Ten tools to enhance your team's

performance

Chapter 5 of The Idea Generator : Tools for Business Growth by Ken Hudson

Tool 5/1: Push team out of comfort

zone Teams often build collective lenses;

introduce team members to new experiences

– i.e. move team members around, into different roles, halve the time to complete a project

Old lens is shattered and new one emerges; often team can go where individuals will not; team takes up collective risk

– i.e. individuals will accept new fitness regiment when approached in a team environment (drill sergeant)

Application: Divide teams into two smaller groups; select business challenge and ask teams to write down six actions; but make them uncomfortable

– i.e. How to better understand the customer? Spend a day in the field making new business calls

Concentrate on the uncomfortable list and select one for next month

Remember to swap the list form Team A to Team B; as a way of moving them out of their collective comfort zones; What are our key business challenges? What are the actions that address challenges are uncomfortable to perform?

Tool 5/2: Study great teams outside the business

High performance can be found outside current business environment; i.e. Australian Olympic Women’s swimming team; apply what high performance means in another context

It was found that female swimmers need to be coached in a different fashion than their male counterparts; Would you be better served by having your high potential female leaders coached by female leaders?

Application: Have team members reflect on their own team experiences; list the characteristics of a great team they’ve been a part of? (i.e. common purpose, diverse people et al) Ask what worked and why? Doing this reinforces that it is within anyone’s reach; Decide which characteristics are most inspiring; after creating this list, search for a great non-business team that typifies a high performing team;

What great team have you been a part of? What could you learn, adapt or borrow form this team?

Tool 5/3: Build most diverse team

imaginable Diverse teams are comprised of

individuals with diverse skill sets and life experiences; broad array of lenses that when combined can create more original solutions;

Try to base teams entirely on differences; start the team off initially with nothing in common; forces the team members to realize that there are many different ways to solve problems and resolve issues; challenge is ensuring that people with diverse mindsets still listen and value other’s opinions; make sure that diverse team has no common goals

Application: To ensure diversity, rate all members based on their preferred intelligence style; i.e. rational (logic, analyses and reason) emotional (collaborative, energy passion) or imaginative\creative (new solutions and challenges status quo)

Tool 5/4: Build great team from the

individual up More and more teams are seen as the change

driving forces in organization (i.e. cross-functional teams, new product development teams, innovation teams et al); downside to this marked emphasis on teamwork is possible loss or silence of the introverted or person lower in the ranks; (imagine Albert Einstein on your team);

Select one high potential employee and then select who else could add value to them then add another, then another until you have the desired number of members to your team

Application: 1) start by having everyone solve a problem by themselves in five minutes; no talking; then have each work with a partner and come up with the best ideas; pairs then present best ideas to the group 2) hole a problem solving contest between individual members of the group; post a problem and ask group members to come up with as many solution on their own within 5 minutes; then compare and contrast 3) in identifying best ideas to follow-through on; give team members three “dots”; all three could go on one or placed around the various selections; give them only sixty seconds to decide; this forces intuition; then focus on the best ideas based on votes

Tool 5/5: Think strategically and aim for quick

wins Change lens from we will generate short term

results OR focus on long term strategy think strategically AND obtain quick wins;

Replacing and viewing goals of the team with OR with AND leads to early wins beneficial momentum confidence; shows team and rest of organization that the team is up and running and getting results (i.e. revenue growth team in an manufacturing concern where results were expected in 12 months; suggested that focus should be on quicker projects; greater energy for team acceptance from rest of company; short term results must live besides long term strategic direction

Application: Starting point is to plot all current and potential projects on a matrix; x axis is business impact (low, medium, high), y axis is time to test (short term, medium term, long term); with an unbalanced portfolio reconsider letting go of some the projects; when considering new business initiatives , plotted them on the matrix and compare and contrast

Tool 5/6: Focus on being receptive to new ideas

Quickest way = willingness to accept and use new solutions (left field ideas). Aim is to move towards a goal and get everyone linked to creating and sustaining energy of its members…

Best ideas often come from unexpected places or people (i.e. brand team on desserts…built on assistant's idea from something seen in Europe…best of the session…

Application: 1) use yes, and not yes, but …forces builds and strengthens original ideas… aids in smoothing out differences between the idea creator and idea receiver2) find something interesting about the idea…suspend initial judgment…encourages the receiver to really listen to the idea…left field idea offers are more readily offered if the owner feels that they have been heard

Tool 5/7: Build an out of box team

Think in a non-linear way….not all teams need to be implementation teams

New way is to think in a non-linear (discontinuous innovation) is to form a team of lateral thinkers to work on growth opportunities…team that makes new connections or sees new possibilities… (i.e. insurance company: leaders create a team of lateral thinkers who work on developing a wide range of breakthrough solutions…then owner of “problem” gets to test the solutions

Application: Key challenge is to identify members from all over the organization: 1) advertise for the team…original thinkers self-select; on average 1/10 will identify themselves as out of the box thinkers…are you an out of the box thinker 2) ask your peers to nominate people who consistently develop left field ideas

Tool 5/9: Define what winning means

Often teams are formed without any real knowledge about how efforts will be judged; difficult situation when teams don’t understand what success looks like

Group decides what succeeding means and the criteria for success; this means the team can control its own destiny

Should be a range of objective criteria such as: skills development, meeting deadlines et cetera along with subjective such as team harmony

Application: every team should have multiple goals related to its goals and its members (i.e. Objective: Financial: ROI; Milestone: Deliver this result by 12/1; Performance based: Achieve specific results; Team Interaction Goals: level of collaboration, mutual trust, high levels of org dynamics, learning goals)

Tool 5/9: Build teams around

passion When you really care about something you

tend to be more effective & enjoy your work more

Normally you build teams around skills, roles or the problem @ hand; new lens designs team around team members interest in the subject; if team members are passionate, they will be more likely to overcome barriers and be motivated to achieve the final objective

One CEO of a large electronics company in China made Monday is Passion Day; employees were encouraged to dress in red and were free explore new projects that they were passionate about

Similarly think Google Engineers producing Google Earth

Application: 1) Post a team assignment on the intranet or by e-mail 2) form a team of people with interests similar (i.e. improving customer service 3) form a team of people with interests similar to yours and work on a project together 4) with a large group, divide into smaller groups and have group members nominate the aspect of the project they have an interest in pursuing.

Tool 5/10: Imagine the perfect team result

Break free of your existing mindset by designing the

perfect team result first. This is a counterintuitive, carefully analyze where the team is now, where the team wants to go and then how to get there. Process usually involves a series of timelines, deliverables and milestones.

Good for most business-as-usual projects; however, if facing a completely new challenge, or need a breakthrough solution, it may be better to decide what the perfect result is first, then design back to the current situation.

Designing backwards means that you are not as fixed in continuing what has gone before, and the short-term barriers do not seem as big, because they are seen in the context of the perfect end result. A dance company director uses this approach for new shows. They select the date and location of their next show, then work back to the present. This creates a sense of urgency and a common purpose.

Application: 1) Start by ignoring current situation and focus only on defining the perfect result 2) When that has been done, the group can design back to the current situation. Ask yourself: What is a perfect result? What is stopping us from achieving this result? How can we overcome these barriers?