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March 17 - March 26, 2019
Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.
“If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”
The fact remains that teams, because they are made up of imperfect human beings, are inherently dysfunctional.
overcome the all-too-human behavioral tendencies that corrupt teams and breed dysfunctional politics within them.
After its first few euphoric months of existence, the company began experiencing a series of ongoing disappointments. Critical deadlines started to slip. A few key employees below the executive level unexpectedly left the company. Morale deteriorated gradually.
While most of them seemed to like him well enough personally, they couldn't deny that under his leadership the atmosphere within the company had become increasingly troubling.
There was no sense of unity or camaraderie on the team, which translated into a muted level of commitment.
DecisionTech had already developed a reputation within the Valley for being one of the most political and unpleasant places to work,
Some of them even liked to brag that they hadn't worn a suit—outside of a wedding—since graduating from college.
there weren't too many capable executives willing to take on such a messy job given the current state of affairs
In less than five years, she had become chief operating officer of the Bay Area's only automobile manufacturing plant,
She had an amazing gift for building teams.
she actually asked Jeff Shanley to continue leading the weekly executive staff meetings, where she just listened and took notes.
To tarnish her reputation so late in her career, and among friends and family, was enough to worry even the most secure of people.
not about to be intimidated by a bunch of harmless yuppies whose greatest hardships in life so far had been fighting off the first signs of a receding hairline or an expanding waistline.
Kathryn knew that Jack Welch didn't have to be an expert on toaster manufacturing to make General Electric a success and that Herb Kelleher didn't have to spend a lifetime flying airplanes to build Southwest Airlines.
The Staff's behavior during meetings was worse than anything she had seen in the automotive world. Though open hostility was never really apparent and no one ever seemed to argue, an underlying tension was undeniable.
Jeff ran staff meetings as though he were a student body president reading from a textbook on protocol.
He always published an agenda before each meeting, and then distributed detailed minutes afterward. And unlike most other high-tech companies, his meetings usually began on time and always concluded exactly when they were scheduled to end. The fact that nothing ever seemed to get done during those meetings didn't appear to bother him.
more often complaining about how the other companies she had worked for did everything better than DecisionTech.
It was almost as though she were a spectator or, better yet, a victim of circumstance, at her new company.
he always had his laptop open, and he seemed to be constantly checking e-mail or doing something similarly engrossing.
Carlos spoke very little, but whenever he did, he had something important and constructive to say. He listened intently during meetings, worked long hours with no complaint, and downplayed his prior accomplishments whenever someone asked about them.
Jan was a stickler for detail, took pride in her knowledge of the industry, and treated the company's money as though it were her own.
I only have one priority at this point: we need to get our act together as a team, or we're not going to be selling anything.”
I was hired to make this organization work, and right now it doesn't.”
from a team standpoint, we are completely broken. And one sales meeting is not going to have a meaningful impact on our future, at least not until we straighten out the leadership problems around here.”
“You've probably heard my husband say that a fractured team is just like a broken arm or leg; fixing it is always painful, and sometimes you have to rebreak it to make it heal correctly. And the rebreak hurts a lot more than the initial break, because you have to do it on purpose.”
regardless of how many times people have been there, it always seems to make them slow down a pace or two.
“We are not functioning as a team. In fact, we are quite dysfunctional.”
DecisionTech is going to experience some changes during the next few months, and it is very possible that some of us here won't find the new company to be the kind of place where we want to be.
everything we are going to be doing is about one thing only: making this company succeed. That's all. We're not going to be catching each other falling out of trees.”
none of that will happen if we do not address the issues that are preventing us from acting like a team.”
none of this is rocket science. In fact, it will seem remarkably simple on paper. The trick is putting it into practice.”
the first dysfunction: absence of trust.”
It is an absolutely critical part of building a team.
if we don't trust one another—and it seems to me that we don't—then we cannot be the kind of team that ultimately achieves results.
I see a trust problem here in the lack of debate that exists during staff meetings and other interactions among this team.
“Why do you suppose there is so little passionate discussion or debate among this group?”
I want you all to do two things: be present and participate.
everyone needs to be fully engaged in whatever we're talking about.”
“If there is ever a time when that happens, when we think that we're wasting the group's time by dealing with issues that should be dealt with outside the meeting, then everyone here should feel free to speak up.”
It's more of a behavioral issue than a technological one.”
she had been an All-American volleyball player in college.
After just forty-five minutes of extremely mild personal disclosure, the team seemed tighter and more at ease with each other than at any time during the past year.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.”
deciding what they believed were their single biggest strength and weakness in terms of their contribution to DecisionTech's success or failure.
inattention to results
the ultimate dysfunction: the tendency of team members to seek out individual recognition and attention at the expense of results. And I’m referring to collective results—the goals of the entire team.”
