Monday 20 August 2012

How to Lead a High Performing Team of Superstars




Most of you might have seen the movie “The Avengers” and even might have thought what an amazing team of super heroes- mighty, incredible, and invincible and with king-sized egos and insecurities. They can handle themselves solo pretty well – but when it comes to working together they screwed up initially. Nick Fury had a difficult role making a team out of the super heroes.  I have had the privilege of leading few such teams over the years. My team mates were stars before they came to work for me, but a few principles have gone a long way in team management and accomplishing tasks like true super heroes. J - And every member of the team eventually figures out how to be an outstanding team member.

Let them be individuals

If you have a team of high performers, ask a simple question to yourself – Are you letting them run things and operate the way they’re most comfortable doing it or the way you’re most comfortable doing it. If it’s the latter, give up some control.  Let your people be themselves. They’ll give you a lot more than if you try to get them to have some arbitrary standards you are comfortable with – let the chaos and unpredictability rule. A sense of thought leadership helps the individuals accomplish any goal if they are given the reigns. But make sure you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your team members.

Unite them under one Goal

In the Avengers movie, Nick never mentions to the avengers “Loki is bad, go and beat him hell and blue”, but they are united by a common agenda when things became personal. So set goals for the team. Rally not their minds but their hearts around that measure of success. Nick deliberately brought together a volatile group of individuals with incredible abilities and unleashed them on a colossal problem.  He didn’t give them directions or plans.  He didn’t give them rules of engagement.  He simply knew what they were capable of, what their intentions were, and the strength of character and values underlying their powers. 

Do you trust your people?  Do they trust you?  Are you confident in your team members’ abilities?  If not, understand the source of your discomfort and get it resolved fast if you want to get the best out of them because it require ultimate trust in their abilities and intentions.

Expect Conflict

With high performing teams come bigger conflicts. Everyone will have a different view of the problem, the solution, and how to work together. Do you welcome conflict on your team or do you try to eliminate it?  Are team members free to air their opinions or do you try to manage the conversation? Let them hash out their own differences.

Cover their backs

Fury says “I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it’s a stupid-assed decision, I’ve elected to ignore it. “  He was backing the Avengers and their ability to win the day.  He stood up for his team and protected them from undue interference. If your team knows you’ve got their back and are giving them the freedom to operate, they’ll run through brick walls for you

Give them Challenges

The biggest challenge of having a team of high performers is to keep them occupied with challenges because they get bored pretty easily. So you either need a think tank who provides good ideas or you need to challenge them in new projects.

In the end, leading a high-performing team full of superheroes is an incredibly rewarding, challenging, and frustrating role to play.  They’ll amaze you with their abilities.  They’ll test your patience and intestinal fortitude.  They’ll sometimes put your entire career at risk.  That said, if you lead them well, they just might save the world.

Monday 6 August 2012

Innovation or Idea Generation


You don’t need to be a Nano-technologist to start innovating. You don't have to be Einstein either to disrupt standards. Well, actually, you do — Einstein himself said that his greatest asset was his imagination, not his knowledge. Well the buzz word in all organizations is all about Innovations. Not just within the organization but also within the whole wide world. Everyone is talking about Innovation and idea generation. My manager had forwarded an amazing article on Innovation, the one that was catalogued by HBR (Harvard Business Review). It was just an article on how innovations evolve or what can be done to foster the culture of innovation.

Not every organization is a Google or an Apple to develop and foster the culture of innovations or innovate something new every other day. The opportunity as it stands now is not in the hands of the beholder but like Harvard puts it “Give your best employees, the most monotonous or stultifying issues – they will come up with approaches and solutions to annihilate the inefficiencies and enable new opportunities for value added enhancement and growth”. Come to think of it who best can get that idea or who best can think through the situation to accomplish the final goal? If you want something to get done, give it to a busy person because they have the energy, incentive and capability to do it. 

The other day, I was reading about Thomas Edison. He was the most innovative man of his times and if not for him we would be in Stone Age forever or would have been using a computer under the candle lightJ. His company Edison labs was all about innovations and researches and failures of course. He had innumerable ideas and had researchers to try and test if it could be done. Well did anyone know that when he invented quadruplex telegraph and wanted to sell it. He didn’t expect more than $4000 and was surprised to hear an offer of $10,000?

DreamWorks (yes the movie making unit) seems to be the best Innovation and Idea generation firm - where even accountants & lawyers are trained to provide ideas – no wonder they are able to bring out lot of good animation box office movies like Shrek, Madagascar, etc. So what makes it different from other companies? The company it seems takes pain to keep all employees up to speed on new projects and trains all workers to pitch their ideas effectively “that’s what engages people. To feel integrated and part of the company, no matter what your job is”.

Some critical success factors that I feel which provide a platform for innovations are as follows:
-          Willingness to take risk and see value in Absurdity – Albert Einstein had said “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” Give people the chance to take risks. Otherwise you are just creating the obvious ones.
-          Visible Senior Management Involvement - It motivates employees to have their ideas and innovations get that limelight that it deserves – getting noticed and above all a visibility of their achievements. Senior management involvement also catapults the idea to a bigger arena of major players. And the pursuit of game changing innovation cannot happen unless the person who can provide the cover and yes to big changes.
-          Foster teamwork in support for passionate champions – A passionate champion can make decisions and engage the team to support the decisions. Otherwise consensus sinks between ideas to its lowest possible value.
-          Ability to synthesize facts – A person who can identify issues and has the ability to synthesize these facts quickly to a workable solution gives the right balance in the innovative team.

P.S. The biggest enemy of Innovation is “Brainstorming” – Killing an idea before it’s born.