Is Your Team on the Way Down or the Way Up?

The current Business Week contains an excerpt from Jim Collins's new book "How the Mighty Fall." http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_21/b4132026793275.htm

In the book, Collins talks about the importance of the role of the executive team in making the organization mighty. He lists the traits of teams on "the way down" and those on "the way up." Fascinating stuff.

If I could dare to supplement Collins's list, here are some I would address:

Teams on the way down are led by leaders who create confusion by assigning work and discussing outcomes only with individual team members.

Teams on the way up are led by leaders who know how to use the team's meetings to promote clarity and cohesion.

Teams on the way down are made up of members who come to the table representing first and foremost their vertical line of the business.

Teams on the way up are made up of members who come to the table representing first and foremost the team and the organization -- they think horizontally across the business.

Teams on the way down work together for years with the members never really getting to know one another.

Teams on the way up are cohesive because they genuinely enjoy being around one another and are comfortable discussing even personal aspects of their lives.

Teams on the way down are made up of team members who hide their weaknesses from one another.

Teams on the way up are made up of team members who willingly apologize to one another and freely admit mistakes.

Teams on the way down have meetings that are boring and that are dreaded by the team members.

Teams on the way up have meetings have that are interesting, compelling and relevant.

Teams on the way down pursue artificial harmony.

Teams on the way up pursue healthy levels of debate.

Is your team on the way down or the way up?

One Man's Trash....

I came across a strange little story in today's New York Post (http://www.nypost.com/seven/05312009/news/regionalnews/vinyl_treasure_in_yukky_trash_171811.htm?CMP=EMC-email_edition&DATE=05312009). It is about music-memorabilia dealer Howard Fischer and the fact that he has found many valuable music albums, old comedy recordings, and even famous speeches by Winston Churchill, all in his neighbor's trash.

"The recordings are on 7- and 10-inch plastic discs, in brown paper sleeves with handwritten labels. They were made in the mid-'40s, but it's not clear which radio shows, or even which stations, the devoted listener recorded. Fischer thinks his unknowing benefactor must have recorded the shows with some primitive device he made himself. "

Now even the Library of Congress is interested in getting its hands on these recordings.

I suppose the appropriateness of what Fischer is doing can be debated, but I can't stop thinking about the person who threw the recordings away. The person who made the originals obviously knew how unique the records are and how difficult they were to make. I suspect the person who threw them away was not the original owner and probably someone who didn't know or care about their value. Maybe it was a relative who thought, "Let's get rid of this trash." Or, "it can't be valuable if one of our family members owned it." Little did that person know the value of the "trash" right there in that apartment.

In our book, "Ordinary Greatness," we write about leaders tendencies to do this same de-valuing, but instead of music recordings, they tend to underestimate the people they lead. There are several blinders that get in the leader's way -- personal bias, preconceived notions, busyness, compartmentalization, and external focus. Any of them could be at play here.

As you interact with those you lead this week, watch out for these blinders, and remember -- there is valuable treasure right were you are. Don't throw it away!

Leading Clever People

One of my favorite leadership titles of the past decade is "Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?" by Gareth Jones and Rob Goffee. They are at it again with "Clever – leading your smartest, most creative people" being published later this year.

I saw Stefan Stern's column about the book in the FT, (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/643a8cec-4914-11de-9e19-00144feabdc0.html), and it got me thinking of my own list of challenges related to leading clever people:

1. They are not easily-controlled because they don't fear for their job -- they know they have talent that others will want or they can embark on their own.

2. They will only want to work on the most important, invigorating projects, often with no respect for turf or boundaries. This can drive corporate managers crazy.

3. They have a lot of influence, so it is important to keep them engaged, as others will follow their lead.

4. A real challenge is helping them see that they are not more important than the organization or the team. An expectation will have to be created that they use their impressive skill sets in service of the whole, not themselves.

Do you lead clever people? If so, what has worked for you?