As leaders, we’re often on more than one team. But this can create confusion around which goals are most important and which priorities resources should be dedicated to. What’s most important is not losing sight of how multiple teams support the overarching mission of the organization. Ralph and Bill discuss the importance of making sure all teams’ goals are aligned and offer tips on how to ensure your multiple teams roles and performance.
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Bill Berthel:
Welcome to the Get Emergent podcast where we discuss leadership, team and organizational topics and best practices. We like to provide ideas, concepts and pragmatic experiments to help you develop your potential in your work and your leadership. I’m Bill Berthel.
Ralph Simone:
And I’m Ralph Simone.
Bill Berthel:
Ralph, I love this idea that as leaders we are on more than one team.
Ralph Simone:
Everybody doesn’t like that idea.
Bill Berthel:
What is it that someone doesn’t like?
Ralph Simone:
Because it creates confusion for some organizations, right?
Bill Berthel:
It does, you’re right. But I think leaders have an opportunity to scale their leadership across an organization by being in more than one team. They may or may not be thinking about their involvement across an organization as being in more than one team.
Ralph Simone:
How do we help them with it? That’s interesting, because they are on more than one team. I’m curious how we might help them with that awareness, which would also help their ability to scale better.
Bill Berthel:
Most leaders would be able to identify with a team or two that they’re on. They may have a specific team that they lead. It might be a technical team, a customer service team or an HR team. Whatever their field of expertise, they’re probably on a leadership team as well.
Bill Berthel:
Formal or informal, some organizations will formalize that and others might be more informal. They’re probably in some other work groups or committees, a technical team or an association adjacent to the organization, maybe in a tiger team. Often we find leaders in multiple teams throughout their organization.
Ralph Simone:
It reminds me that we can learn a lot from sports. Sometimes multiple teams create confusion about which goals are most important and which priorities should receive resources. A football team is one of the best examples. The overall objective is to win the game, but there is an offensive team with an offensive coordinator, a defensive team with a defensive coordinator and a special teams coordinator. There is a head coach, an assistant head coach, a quarterback coach and an offensive line coach. There are all of these subsets of teams. Everyone understands how it rolls up to the whole team or the enterprise. That is sometimes where we have confusion in organizations when there is more than one team.
Bill Berthel:
In my experience you’re being generous. It is often more than sometimes. In some of my background as an HR leader and even before that when I was a technical leader, I found myself on many different teams. Rarely, if ever, was I thinking about the enterprise. I would get lost in the minutiae of the technical team I was working with or a subcommittee on employee benefits. I had blinders on and thought only about those teams and not the broader connection.
Ralph Simone:
I don’t think that is unusual. However, it does two things and neither one is good. It creates a proliferation of goals that may not contribute to the enterprise.
Bill Berthel:
Absolutely right.
Ralph Simone:
It causes people to sub optimize. We may optimize a sub team, but if we are not keeping the overall enterprise goal in mind it could be to the detriment of the enterprise. I look at organizations where costs are running out of sight. They have many layers, subcommittees and support groups. They are failing to see how it supports the overarching mission. In fairness to people, if you have a job you will create work because you want to justify your existence. We have to make sure that these multiple teams align around fewer goals, not more, at the enterprise level. I think that is the other thing that happens: we almost have too many goals.
Bill Berthel:
I think you’re right. What comes up for me as you explain this is that each leader has an opportunity to be a real catalyst of change. This means not only reducing the goals and prioritizing better but also connecting the efforts of different teams that they might be on. These leaders on multiple teams are in a unique position to cross pollinate. They get to bring better practices across multiple teams in different areas of the organization where they are engaged.
Ralph Simone:
Back to the football example: strength, quickness and agility would be shared by offensive and defensive linemen. You bring best practices from the offense to the defense. Systems thinking means that a good leader provides context for how these sub teams fit into the larger system. There is a great deal of alignment, there is clarity about what matters most and there is little wasted effort on objectives and goals that do not contribute to the success of the enterprise.
Bill Berthel:
What comes up for me is how my leadership role fits in that system. As part of systems thinking I could be open to better ideas and better practices coming into my team from another team or a leader from another team. It is a two way street.
Ralph Simone:
That ought to be the expectation. Sometimes we can see opportunities in other areas more clearly than the people who are responsible for those areas. When we look at it we look through the lens of what is best for the overarching enterprise. One of the expressions I don’t like in organizations is for people to stay in their lane. With multiple teams, if everyone is clear on the overarching goals and I see something in your team that you lead that could be done differently or better or not at all, I think it is my responsibility to share that with you. There should be receptivity because although there is more than one team, we are all driving toward the same outcome.
Bill Berthel:
Just for clarity, staying in your lane on the road is good, but not in the organization. It is almost more like bumper cars: you want lots of connections, you want everyone able to connect in real time. It is not about staying in your lane there.
I wonder where folks could start thinking about this idea of being on more than one team. Where do you feel leaders could make this real for themselves?
Ralph Simone:
Take an inventory. First recognize that you are probably on more than one team. What teams are you on? Is it too many teams? Are the goals for that team clear? Are the roles clear? Are the guidelines clear? If not, how could you make them clearer? I have a guideline: I’m only on two outside boards at any given time because I can’t effectively support more than two.
Ralph Simone:
You have to pay attention to how many you are on and what role you play to make sure that you can satisfactorily play your role. Is it necessary? When building high performing teams, first ask whether a team is necessary. If it is, who would be some of the best people for that team? What is the team’s goal? What are some of the roles and what are the guidelines that will guide their behavior?
Bill Berthel:
I have been fortunate to work on many teams that were not just necessary but highly functional. You are right; I can think about a few that felt unnecessary or were put together on good intention and a good idea but weren’t effective. Most of those lacked clarity. We were lacking a clear objective or goal or we were lacking the passion or the why behind that team.
Ralph Simone:
You hit it right on the head. Why are we forming this team? Let us not over involve or over accommodate our people in areas where they are not needed. I’m actually not a big fan of working groups. Perhaps I do like working groups; I really like implementing groups. Let us not do a study and make a recommendation and then wait a couple of years before we tell you. If anything, let us give people something to change that is aligned with the overarching goals. This is the defense: too many points are being scored against us. We need to shore up the defense so at the end of the game we win. Shore up the defense; don’t give us a recommendation on shoring up the defense. Get it done. Too often we think we are empowering people to come up with recommendations and then they just sit there. When we have more than one team, these teams should be active in making things happen to move the needle.
Bill Berthel:
As an individual leader, when you take inventory of what teams you are on and how your leadership role fits on those teams, think about how you can affect real change. Be a catalyst for that kind of change and that cross pollinator, bringing better practices to all teams you are part of. Learn from other areas and apply what you learn in all areas.
Ralph Simone:
Once you determine how many teams you are on and how those teams align to the overarching goals of the enterprise, see how effective each team is in achieving its goal and what needs to change. It is not only looking at your role but also looking at the effectiveness of the team as it relates to the overall goals of the organization.
Bill Berthel:
That is awesome, Ralph. Thank you.
Ralph Simone:
Thank you, Bill.
Bill Berthel:
Folks, thanks for listening. You can listen to a new podcast twice every month here at Get Emergent or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is where we bring you contemporary leadership topics and ideas balanced with what we hope you find are better practices that you can apply to your work and your leadership. Thank you.
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