What makes a really powerful team?

I’m often surprised when people talk about team building exercises, and hear exploits involving barrels across lakes and other problem solving tasks. For me it begs the question: “What do the words ‘powerful’ and ‘team’ really mean?” As a dyslexic I struggled at school, yet consequently as an adult, found it exciting to look up words in the dictionary that we can take for granted, to discover or be reminded of their true meaning.

Power is from the French ‘pouvoir’ – to do or act. So ‘powerful’ is someone or a group of people who are ‘full’ of the ability to do or act; to get things done.

Likewise ‘team’ – what do we mean by team? I tend to think of two meanings; there’s the team pulled together around a common task, hence the barrels across a stream scenario. The problem is that in business many tasks aren’t actually seen as ‘common’. In many cases there can be as many interpretations of the task at hand as are contained in the number within the team!

An alternative definition, is a team galvanised by ‘relationship’. Not a relationship born out of being nice necessarily, but gritty, robust, real relationships born out of honest communication. If you can build a team born out of this kind of relationship then it is more likely to be powerful indeed!

How do you deal with things that can’t be changed?

A client posed this question in response to the concern he had as MD, in engaging with his staff for a change project. His fears were that the project might uncover a raft of things that staff might want changing, but in truth couldn’t be changed for a whole host of reasons. “What do I tell them when they want us to move from this building because it’s cramped, yet corporate head office won’t move us until the rest of this 5 year lease has expired?”

This was just one example of a range of factors that we suspected the change project would throw up, but which probably couldn’t be changed.

The answer I offered seemed common sense, but was resisted initially. It was simply this; if you explain in as much detail as is appropriate, the reasons behind why certain things can’t be changed, or what would prevent them being changed, then there’s a better chance that people will concentrate on the things that can be influenced, rather than waste time on those things that can’t.

The initial resistance by the MD was something he was prepared to sit with and suspend his concerns; in the end it was shown to be unfounded. Yes, the change project did go ahead and did reveal a small range of issues that couldn’t be affected. However, because a proportion of the workforce were involved in helping to direct what could be changed, once they understood what they could do differently and had some understanding of what could not be changed, they accepted it and focused their energies on the areas that could turn the problem around.

One of the MD’s parting comments was “I didn’t realise I could trust my people with aspects of the truth that I have to live with on a day-to-day basis, it certainly taught me a thing or two”.