Building a Leadership Team - Part 3
Building a Leadership Team - Part 3
A typical leadership team has between 5 and 10 members. Too few, and the power is too weak. Too many and discussion becomes unwieldy. Because the challenges faced by even small organizations today are technically complex and often global, the best leadership teams include a rich diversity of human beings. Diversity means men and women. At least a 70-30 split on gender and if you can get there, then 50-50. Diversity today means having more than two ethnic backgrounds represented. Also important, you will need at least three substantively different sets of professional experience on the team to help avoid re-learning lessons. Finally, diversity means you will need a balance of learning styles to ensure that you don’t have too many left-brains or too many right-brains.
Notice that there isn’t an emphasis on communication style or personality type. Communication style is far less relevant than clear communication. A person can be wonderfully social and diplomatic, but if their requests and commitments are not clear, it won’t matter if you enjoy the conversation. On the subject of personality, I am not a big fan of personality typology (eg, Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, etc.) applied to teamwork. First, your personality isn’t something that you can do anything about. Second, it becomes very complex to map your profile against other profiles in a practical way. In my experience, what matters more in balancing a team is how each member prefers to learn. There are two basic learning styles: differentiators (those who naturally jump to analysis) and integrators (those who naturally jump to synthesis).
Differentiators enjoy comparing, planning, and keeping score (such as setting goals, achieving milestones, defeating competitors, setting benchmarks, etc.) They typically like to work on questions that deal with “what’s wrong.” Integrators enjoy exploring, building, and storytelling. They typically like to work on questions that deal with “what’s right.” You need both and they don’t naturally understand each other’s language or motivations and as a result are often suspect of each other’s value. Your job is to help translate from one to the other and to encourage a sincere appreciation of each style.
Notice that there isn’t an emphasis on competency. Getting someone who understands and agrees to the mission and communicates well is of far greater value to the team than someone who is particularly adept at one or more functional areas. You absolutely need talent on your team. But don’t fall in love with talent. Remember that a brilliant executive with clever ideas only gets them done if they work well with the rest of your team. Time and again, I have seen bursts of brilliance from an ego-driven executive that leads to sudden and celebrated gains. The momentary exuberance on the team fades away in a matter of months, not years, and it’s not long before that ego-driven executive is boxed into ineffectiveness or driven out of the organization. If you want to create sustained trust and superior performance, you need to balance gender, ethnicity, professional experience, and above all, learning styles.
Last Word
A mentor early in my career once said: “everything in business eventually comes down to two people coming to agreement” and in 25 years I have not found one example to the contrary. Even in a company of many tens of thousands of employees, every aspect of every decision and project always came down to two people. Sales rep and buyer. Customer service agent and client. Product manager and executive. Engineer and designer. Employee and manager. Entrepreneur and investor. So many combinations and permutations, and throughout all of those pairs of humans, whenever a few of them were in agreement on the mission, were clear in their communication, and respected each other’s value, a foundation of trust ensued and spread to hundreds of others.
It doesn’t take much to build trust and it is remarkably resilient under stress in a complex and changing world. Work hard on this, and you will create a great leadership team.
(c) 2008 BlueSevenPartners.com
Building a Leadership Team Part 3 - To learn more about this author, visit Michael Schutzler's Website.
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Part III: Balance
A typical leadership team has between 5 and 10 members. Too few, and the power is too weak. Too many and discussion becomes unwieldy. Because the challenges faced by even small organizations today are technically complex and often global, the best leadership teams include a rich diversity of human beings. Diversity means men and women. At least a 70-30 split on gender and if you can get there, then 50-50. Diversity today means having more than two ethnic backgrounds represented. Also important, you will need at least three substantively different sets of professional experience on the team to help avoid re-learning lessons. Finally, diversity means you will need a balance of learning styles to ensure that you don’t have too many left-brains or too many right-brains.
Notice that there isn’t an emphasis on communication style or personality type. Communication style is far less relevant than clear communication. A person can be wonderfully social and diplomatic, but if their requests and commitments are not clear, it won’t matter if you enjoy the conversation. On the subject of personality, I am not a big fan of personality typology (eg, Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, etc.) applied to teamwork. First, your personality isn’t something that you can do anything about. Second, it becomes very complex to map your profile against other profiles in a practical way. In my experience, what matters more in balancing a team is how each member prefers to learn. There are two basic learning styles: differentiators (those who naturally jump to analysis) and integrators (those who naturally jump to synthesis).
Differentiators enjoy comparing, planning, and keeping score (such as setting goals, achieving milestones, defeating competitors, setting benchmarks, etc.) They typically like to work on questions that deal with “what’s wrong.” Integrators enjoy exploring, building, and storytelling. They typically like to work on questions that deal with “what’s right.” You need both and they don’t naturally understand each other’s language or motivations and as a result are often suspect of each other’s value. Your job is to help translate from one to the other and to encourage a sincere appreciation of each style.
Notice that there isn’t an emphasis on competency. Getting someone who understands and agrees to the mission and communicates well is of far greater value to the team than someone who is particularly adept at one or more functional areas. You absolutely need talent on your team. But don’t fall in love with talent. Remember that a brilliant executive with clever ideas only gets them done if they work well with the rest of your team. Time and again, I have seen bursts of brilliance from an ego-driven executive that leads to sudden and celebrated gains. The momentary exuberance on the team fades away in a matter of months, not years, and it’s not long before that ego-driven executive is boxed into ineffectiveness or driven out of the organization. If you want to create sustained trust and superior performance, you need to balance gender, ethnicity, professional experience, and above all, learning styles.
Last Word
A mentor early in my career once said: “everything in business eventually comes down to two people coming to agreement” and in 25 years I have not found one example to the contrary. Even in a company of many tens of thousands of employees, every aspect of every decision and project always came down to two people. Sales rep and buyer. Customer service agent and client. Product manager and executive. Engineer and designer. Employee and manager. Entrepreneur and investor. So many combinations and permutations, and throughout all of those pairs of humans, whenever a few of them were in agreement on the mission, were clear in their communication, and respected each other’s value, a foundation of trust ensued and spread to hundreds of others.
It doesn’t take much to build trust and it is remarkably resilient under stress in a complex and changing world. Work hard on this, and you will create a great leadership team.
(c) 2008 BlueSevenPartners.com
Building a Leadership Team Part 3 - To learn more about this author, visit Michael Schutzler's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Michel NerayMichel Neray has over 25 years of experience as an award-winning copywriter, an Internet pioneer, a tradeshow pitchman and a senior sales and marketing executive. An online pioneer, he was one of the first marketing professionals to embrace the Internet by building websites as early as 1993. In 1994, Michel co-authored a book entitled "The Great Crossover: Personal Confidence in the Age of the Microchip", which made it to Jack Canfield's Achiever's Recommended Reading List. Michel founded Portfolios.com in 1995, the world's first online source directory for creative professionals and one of the first websites based on community generated content. Since creating The Essential Message in 2003, Michel has helped thousands of independent professionals and entrepreneurs as well as growing corporations find a better way to differentiate, position and brand themselves. In 2005, his chapter "Everything Starts With A Conversation" was selected as the lead for the book, "Sales Gurus Speak Out" and re-published in 2008 for 'Awakening The Workplace Volume 3'. He is also a co-author of "In the Company of Leaders" (2008) with 40 top North American leadership experts. - Visit Michel Neray's Website |
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Dr. John OdaJohn Oda Ph.D NLP is a business peak performance expert, an author, and speaker frequently called upon to provide corporate training, workshops and seminars for many companies in the United States. He is an expert in coaching sales and business professionals in overcoming the behaviors and obstacles that may impede their sales results and affect their bottom line. Since 1995, John has created a speaking bureau such topics, which include: time management, sales training, human diversity, leadership programs and etc. He provides companies with a strategic plan to increase their bottom line by over 25 percent yearly. - Visit Dr. John Oda's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) Jay Kubassek is a Canadian born entrepreneur, internet marketing genius, professional speaker, international real estate developer/investor, executive film producer, extreme sport enthusiast and a passionate supporter of several charities worldwide. In 2007, Jay's vision and dedication to help other entrepreneurs and business owners duplicate his marketing success led to the creation of his fourth company CarbonCopyPRO, an internet marketing firm already worth over 15 million dollars that has over 20 employees and contract workers with clients is 12 different countries. Jay resides in NYC with his girlfriend Jamie, three year old son Milo and dog Cooper. As executive producer he recently premiered his first film in the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. As an adventurist he is racing the 2008 Baja 1000 off-road race and is a member of the 2008 U.S. National Elephant Polo Team, The New York Blue who will be representing the US in the 2008 World Championships in Nepal. Visit Jay's Blog: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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![]() Michael Schutzler (Visit Michael's Website) Michael Schutzler is a seasoned leader with a proven track record of rapid growth, start-up, and turn-around management spanning nearly 25 years. As a successful Internet entrepreneur and investor he has helped launch more than a dozen companies. He has been in leadership roles in public and private companies, non-profit and public service organizations. Michael has managed teams as small as 5 people and organizations as large as 350 employees and has been an active public speaker for nearly 10 years. He has served as a mentor and advisor to dozens of CEOs, board members, executives, and managers. Michael holds an MBA in Finance and Economics from the W. E. Simon School at University of Rochester and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University. Learn more about Michael Schutzler at www.blue sevenpartners.com or read more articles at his blog on blu eseven.wordpress.com
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