One of the most dreaded fears for any organization is to have underperforming teams. For as common as it may be, its clearly difficult to understand why teams fail at providing consistently good results and there is a general misconception about what to do to improve them. Read on as we explain what we’ve learned in practice to improve team delivery and effectiveness.
When it comes to improving outcomes that derive from human action, it’s impossible to have a full proof recipe that delivers guaranteed results. It’s the human nature to be different and therefore no method assures success.
However, there are a few things that experience teaches us that produce better outcomes and things that you should avoid in order to have a better chance at succeeding.
When it comes to have good delivery performance, the thing to keep in mind is that performance is directly affected by the number of problems that you’re able to tackle consistently. So, the better you’re able to cope with problems, the better your delivery will be.
In the many years working with complex projects, engaged in deep change within large organizations and working with largely disparate teams, we’ve learned that the obvious and easy path is seldom the right choice when it comes to improving outcomes. Here are a few pointers that consistently helped us in achieving good delivery performance and quality:
- Understand the problem – Has we’ve discussed on this post, if you want to have a shot at solving a problem, you first must need to formulate it correctly. It’s not about discussing the problem, it’s about putting it in terms that we can clearly understand and use as the stepping stone to find a solution.
- Don’t talk about the problem, talk about the solution – Most of the times, teams tend to point fingers over the problem responsibility, instead of cooperating in finding a solution for the problem. Instead of having people discussing with each other to discover who’s to blame, it’s far more productive to have people discussing possible solutions for the problem on a cooperative way. The tricky part is that it’s easier to find someone to be responsible instead of working to find a solution. So, an enormous amount of energy and clear leadership needs to be involved in keeping people focused on the main goal. The upside is that when a solution is found, it energizes the team and the next problems tend to be dealt with in an easier way. So, every effort you spend talking about the solution is pure return for the future.
- Respect different opinions – In teams, you’ll always find people that think differently about the possible solutions for a problem. The eagerness to find a solution may sometimes shun different views on a given subject, sidelining aspects that may prove to be relevant for a reliable and sustainable solution. It’s critical to hear positive and constructive opinions, although they may throw you on a harder path to a solution.
- Use the best in people – As humans, we tend to be better at somethings and not so good at others. The trick is to use people on the team preferably on what they’re best, so you can have the best possible contribution and the least possible amount of rework and effort.
- Never neglect communication – Unbiased, respectful, straightforward communication is hard but vital to assure that the team works focused on finding and implementing solutions. Depending on the team size and background, this may be the biggest task you’ll find, since different people and different cultures behave differently while communicating. The bottom line is that if you don’t work to establish a common ground about communication, you won’t be able to use people at its best and certainly you won’t be able to find sustainable solutions.
To top this up, having the right leader in place is of paramount importance to improve team effectiveness. And by leader we mean someone who can apply all the above and at the same time be respected as someone that is a part of the path to a solution instead of the guy that keeps throwing tigers in the room.
These are some of the leader behaviors that we strive to instill in our people and that have helped us to deliver mission critical solutions in our customers. We believe that talent is nurtured by example and we strive very hard to make this into a discipline that has proven its worth over and over again.
