A Team of Leaders

A Team of Leaders, Empowering Every Member to Take Ownership, Demonstrate Initiative, and Deliver Results, by Paul Gustavson and Stewart Liff, Amacom 2014

Have you ever been “volunteered” for a team, or picked as team leader, when all you really wanted to do was do your job?  Or have you seen teams formed up with great hoopla, engaged and cheered, only to fade out to other priorities or emergencies?   If so, don’t feel alone because it happens all the time, especially in the continuous improvement kaizen world, but, say authors Gustavson and Liff, it’s not the fault of the team members, it’s the structure, that’s right the structure, that allows the best ones to fall down.

A Team of Leaders offers a Five-State Team Development Model, briefly:

1.        Align team structure and information systems with goals

2.       Identify and strengthen processes that support a team of leaders

3.       Enable team members to fully grasp and appreciate the significance of what they contribute each day

4.       Develop key leadership competencies, such as planning, scheduling, and performance feedback, in every team member

5.       Tap into the power of Visual Management to motivate each team member to think, act and perform like a leader, and create a team-wide sense of engagement.

What’s new here?  Readers will find Chapter 6, Visual Management (one of the Mill Girl's long-time favored methodologies is Visual Systems - simple and powerful), a useful and relatively easy method to educate, inform and help people stay on track.  The idea is to transform the team space into an inspiring data-driven environment, and to help elevate employees so that they become leaders.  To get there, the authors advise taking a look at the current working environment with fresh eyes.  Does the space share important information at both the group and individual levels?  Does it shape the outside world’s view of your unit/team so that every time someone visits you the first reaction is, “Wow, these people are doing great things!” 

Then, imagine a space that celebrates your team or your company’s history, as well as its current challenges and achievements.  Make that environment so colorful and exciting that you might even want to periodically bring family and friends to see the latest.  What a novel approach.  The authors even suggest building a work environment that looks and feels so good it will attract more visitors!  Figures 6-1 and 6-2 show “before” and “after” photos of a redesigned veterans’ administration work area,  rearranged to include critical human experience cues such as a “Welcome” sign,  military artifacts that are meaningful to employees and visitors, benefits posters, a place for reflection, etc.  This workplace transformation was a first step toward forming team identity, and replacing ingrown cynicism that killed team spirit and innovation.  The idea that our physical environment can be designed to help team member’s work more cohesively, with greater satisfaction is powerful.