Action Plan
STEP 4 Implement & Measure Tableau de Bord
Actions brainstorming (engaging Management Team members) Select actions according impact vs. complexity (resources) Define team-based cooperation principles Define communication and work processes Anticipate obstacles and facilitators
How to ensure implementation and sustainability? Implement actions according the designed program / calendar Measure progress (according KPI’s) Analyze outputs and use them to adjust the program Assure the top management monitoring
A successful team leader understands the different stages of the group formation and development. He manages the team effectively by moderating his team managerial styles according to the stage of development in which the team is passing through.
How to develop effective management teams?
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GET READY Independently of what are your final objectives, improve management team effectiveness is always an excellent solution for business growth. Top leaders should communicate clearly that teamwork and collaboration are expected. No one completely owns alone a work area or a process. Each team member should understand how individual efforts are feeding the larger objectives. What about... ... Identifying the real values vs. the expected values of the team (make a culture study)? ... Creating possible scenarios , illustrating the bad consequences of not working efficiently as a team (produce a film, theater, game)
Everyone knows what are the roles and responsibilities of each team member / department. This clarification will strongly help to support and achieve the common goals and vision. What about... ... Defining the mission of each department of the company and put it visible (create an organizational puzzle and offer it to the Managers / Departments) ... Defining the expected behaviors and illustrate them to the team (design cartoons with bad and best practices))
Don’t expect to solve this problem with a simple “teambuilding” event. Such an event , to be effective, needs to be preceded and followed-up with meaningful activities in the workplace. You cannot reach and build a culture of teamwork by “retreating” them for a couple of days each year.
Think of team building as something you work on every single day! How can Jason Associates help you: Either you are already developing engagement strategies or not, Jason Associates can help organizations in the following effectiveness development projects: Develop End-to-end Effective Management Team Strategies; Perform surveys that helps you understand the current Management Team effectiveness level; Design and implement specific initiatives for effectiveness improvement; Facilitate workshops for Management Teams for improvement areas identification; Organize inspirational corporate talks for management teams.
Teamwork is rewarded and recognized. Compensation, bonuses, and rewards depend on collaborative practices as much as individual contribution. What about... ...Promoting projects that imply the active participation of different Managers / Departments ...Rewarding the Managers' availability and the contribution for transversal projects
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Cassidy, K. (2007). Tuckman Revisited: Proposing a New Model of Group Development for Practitioners. The Journal of Experiential Education. Vol. January 1 Coulson-Thomas, C. (1993). Developing Directors: Building an Effective Boardroom Team. Policy Publications Heathfield, S. M. Twelve Tips for Team Building: How to Build Successful Work Teams. About.com: Human Resources (http://humanresources.about.com/od/involvementteam s/a/twelve_tip_team.htm) Katzenbach, J.R. & Smith, D.K. (2005). Discipline of Teams (HBR Classic). Harvard Business Review Vol. Jul 1. Nadler, D. & Nadler, M. (2006) A Blueprint for Building Better Boards – How to Engage as a High-performance Team. Mercer Management Journal (http://www.oliverwyman.com/ow/pdf_files/MMJ21_Blu eprint_Better_Boards.pdf)
JASON ASSOCIATES Jason Associates is a Strategic Talent Management consulting firm that combines deep knowledge of people behaviors with expertise in talent attraction, talent development, talent retention and organizational transformation. Jason Associates work closely with organization key-people of the organization to participate in the challenges of building and managing talent, and accelerating organizational performance.
For further information, please contact Jason Associates at: geral@jasonassociates.com www.jasonassociates.com T: +351 213182930 Av. Liberdade, nº299 – 4º 1250-142 Lisboa Portugal
www.jasonassociates.com How to develop effective management teams?
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