Teams Matter: TEN QUESTIONS

Executing strategy successfully requires teams that are created by design not default and work collaboratively and successfully. 

Leading Effective Teams (LET), our upcoming Stanford course, provides a great way to experience new ways of improving team performance and design with fellow students from around the world. A few places are still available for LET at Stanford September 21-23, REGISTER HERE or call 866-802-1152

TEN QUESTIONS to ask as you work to create and lead your teams:

1. Why do you need a team? is the work best done in a team, a committee, within existing structures (such as functions), or individually?
2. What objectives does the team need to meet or exceed?
3. What are the culture, structure, and strategy of the organization the team is part of?   The IPS-Stanford Strategic Execution Framework (SEF) provides an excellent model for approaching this.
   
4. Are the team design, governance, and ways of working based on the organization's culture, structure, and strategy?
5. What leadership structure makes sense for the team? There is no one style; they can vary from very loose to very hierarchical.  Find what works for you and evolve it as the team grows and learns.
6. Has the team had an in-person kick-off meeting before the big work begins? Research shows in-person beginnings ensure future success and ease the way for addressing any issues that inevitably arise?
   
7. If the team is distributed, what specific activities and ways of working are you using so that all can feel part of the larger team, even though not together?
8. Are team meetings designed for optimum use of those on the team? do they have a purpose and clear desired outcomes? Meetings should be productive, energizing, and involve all in full participation, not from the side of the desk.
9. Is the team learning? how do you know? how do you share what is learned so that the entire team and the organization are learning from the team's experiences.  Lessons are not learned if they are not shared.
10. Teams are the crucible for growing and evolving the organization.  What are you doing to ensure that team members leave the team as better people and with excitement for their next piece of teamwork?