Team (Part 1)
“The way a team plays as a whole determines its success.
You
may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in
the world,
but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be
worth a dime.”
- Babe Ruth -
Some time ago I was at an ARDA Regional Management Seminar and one of the panels
was: The Development of a Mission Statement. As you are aware many large companies have mission statements and
they are supposed to say who the company is, what the company does, what it stands for and why they do it.
Thegood Boss, one of the presenters on the panel, related how one of his firm’s resorts, Greater Thanothers
Villas, developed their first mission statement. Mr. Boss began his presentation by indicating that
this resort had a great staff however, as a group they had not been performing up to the standards their individual
skills and talents indicated they should be able to achieve. He went on to state that he had recently attended
a local luncheon meeting of hotel managers where the guest speaker discussed the benefits of having a mission statement.
He was convinced that a mission statement was exactly what Greater Thanothers Villas, and its staff needed.
Upon returning to his office, Mr. Boss called in his three top executives, advised them of his decision
and asked that they come up with a plan for the development of their mission and to report back to him by the end
of the week.
As it were, the plan that they came up with was for Mr. Boss and his three top executives to rent a cabin
up in the hills near the city and spend a three days weekend in retreat to work out this project. Subsequently,
these four individuals returned to the city on Sunday night with a mission statement, which was presented to the
resort staff Monday afternoon. That mission statement was as follows:
Greater Thanothers Villas is the premier resort on Mission Manor Beach and became so by providing the highest
quality resort accommodations in the region, exceeding all of our guest expectations every time because that was
the commitment made to our members when they purchased their Timeshare Interest at Greater Thanothers Villas.
These top executives had felt very good about this mission statement, how the meeting to introduce it to staff
had gone and the plaques they had provided (stating the new mission statement) for each of the resort departments
to place on their walls. They were excited with the possibility of almost immediate increase in performance now
that the group had been told what they had to achieve. After the first few weeks they were disappointed when performance
levels were almost exactly what they had been prior to the development of the mission statement and were perplexed
as to why this was occurring.
I
am sure that Mr. Boss’s resort was atypically, had gathered together a group of great people and placed
them in various staff positions with clearly defined job descriptions and areas of direct responsibility. Traditionally,
these staff positions (jobs) are in defined areas such as the front office, back office, reservations, housekeeping,
maintenance, laundry, grounds, accounting, security, administration, food & beverage, concierge, activities,
custodial, sales & marketing and spa services. It is a sure bet that the individuals holding jobs in there
areas did not understand how their jobs related to things such as, ‘the quality of resort accommodations’
or what ‘the sales people told the owners when they convinced them to buy their timeshare’; which were contained
in the mission statement.
The
staff at Greater Thanothers Villas appeared to be the typical working group that has strong leaders, (Mr.
Boss and his executives), who directs activities, assigns tasks, establishes schedules, and performs in a traditional
management role. In such a group, members usually have assigned roles, tasks that last for the duration of the
effort, and are individually accountable for their efforts. This type of working group typically produces products
or services that are the sum of individual member contributions. Clearly they previously had an understanding that
their mission was to do what the supervisor, manager, and/or executives told them to do, exactly as they had been
trained to do.
Had
Mr. Boss asked almost anyone in the audience what went wrong with their mission statement they would have
been told that it wasn’t the mission statement that was wrong it was the method of developing the statement. You
see, a group like he had at Greater Thanothers Villas could never accomplish such a mission until they became
a team. He may have responded with the question: “What was the difference in a group and a team?”
A team has been
defined as "a small number of people with complementary skills who are equally committed to a common purpose,
goal, and working approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable." Gathering a group of people
together does not make a “team.” A team requires special training and time to develop before reaching peak performance
such as being trained and mentored in group dynamics and communications. Simply stated ‘how to work together’ and
‘how to share information’. This training assists the team members to be strongly interdependent, not only for
expertise and information, but also for mutual support and assistance.
By
now you understand that the method used to develop the Greater Thanothers Villas mission statement no different
than what Steven Covey pointed out in his book, First Things First, that mission statements are often
not taken seriously in organizations because they are developed by top executives, and there’s no buy-in at the
lower levels. The lack of ‘buy-in’ came because those who were expected to perform the mission had no input into
it.
FINAL THOUGHT
Perhaps
the first mission of Mr. Boss and his executives at Greater Thanothers Villas should have been to
shift from the traditional command-and-control mode to a coach-and-collaboration style that supports a team environment.
Many
times top managers or executives don’t want to turn a group of strong competitive individuals into a team because
they are insecure about their own strengths and feel threatened if they are not in absolute control. They understand
that high performance teams require little management and supervision and this enabling organizations to flatten/reduce
the management hierarchy. Fewer layers of management are needed and often fewer managers and supervisors.
Other top manager or executives are secure in their own strengths and know that effective teams can free them
up to concentrate on the more global aspects of the resort mission and allow them to apply their own expertise
and experience as coaches, mentors, facilitators and leaders. Yes, even cheerleaders.
Yea Team!
JS 9/05
