Leader's Digest November 2007

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Leader's Digest November 2007

Contents

by Leslie Dillon

November 9, 2007

Harvard Business Review

This month's issue of Harvard Business Review has so many great articles I could hardly decide which ones to include, which explains why one was in the October 2007 Leader's Digest and three here. There are always free articles in each issue of HBR and there's also a set of free Executive Summaries that's worth checking each month if you want to know the gist of an article or two but don't want to read them to get it. By the way, and for what it's worth, my article summaries usually go into more detail than the executive summaries.

Eight ways to build collaborative teams

When tackling a major initiative, organizations typically “rely on large, diverse teams of highly educated specialists to get the job done.” The authors of this article “found that the greater the proportion of experts a team had, the more likely it was to disintegrate into nonproductive conflict or stalemate.” Unfortunately, “the qualities required for success are the same qualities that undermine success.” Members of such teams don’t share knowledge freely, learn from each other, help one another meet deadlines or share resources. In short, they don’t collaborate.

Subsequent research into 55 large teams that “demonstrated high levels of collaborative behavior” revealed “eight practices that corresponded with success”:

  1. Investing in signature relationship practices. Executives can encourage collaborative behavior by visibly demonstrating their commitment to it.
  2. Modeling collaborative behavior. When executives demonstrate collaborative behavior, teams collaborate well.
  3. Creating a “gift culture.” Mentoring and coaching help staff build cross-boundary networks.
  4. Ensuring the requisite skills. Human resources departments that train staff in building relationships, communicating well, and resolving conflicts can have a “major impact on team collaboration.”
  5. Supporting a strong sense of community. People who feel a sense of community “are more comfortable reaching out to others and more likely to share knowledge.”
  6. Assigning team leaders that are both task- and relationship-oriented. Both “are key to successfully leading a team.”
  7. Building on heritage relationships. Best practices suggest putting “at least a few people who know one another on the team.”
  8. Understanding role clarity and task ambiguity. Roles of individual team members need to be sharply defined, while the team as a whole needs to be “given latitude on how to achieve the task.”

“Strengthening your organization’s capacity for collaboration requires a combination of long-term investments--in building relationships and trust, in developing a culture in which senior leaders are role models of cooperation--and smart near-term decisions about the ways teams are formed, roles are defined, and challenges and tasks are articulated.”

(Lynda Gratton and Tamara J. Erickson, “Eight ways to build collaborative teams,” Harvard Business Review, Nov. 2007. Available from Harvard Business Online for $6.50 or on EBSCOhost’s Business Source Premier.)

Solve the succession crisis by growing inside-outside leaders

Many companies have no succession programs in place, but research by the author of this article revealed that companies performed “significantly better” when insiders were appointed to the job of CEO. Other researchers have reached similar conclusions. While the focus of the article is on large, for-profit corporations, there are some good lessons to be learned from it:

  • The best CEO candidates are “inside-outsiders—internal candidates who have outside perspective.”
  • Organizations need to recognize that succession is a long-term process, not an event.
  • Strong CEOs “wield enormous power...and...their ability to make sense of the environment and to craft and articulate the mission and the strategy are central to long-term success.”
  • The best leaders are insiders who are sufficiently detached to “maintain the objectivity of an outsider.” They’re aware of the organization’s people and traditions but they know “how those will have to change.”
  • To build a pipeline of future leaders, you need to recruit from a diverse pool of highly-talented people with management potential.
  • Performance evaluation is critical for nascent leaders. They need to be held accountable and learn how to deliver.
  • Senior managers overseeing development of talented junior managers need to “pay special attention to planning, budgeting, performance evaluation,[etc.]...and to how these different processes are linked.”
  • Because they think outside the box, inside-outsiders can appear to be mavericks with weird ideas. They need to be encouraged by their mentors and protected “from old-timers who might be inclined to teach them a lesson.”
  • Potential leaders need to be given increasingly responsible positions. And they need help maintaining their unique perspectives.

“Those who want to be chosen as leaders must build a track record of delivering in the short term while building for the long term.”

(Joseph L. Bower, “Solve the succession crisis by growing inside-outside leaders,” Harvard Business Review, Nov. 2007. Available free from HBR; also available on EBSCOhost’s Business Source Premier.)

A leader's framework for decision making

Not all leaders are able to juggle multiple demands when they face situations that require a variety of decisions and responses. Different “contexts call for different kinds of responses,” and wise leaders need to be able to “tailor their approach to fit the complexity of the circumstances they face.”

This article sorts issues into five contexts and discusses appropriate actions for each:

  1. Simple contexts--characterized by stability and clear cause-and-effect relationships. “Known knowns.” Action: Simple rules work well.
  2. Complicated contexts--may contain multiple right answers. “Known unknowns.” Action: Sense, analyze, respond.
  3. Complex context--right answers can’t be ferreted out. “Unknown unknowns.” Much of contemporary business operates here. Action: Probe first, then sense, then respond.
  4. Chaotic context--searching for right answers is pointless. “Unknowables.” Action: Establish order, sense where stability is present, then work to transform the situation from chaos to complexity.
  5. Disorder--it’s unclear which of the other four contexts is predominant. Action: Break the situation into its parts and assign each to one of the other four realms. Then make decisions and intervene appropriately.

This article is definitely worth reading in full. It includes an excellent Leader’s Guide, a one-page chart that summarizes the entire framework, including a set of actions, dangers and appropriate responses for each context.

(David J. Snowden and Mary E. Boone, “A leader’s framework for decision making,” Harvard Business Review, Nov. 2007. Available on EBSCOHost’s Business Source Premier and from Harvard Business Online for $6.50.)

The world of Internet 2.0

Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet and American Life Project opened the 2007 Internet Librarian Conference with a talk on the world of Internet 2.0. As you might expect, “home and mobile media gadgets and omni-functional cell phones are major components of this emerging information landscape.” Here’s a high-level summary gleaned from Tom Peters’ post on the ALA TechSource blog:

  • Nearly all teens and three out of four American adults now regularly use the internet.
  • Online social networks are the dashboards for the social lives of teens.
  • Approximately one of every five young adults has created an avatar in virtual worlds.
  • In the minds of many, rating content...[is] perceived as an obligation to the online community.

To understand the meaning of all these developments, examine the Three A’s: Assets (gadgets), Actions, and Attitudes of these networked individuals.

Rainie divided technology users into nine groups, with non-users being the tenth group:

  1. Omnivores (8% of the U.S. population): They enthusiastically use everything related to mobile communications technology.
  2. Connectors (7%): This group, trending toward older females, really uses the communication aspects of these technologies.
  3. Lackluster Veterans (8%): They use the internet frequently, but are less avid about cell phones.
  4. Productivity Enhancers (8%): They have strongly positive views about how technology helps them increase their productivity at work and at home.
  5. Mobile Centrics (10%): They fully embrace the functionality of their cell phones, but don’t use the internet much.
  6. Connected But Hassled (10%): They find all this connectivity intrusive and information something of a burden. They often experience information overload.
  7. Inexperienced Experimenters (8%): These casual users occasionally take advantage of interactivity.
  8. Light But Satisfied (15%): They have some technology, but it does not play a major role in their lives. They love TV and radio.
  9. Indifferents (11%): They proudly proclaim that they don’t like this technology, but they begrudgingly use it a little.
  10. Off the Network (15%): They have neither a cell phone nor an internet connection. Older females dominate this group.

(Tom Peters, ALA TechSource blog, Oct. 29, 2007.)

  • You might want to read a rant from a Lackluster Veteran who was dismayed to read about these derogatory names and to find Pew changing from observer to advocate in Perspective:Pew Do You Trust?

Making the shift from peer to boss

The greatest challenge for a new leader is “relationship re-engineering.” While the organization, culture, politics and players remain the same, all of the new leader’s relationships must and will change. How does the new leader make a successful transition? Management consultant Michael Watkins has seven basic principles behind re-engineering relationships:

  1. Establish authority deftly. Find the middle ground between under- and over-controlling, between being too chummy and too authoritarian.
  2. Focus on what’s good for the business. Be “hard on the issues and soft on the people.” Rely on “fair process” for making key decisions; i.e., establish and uphold work processes that are perceived as fair.
  3. Rethink what you delegate. The “ability to delegate lies at the heart of leadership.” What you delegate shifts dramatically once you’re promoted.
  4. Communicate, communicate, communicate. You and your former peers will share information differently now that you’re in a higher position. Establish a “climate of openness and a culture of ‘no surprises’.” Don’t punish people for sharing bad news or require them to have “iron-clad answers when they bring problems” to you.
  5. Reenlist your (good) former peers. Think “hard about when and how to best engage with disappointed direct reports.” Recognize individual’s contributions “elaborately” and show them you’re committed to helping them advance. When direct reports are not competent or can’t “support the new leader, the key is to help them find other opportunities.”
  6. Rethink your advice and counsel network. The network of people you rely on for advice and counsel will change as you rise in the organization. The higher you go, the more you’ll need sophisticated, supportive political advisers, both inside and outside your organization. You “may also need to develop entirely new sources of advice and counsel and rely less on existing ones.”
  7. Recognize that relationships have to change. “Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you must accept that one price of promotion is that personal relationships with former peers have to become less personal.”

(Michael Watkins, The Leading Edge, Harvard Business Online, Nov. 7, 2007.)

Government as a business

Ian Davis, managing director of management consultants McKinsey & Company believes a strong, productive public sector is “fundamental to the strength of any society.” He also believes a public-sector crisis may be looming on the horizon.

The best way to “help stave off a public-sector crisis...is to continue to facilitate private-sector growth through an increasingly open economy.” At the same time, it is imperative that public-sector productivity be improved. Productivity isn’t just “savings.” Instead, “productivity simultaneously improves performance while decreasing costs.” In governments, the productivity imperative is “to deliver better results—both in terms of quality and quantity.”

There’s increasing pressure on governments (and government agencies) “to do more things and to do things better.” At the same time, “citizens want better services, more choice, more convenience, and improved customer service.”

Davis advocates that governments (and government agencies) adopt approaches that have helped increase productivity in the private sector--”better transparency, improved performance management, better alignment of incentives, stronger accountability, better incorporation of technology and, crucially, better attraction, deployment and development of talent.”

Innovations, such as private-public partnerships, will also be crucial. And governments (and government agencies) will need to experiment with totally new approaches as well.

The four reasons usually given as “barriers to improving public-sector productivity [are] either no longer relevant or not as hard to overcome as first thought”:

  1. It’s too hard to measure productivity.
  2. Lack of market forces and competition.
  3. Resistance to productivity.
  4. Politics blocks reform.

Mr. Davis concludes that a “broad range of stakeholders” will be needed to meet the coming public-sector crisis. Government can’t solve its challenges alone, and the attitude that it can needs to change, as does the “belief that private-sector institutions--be they businesses, nonprofits or simply citizens--can maintain a distant and often adversarial relationship to government... All of these stakeholders will have to take a role in helping craft a solution for the challenges the public sector faces.”

(Ian Davis, “Government as a business,” The McKinsey Quarterly, October 2007.)

November 20, 2007

Amazon's new ebook unveiled

In case you haven’t already read all about it, Amazon has launched its new e-book reader, Kindle. Newsweek’s review raves about the device. Accompanying the online article is a brief video with great pictures of the Kindle at work.

The Kindle weighs 10.3 ounces, less than a typical paperback, and it uses electronic-paper display, which the Sony reader also uses. What sets Kindle apart is its wireless Internet connectivity, using cellphone technology but with no monthly service charges. The Kindle Store offers 90,000 books, magazines, newspapers, and blogs; new books cost $9.99. You can download an item from wherever you are directly to the Kindle reader in less than a minute. The Kindle site has a complete list of features, plus a demo.

Newsweek’s reviewer, Steven Levy, sees Kindle as a milestone in the history of electronic books, and he predicts that we’ll all be reading books this way one day. Those of us willing to pay $399.00 for a Kindle won’t have to wait.

(Steven Levy, “The Future of Reading,” Newsweek, Nov. 26, 2007.)

How to influence decision makers

All the decisions in your organization are “made by the person who has the power to make that decision--not necessarily the 'right' person, the 'smartest' person or the 'best' person.” So, argues Marshall Goldsmith, leadership coach and author, if you want to make a positive difference, you need to be able to influence those key decision makers. He makes these suggestions for improving your odds:

  • It is your responsibility to sell your ideas to upper management--not their responsibility to buy them.
  • Focus on the impact of the decision on the overall organization--not on just achieving your objectives.
  • Present a realistic cost-benefit analysis--don’t just sell benefits.

By “making a small investment in learning to influence up, you can make a large and positive difference for the future of your organization.”

(Marshall Goldsmith, “How to influence decision makers,” Ask The Coach, Harvard Business, Nov. 5, 2007.)

Leadership Brand: Developing Customer-Focused Leaders

Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood, authors of Leadership Brand: Developing Customer-Focused Leaders to Drive Performance and Build Lasting Value (Harvard Business School Press, 2007), believe that demonstrating the requisite “personal characteristics” is only half the battle for successful leaders. “The other half is ensuring that these competencies really deliver results...to stakeholders.”

These are the stakeholders and what they want:

  • Employees. Employees want to work where they can meet their personal needs. “Leaders who create job assignments, work environments, and visions help employees be both competent and committed to their work.”
  • Customers. Customers want “compelling products and services” that they can trust.
  • Communities. Communities want leaders to build socially responsible organizations.
  • Investors. Investors want “leaders to keep their promises, develop a compelling growth strategy, align core competencies to the strategy and then to ensure that people are committed to delivering on [them].”
  • Regulators. Regulators want leaders to govern themselves with high ethical principles, consistent with professional and legal standards.

“Effective leaders start by asking how they can add value to what each of these stakeholders needs. Once this is clear, leaders map these needs against their existing strengths, identifying shortcomings and making plans to develop personal competencies that deliver on stakeholders’ needs.”

(Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood, “A leader’s five key stakeholders,” Harvard Business, Nov. 11, 2007.)

Moving management online (parts 1 & 2)

In Moving Management Online (Part One), Gary Hamel argues “that the web has the power to turn management-as-usual inside out.” (What’s surprising, at least to me, is that while the internet has “dramatically transformed” the business world, management hasn’t really changed much at all.) Hamel believes that in the future, “the internet will change the work of management just as thoroughly as it’s changed every other facet of commercial life [because] the internet is an immensely powerful tool for multiplying human accomplishment.”

Two tasks are essential to increasing what people can accomplish:

  1. Create an environment in which individuals are empowered, equipped, and encouraged to give their very best.
  2. Aggregate individual efforts so that people can do together what they couldn’t do on their own.

“If we’re clever, and a bit courageous, the web may well allow us to overcome some of the systemic pathologies of our long-in-the-tooth bureaucratic management model.”

In Part Two, Hamel explores five “design flaws” that limit the performance of traditional organizations and gives possible Web-based solutions for these flaws:

  • Design flaw 1. Share of voice equals share of power. In a typical organization, the farther down employees are, “or the more unconventional their views, the harder it is for them to get a hearing. In contrast, the views of senior executives are often assigned a lofty ‘coefficient of credibility.’” Potential Web-based solution: A democracy of ideas.
  • Design flaw 2. Creative apartheid. In many organizations, innovation is often “the responsibility of the ‘creative types’... Everyone else is viewed as peripheral.” Potential Web-based solution: Distributing the tools of innovation.
  • Design flaw 3. Under-informed decisions. “Hubris, unchallenged assumptions and inattention to competing viewpoints often lead to poor decision-making at the top.” A recent survey revealed that senior executives believed nearly 1/4 of their decisions were wrong. Potential Web-based solution: A market for judgment (e.g., your organization aggregates the views of a cross section of employees).
  • Design flaw 4. A monopsony (one buyer facing many sellers) for new ideas. Typically an employee with a new idea must go up the chain of command to seek funding. “This is often a substantial barrier...for new ideas.” Potential Web-based solution: An internal “band of angels.”
  • Design flaw 5. Persistent misalignment between power and competence. Organizations “get into trouble when the mental models of key business leaders depreciate faster than their political power”. There’s often a substantial time delay before authority is realigned. “The price paid for this time lag: an organization that fails to adapt to fast-changing circumstances.” Potential Web-based solution: Reverse accountability--where power is “automatically redistributed” when environmental changes devalue executive knowledge and competence.

Hamel concludes with a couple of questions for his readers: “Can you think of other design flaws that limit the ability of large bureaucratic organizations to innovate, adapt, and get the very best out of their people? If so, do any of the beb’s nascent social technologies seem to offer the potential for a design fix?”

(Gary Hamel, “Moving management online (part one)” & “Moving management online (part two),” Management 2.0, Harvard Business, Nov. 1, 2007.)

Google can do that?

Here are some tips on new uses for Google from famed searcher, Mary Ellen Bates:

  • Google lets you search for a range of numbers, in any format. To include a number range in your search query, type in the lower and upper numbers, separated by two periods--e.g., 15..50.
  • You probably already know this one, but you can limit your search to only those pages added or changed within the past [whatever] days.
  • If you are based in the US, you can search for local companies with your cell phone, whether or not your phone has web capability. Call 1-800-GOOG411 (1-800-466-4411), say the desired city and state, then say the desired type of business or specific business name. A text-to-speech program will read you the top 8 results. Google can automatically dial any of those 8 businesses’ phone numbers, or you can have the address and phone number read to you.
  • You can also get quick answers to simple queries by texting Google from a US cell phone. Send a text message to 466 453 (GOOGLE) and then type your query in the text box and send it. You’ll receive a text message with one of Google’s Quick Answers. If you want a web search, begin your search with the word “web” (e.g., web avian flu). This query returns a text message with a snippet of the first search result, along with a link to mobile-formatted page of the search results. More information here.

(Mary Ellen Bates, Bates Information Services Inc., Bates InfoTip, Nov. 8, 2007.)

November 30, 2007

Epaper, Kindle and Apple’s tablet

Amazon’s Kindle apparently sold out 5.5 hours after it was launched. So even though it may never be a market driver, and in spite of the “ho-hum” reviews, its lack of additional features and no library model (yet), Kindle’s launch lets us know that ebooks aren’t going away and we need to pay attention to what’s happening in this space.

MIT’s Technology Review notes that E Ink, the company that makes e-paper, the display technology used by Kindle and by the Sony Reader, is now able to add filters to its monochrome e-paper displays, transforming them into color displays. As of yet, there aren’t any “commercialization plans” for the color e-paper, but Technology Review says, “Higher reflectivity versions [that make color displays possible] should go into commercial products...in about two years.” The company is also working to make E Ink technology video ready. So these new and forthcoming devices may be able to offer lots of missing features in the not-too-distant future.

Here’s what could be even bigger news: A tablet is reportedly being made for Apple by Asus. Experts at Gadgetell, a blog of "tech news, reviews, and interesting things" believe Apple will likely introduce its tablet with ebook functionality built in...not an ebook-only device.” In addition, Apple has apparently filed a “patent application seemingly destined for a new tablet.”

The techies at Gadgetell say that “Kindles launch shows us one thing: ebooks are not going away. Now all that is needed is a device that wows us. Will Apple be the one to do it again? We think so.”

(”E-paper comes alive,” Technology Review; “eBook’s future isn’t ebooks: the makings of Apple’s tablet,” Gadgetell, Nov. 26, 2007, via ContentBlogger, Nov. 28, 2007.)

Evidence-based library management: The leadership challenge

Libraries “recognize the value of collecting and using data for planning and decision-making, but they do not do this systematically or effectively.”

Amos Lakos, librarian, Rosenfeld Library, Anderson School of Management, University of California Los Angeles, interviewed library leaders from ARL libraries who have introduced a culture of assessment in their libraries and are committed to new performance measures.

Following his interviews, Mr. Lakos came to these general conclusions:

  • Senior university administrators don’t view the library as necessarily connected to their central priorities of faculty, research funding, and student learning and life.
  • Assessment and analytics aren’t currently a “central cultural tenet of universities... This lack of institutional culture is central to the slow development of a culture of assessment in libraries.”
  • The library profession is challenged in recruiting enough librarians with statistical, analytical or IT skills.
  • Library leaders have managed to succeed in their careers “without having an assessment framework.” This is another major reason for slowness in adopting a culture of assessment.
  • Although they’re aware of the need for assessment, library leaders are “stymied” by legacy systems, staff resistance and lack of vision.
  • Library directors are slow to identify external sources of analytics, statistics, reports, etc.

Mr. Lakos believes library directors need to learn about use of assessment from non-library industries and that “allowing for imagination to thrive may help.”

Five to ten years out, higher education will experience the increasing influence of the “accountability movement.” Because of the need to demonstrate measurable evidence, libraries will be forced to change their vision and values.

Librarians will have to learn “to measure the right things and change from a culture of intuition-based decision-making to a decision-making framework based more on evidence, analytics, and results... Effective implementation of data-driven and evidence based decision-making requires vision, leadership, and risk-taking. This leadership depends on character, [and on] understanding of economics, changing technology, and expected impacts.” Libraries will have to outsource their assessment activities until there are enough librarians with the requisite skills. Local libraries will need to move to collaborative frameworks, and consortia will fill the analytics gap by distributing needed reports and analyses to member libraries.

(Amos Lakos, “Evidence-based library management: The leadership challenge,” portal: Libraries and the Academy, Vol.7, No. 4, Oct. 2007. Available through Project MUSE to subscribing libraries. “ALL OTHERS: Inquire with the journal’s publisher about obtaining this article.”)

How to motivate your problem people

How do you motivate the “difficult folks who consume too much of your time?” According to Nigel Nicholson, professor of organizational behavior and director of the Center for Organizational Research at London Business School, you can’t. Only they can energize themselves.

Nicholson believes, however, that everyone has motivational energy. You may have noticed that your problem employees are “driven and committed-—but only outside the office.” Unfortunately the work-place, and the “seemingly uncaring bosses” there, can block inherent motivation.

Here’s how to “unleash problem employees’ internal drive—-or arrive at the shared conclusion that it’s impossible.”

  1. Develop a “rich picture” of the problem employee. Have informal conversations with him; find out what motivates him, what blocks motivation “and what could happen if blockages were removed.” Then try to find out if you could be bringing out the worst in that person. “Ask him and his colleagues to describe how you come across. Something basic—for instance, how you talk—may be wrong for him, though fine for others.” Then work to discover “what may be eliciting the worst from both of you.”
  2. Reframe your goals. Replace predetermined “solutions” with some flexible alternatives. E.g., A staff member’s “proclivity toward gossip and office politics” might be solved by giving him opportunities to interact with customers, which would give him the interpersonal stimulus he needs.
  3. Stage the encounter. When you meet with the person, affirm his value to the organization, describe the problem, let him know that things have to change and “state your desire for a mutually beneficial outcome.” Then, using the ideas you’ve already developed, test “ways to co-opt the person’s passions for productive ends.” Look for areas of agreement. Don’t try to “sell” your ideas.

“When you liberate people’s inherent motivation, you boost morale throughout your organization by demonstrating that you’re willing to work through difficulties.”

(”How to motivate your problem people,” HBR in Brief, Key ideas from the Harvard Business Review article by Nigel Nicholson, Harvard Business, Nov. 21, 2007.)

Your saboteurs

"Even organizations that operate with little noticeable dysfunction are filled with saboteurs,” says Quint Studer, author of Results That Last: Hardwiring Behaviors That Will Take Your Company to the Top (Wiley, 2008). Corporate saboteurs commit three common “sins”:

  1. Nonstop negativity. Managers need to help their staff members “understand the perils of negativity, including loss of co-workers to more upbeat organizations and loss of faith by customers.”
  2. We vs. them. Most leaders inadvertently foster a “we/they” mentality. It’s caused by inadequate leadership training and it can sabotage your corporate culture. Don’t blame other departments for employee unhappiness; instead, take a proactive approach. Teach managers to address dissatisfaction in a positive light.
  3. Low performance pass. Every time you fail to confront a low-performing employee, “other workers are disheartened.” Until you confront saboteurs, your organization “will never advance beyond short-term gains.”

(”Your saboteurs,” Inside Training, Nov. 7, 2007.)

Give your team a challenge they can’t resist

“Team challenges can fulfill the deep need that most people have to be part of something larger than themselves.”

The best way to overcome barriers to teamwork is to present team members with “an irresistible challenge”, according to management consultants Patrick J. McKenna and David H. Maister, authors of First Among Equals: How to Manage a Group of Professionals (Free Press, 2002). There are lots of ways to do this, including “pressure to complete a daunting task in a tight time frame” (like launching an ILS system), but none of them are easy.

First you have to define the challenge; then you need to inspire your team. Managers need to be “genuinely interested in helping people excel [and they need] to understand that shifting from individual work to teamwork isn’t an intellectual process; it’s an emotional one. You have to seduce people step by step into collaborating as a team.”

Effective managers use these five tactics:

  1. Share information. Once people fully understand the challenges, they’re more likely to help solve them.
  2. Balance freedom and guidance. Ask for input. Give your teams the freedom to solve problems and “enough guidance to keep them on track.”
  3. Give people room to stretch. When you free people from their everyday responsibilities, their creativity will surface.
  4. Have some fun! Teams function best with a sense of camaraderie. “A few laughs can go a long way toward building it.”
  5. Help people feel the challenge. Once you and your team feel an issue, “it takes on a whole new meaning.”

(Lauren Keller Johnson, “Give your team a challenge they can’t resist,” Harvard Management Update, Nov. 2007. Available on EBSCOhost’s Business Source premier or from Harvard Business for $4.50.)

Four ways to encourage more productive teamwork

Four crucial practices are needed to foster a culture of cooperation in an organization:

  1. Hire for cooperation. Organizations with cooperative mindsets take particular care in hiring. The list of required skills for a position should include demonstrated ability to work in teams, deal with conflict, and share knowledge. Be sure that those involved in hiring are collaborative themselves. In interviews ask candidates to respond to real-life scenarios.
  2. Institute orientation practices that encourage teamwork. Introduce new staff to colleagues both within and outside their teams. Charge the new staff member’s supervisor with helping him or her establish relationships with the key people they’ll be collaborating with. Make sure that those responsible for new staff members’ orientation demonstrate cooperativeness themselves.
  3. Support mentoring. Being mentored is the human resources practice most strongly associated with highly cooperative people and teams. Train people to be good mentors, but make mentoring voluntary. Encourage senior managers to mentor newer staff on their and other teams.
  4. Ensure that performance evaluation rewards collaboration. A review “process that recognizes and rewards collaboration can powerfully reinforce a culture of cooperation.” In fact, the process should be collaborative itself and should measure collaborative behavior. What proportion of recognition in your organization is devoted to rewarding team effort?

(Lynda Gratton, “Four ways to encourage more productive teamwork," Harvard Management Update, Nov. 2007. Available on EBSCOhost’s Business Source Premier, or from Harvard Business for $4.50.)

Your turn: Talk about it

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