Setting the Foundation for a Great Team

Your company’s leadership team is featured in the Wall Street Journal. As you review the published article for the first time you imagine how proud each person will feel as they read,

They have derailed the competition by building an entirely new kind of organization. This isn’t just a newer model it is a better one that taps into the power and the passion of all employees. This passion is wed to networking technologies that ignite collaboration and creativity throughout the company. This leadership team is also remarkably disciplined. They have outmaneuvered the competition with no leaks, no infighting and virtually no credit for their effort. Given their accomplishments they might be household names by now. This brain trust, however, works in near anonymity. This is no accident. The team lives by the rule, ‘All the credit goes to the company not to the individuals.’ Privately the team members say, ‘There’s not much to know. It just works.’

This same article describes the competition’s executive team in contrast to the one you built. The are “beset by leaks and infighting.  The warring factions include an overbearing strategist, a know-it-all adviser, egotistical flacks and self-important vice-presidents of various businesses who battle noisily and publicly about budget, turf, access to the CEO and prestige.” Wow!

You recall the first months in your role when you shared your vision of the team at the first off site.  

“I’m not sure that I am going to be the best CEO.  But I am absolutely positive that we have the opportunity to create the best organization, and in the end that is more important to our success.  The way great things happen is when people are willing to submerge their own egos and focus on common goals and tasks. That’s my mind-set. It’s not just a gimmick, it’s not just a shtick. I actually believe in it.

You know without a doubt that your most critical decisions involved handpicking team members who were capable of putting themselves to work on behalf of the company’s mission and who were not there to feed their own egos. You collaborated as a group to develop a vision about which each and every member was excited and passionate.  Then you discussed how you would operate together. You were clear about one thing. The group would quickly become a strong inner circle of people who could work through or set aside differences and their individual needs to work on behalf of the mission.

You recall the darker times. The competition was eating your lunch. Your business strategy wasn’t working. You had to re-group. The situation was ripe for finger-pointing and internal warfare, but the team had already forged its identity and defending individual egos was not part of that picture.  Instead everybody kind of just swallowed hard and worked things out.  The warship came out stronger.  You were able to draw sharper distinctions between your company and the competition.  The mission and the team’s dedication to it won the day. 

The article goes on to describe your leadership,                                                                                    

When he’s running a meeting, he does more listening than talking, asking questions and taking the temperature of everyone in the room. Regardless of where you fall in the hierarchy, he listens to you as though you are his right hand person. He focuses, he prods, he pushes, to help enrich your thinking and to make sure that he fully understands your position. That sets an important tone as well: When you go into a meeting expecting to learn from each other and not dictate, it fosters camaraderie.

You fold the morning paper and carry it under your arm as you get in the car.  On the drive to work you notice the warm glow shining from the inside as you anticipate a great day at work. 

This article describes two actual teams.  The first and featured team is the inner circle that directs Barack Obama’s political campaign.  The second is the former leadership team of Senator Hillary Clinton’s now defunct campaign.  I am not writing about them as political candidates nor to endorse Senator Obama but to demonstrate how a leader either succeeds or fails to build a winning team.