When I was in the sports performance industry, I came across an author who has great experience developing teams. In his book Championship Team Building performance coach and author Jeff Janssen describes seven characteristics of championship teams. He has helped build them in multiple NCAA sports.
I’m not going to highlight all of them as you can invest in his book yourself, but I will highlight a few that are common to all teams whether in sports or elsewhere.
Common Goal
As the leader you can have a vision or large team goal. Until that vision becomes something shared and committed to by everyone results will be limited. The first leadership challenge is they have the goal in mind, but the team may be slow to buy in. Let me suggest a way to improve buy in.
Take time to meet with your team and get feedback on what is important to them. Have them provide input as to what success looks like beyond just improving the bottom line. Bring together key influencers (who may not be in positions of leadership) to determine the steps to achieve the common goal. The more influencers involved in the process, the greater the buy in. Regardless of his personal
challenges this thought by Rick Pitino is a great summary to this idea:
“Create significance for the group, whether it is an organization, a team, or a company . . . Each member must feel he or she is part of something important, and not just putting in time.”
Having team members actively contributing to the goal setting conversation will increase the sense of being a part of something important.
Clear Communication
“You can only succeed when people are communicating, not just from the top down but in complete interchange.”
Bill Walsh
I don’t have the time to go into all the depths of communication. I provide workshops on various elements of how to communicate and connect better. The key with this principle for teams is to communicate. I would take this a step further to suggest we OVERCOMMUNICATE. Within any organization communication and productivity correlate. If we communicate more than expected we will keep the vision and goals top of mind and keep everyone moving forward. Three of the ten tips Janssen gives on sending messages are:
- Be consistent – a leader’s message may be stated different ways, but the expectations and goals behind them are consistent.
- Be focused – stick to one message to prevent confusion
- Be redundant – vision leaks so say it multiple times in multiple ways
Constructive Conflict
“Happiness is not the absence of conflict but the ability to deal with it effectively.”
Anonymous
Entire books have been written on this topic so we will only scratch the surface here. Healthy teams have conflict. Alan Mullaly former CEO of Ford during the 2008 economic crises created a system for conflict where everyone was expected to grade their department. If everyone was giving their area green (for all good) he knew they were not being honest. Without conflict we cannot address problems. Janssen provides some excellent tips on our attitude when handling conflict. Here are a few I will highlight:
- Confront in a spirit of helping – create an environment where everyone is learning
- Attack the problem, not the person – pause to be sure you have the real issue and are not making the individual feel they are the problem
- Keep control of your emotions – this may be the most challenging one, especially when the issue is important, but maintain objectivity so you can find the best solution for everyone
These were just a few of his tips on building championship teams. Which one of these areas do you need to develop? Take a minute and write down one action step you will take so you can develop a healthier and more productive team. Need help thinking into this? Contact me for a no cost thinking partner session. Lead Well.
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