Today's Reading
I run this exercise for two reasons: to set the positive tone for our off-site event and, more important, to start making the business case for the importance of great teams and great teamwork.
Next, I spend a few minutes asking for a handful of volunteers to repeat their stories for the benefit of the group. I chart their shared comments regarding the characteristics and behaviors that made those teams so great.
More often than not, the first volunteer to share the best team story with the larger group shares that their best team was one where politics ran rampant; confusion reigned; and team members had absolutely no idea about the team's purpose, values, goals, or top priorities.
I kid.
Instead, the first to respond explains that their very best team had clarity of purpose in the organization or team, as well as clarity regarding values and appropriate behaviors. Goals and objectives were well defined and discussed often, and within those goals, the most important were both clear and repeated frequently by the leader to avoid confusion and a lack of team alignment.
As leaders, it is our job not only to establish clarity but to communicate that clarity, especially with respect to company purpose, values, and priorities. And we need to do that as often as possible. But if truth be told, many leaders are terrible at this.
Over the course of my career as a leader, I have been as bad about clarity as anyone. My work with leaders and their teams, though, has validated that I am not alone in some of the following weak (but honest) excuses for not communicating clarity:
* I didn't know the answers or wasn't clear myself.
* I was too busy to stop and share with my team or organization.
* I assumed the team (somehow magically!) already knew.
* I was embarrassed to repeat myself. I had smart people on my team and had told them once—surely they understood the message the first time!
These are embarrassing and inadequate reasons for allowing confusion as a leader. If you see yourself in any of these, however, you are in good company.
When my peers and I at The Table Group work with leaders and their teams, we strive to help our clients establish both behavioral alignment and intellectual alignment. Based on Patrick Lencioni's Second Discipline of Organizational Health, spelled out in The Advantage, we help teams answer the following six critical questions:
1. Why do we exist?
2. How will we behave?
3. What do we do?
4. How will we succeed?
5. What is most important, right now?
6. Who must do what?
The idea is that if a team can answer these questions, is perfectly aligned around those answers, and is in sync behaviorally as well, the organization is on a great path toward stronger organizational health—and results will follow.
So, the first mistake I address here concerns allowing confusion to reign in a leader's teams and organizations. What follows in this section are seven great leaders describing mistakes they made and advice they can share with respect to clarity in one's team or organization.
We begin with a story concerning the "why" of an organization—an organization's core purpose.
ALLOWING CONFUSION ABOUT PURPOSE
David Griffin, CEO, Griffin Media
Breaking News: Tornado Warning. We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for this severe weather update.
These alerts are broadcasted regularly each year from our television stations in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in April, May, and June.
As those words are spoken by the meteorologists and news anchors who are front and center as the spokespeople for each unfolding weather event, a flurry of activity is already taking place in our stations and across the state. Our internal company messaging system deploys to our employees, notifying them to come into the station, although most are already on their way. It's all hands on deck.
Warning lights indicating breaking news are lighting up at our stations to notify all of the gravity of the situation and drive appropriate action. Storm chasers, news crews, and camera operators quickly depart and position themselves strategically but safely. This is a major weather event, and the people of our state are counting on us for timely, accurate information.
This is who we are, and this is our time.
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