The Best Team Wins

The Best Team Wins:  The New Science of HIgh Performance, by Adrian Gostick & Chester Elton, The Free PressSimon & Schuster 2018

When the Eagles stepped on the field, they looked younger, more flexible.  The Patriots looked corporate, Big Solution, not perfect and star-shaped.  Hmmm.  I had a feeling....

But as Gostick and Elton say, "It might be the most pressing question businesses must address:  How can managers better lead their teams to improved performance given all the distractions and challenges we face?"  It's not always the money - or is it?  Just look at the sad and crazy collection of C- commercials interrupting the Superbowl broadcast.

It gets worse say the authors, with 80% of employees' day spent working in teams, a legacy of the eighties now accepted as The Only Way (other than robots, and even robots play in teams).  Corporations are looking for payoffs - higher quality - maybe, faster problem-solving - maybe, diversity of knowledge, hopefully, faster plays?  "These benefits all sound pretty good, right?  The problem is that most of the teams we find are nowhere near as effective as they could be, and worse, are often riven by massive tensions if not outright dissension," Gostick and Elton believe.  "Such dysfunction drains employee energy, enthusiasm, and creativity rather than fueling them."  So there is no such thing as The Dream Team!

But let's move to the authors' framework to look at building best teams:

1.  Understand Generational Differences:  Motivating Millennials, Gen Xers, and Boomers differently.

2.  Manage to the One:  Sculpting jobs to enhance individual engagement.

3.  Speed Productivity:  Help new people and teams work faster and smarter.

4.  Challenge Everything:  Inspire innovation through healthy discord (and help employees feel safe to speak up and debate).

5.  Unify with Customer Focus:  Building bridges across functions, cultures, and distance.

Further, the authors offer a special "Toolkit: 101 Ways to Inspire Your Team"  at the back of the book.  In fact, readers who want to skip ahead might want to check out these excellent tools right away.  Many of these skills connect to culture, and some are also leadership and vision ideas.  Look at #2 (culture)  Learn their stories:  General Norman Schwarzkopf once said "I have seen leaders who stood in front of a platoon and all they saw was a platoon.  But great leaders see it as forty-four individuals, each of whom has aspirations, each of whom wants to live, each of whom wants to do good."  Great leaders make an effort to get to know the individuals on their team one-by-one.  Action:  Over the next week, sit down with each of your direct reports for fifteen minutes and learn their story - ask about the person's background, and their hopes and goals for the future.  Take notes."