In 1924 Wernher von Braun strapped six rockets to a small wagon and watched in delight as the wagon roared around his street and then exploded. The local constabulary were less impressed however, and took the twelve year-old boy into custody. And so began an incredible story leading up to July 16, 1969. On that day the Saturn V rocket designed by von Braun launched Apollo 11 from Launch Pad 39 A to begin the historic mission that would land the first men on the moon.
The launch of a space mission must be a hard-to-beat experience. The launch is the pivot around which a space mission unfolds. It is the moment of truth where the design, planning and preparation come together. And it is the start of the chain of events that make up the mission, until the crew is safely back on Earth.
And so it is with teams. In setting up teams, leaders have two important responsibilities: first to design and prepare the best possible team structure, and second, to help members take possession of the structure, and competently launch themselves onto a course they make their own.
The design and preparation phase should deliver a structure, including:
A carefully designed team, with the right size, mix, skills and experience.A clear message about who is in the team and who is not, as well as the limits of the team authority, what is up for discussion and what is not.A team task, defined to foster internal motivation.Clearly defined roles and responsibilities.A set of agreed norms for team behaviour.Agreed processes and infrastructure.In the second phase, the leader of the team can breathe life into the structure. This may best be done in a team launch session. The first meeting of any team provides a unique opportunity for a leader to motivate a team to apply the required effort. The way in which a leader chooses to introduce the first meeting of a team has been shown to have an enduring impact on the way the team works together. A well executed interaction builds motivation and allows the team to invest themselves in the work to be done.
As a leader, you may wish to cover the following points, inviting input from the team:
Affirmation of the positive features and resources in the team.Clarification and discussion on the structure of the team.A statement of the compelling direction for the team. Discussion on the unique circumstances surrounding the work to be completed.A statement of a compelling direction for the team.Project initiation workshops provide the most effective structure for launching teams. There is a slot at the beginning of each project workshop where the leader can deliver a motivating address.
There is an alchemy in launching teams. A group gathers from a list of names on an e-mail and if the launch is successful, becomes a real, bounded social system; a team. The task assigned to the team will have been examined, assessed and redefined to become the slightly different task that members actually work on. The norms of conduct specified by those who created the team will have been assessed, tried out, explicitly or implicitly, gradually revised, and made the teams' own.
They will usually have agreed how they will work together. What will probably not have happened is a discussion about alternative ways of working together to accomplish a task, to agree the best way to proceed. Research shows that this is not natural for teams in the launch phase. Members of teams need to log some experience with a task, and each other before they are able to have a useful discussion on how best to go about the work.
At StrategyWorks we assist leaders and their teams, with those crucial conversations for clarity, decisions, action and outcomes. These conversations can be frustrating when people are not heard, the team cannot make decisions or the way forward remains vague. Leaders contact us at StrategyWorks when they are ready to do something different. In the process those involved in the conversations feel understood and challenged. At the end of the intervention, the leaders and their teams feel focused and released around a clear plan of action.
Come and visit us on our website at: http://www.strategyworks.co.za/.
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