by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®
“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision.” Andrew Carnegie
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More often than not in our current organization world, if there’s a critical issue to solve, we pull together our most senior team into a room and engage them in debate and discussion until they arrive at a solution. On some occasions they become stuck, consequently pursue a series of meetings until a potential answer appears.
Once they hit upon a likely fix, they will either work it through and resolve it or one of them will volunteer or be volunteered to take it on. This all sounds pretty conventional doesn’t it? However, unless it is something of a highly confidential nature, it’s an opportunity lost. You’ll have missed another moment to more fully engage your people.
Supposing, instead, that your senior team had concluded that there was a significant issue to be solved and then alternatively asked, “Who could we put together as a team to find
an optimum solution as quickly as possible?” rather than, “Let’s discuss and figure out what we have to do?” Not only might the latter intent be an undue use of their valuable, collective time, but it also under-utilizes other existing organiz-ation talent. Why the latter? Because it’s more than possible that in-house talent could form an internal Enterprise Breakthrough Team (EBT), which could potentially gain so much satisfaction from handling the situation. An EBT could be a ‘pair,’ ‘threesome’ or up to 6or 7: where one of the seven acts as team leader or project visionary.
As the EBT name implies, such an activity is normally reserved for enterprise-wide topics that could include boosting sales, finding a Blue Ocean market – as opposed to a Red Ocean one, which is full of competitive blood – reduce inventory levels, get a better handle on your receivables, find better quality people to hire, further enhance donor relations with your non-profit, find a bigger pool of students, reduce the amount of red-tape for your customers, and so on – all key topics across any organization’s spectrum, whether that be commercial, not-for-profit, academia or governmental.
“Wait a minute?” you may ask, “Why shouldn’t we assign this to the team or department concerned, instead of an organization-wide grouping?” There are many reasons for the latter. Three of the chief ones being: 1) Since the outcome is likely to have a fairly wide organization impact and benefit, it may well need a broad-minded approach; 2) Utilizing representatives from other areas brings the possibility of fresh eyes; and 3) You will also likely positively charge this EBT to implement its solution, too. Such an activity will also further encourage across-the-board enterprise cooperation.
Before your senior team hands-off its topic to an EBT, it must fairly speedily do three things:
- Put together a really thoughtful topic question to properly assign that EBT at the outset.
- Figure out what organization ‘contributors’ might best form a dynamic team – be that a pairing, threesome or up to 6-7 people. There’s everything to be gained by not picking identical personas and drawing upon people from across your organization.
- Decide among your senior team which pair from among its members will give your assigned EBT a briefing and also act as its mentors, while the senior twosome stays in touch for progress updates.
The fortunate senior leader team pair, which is chosen to mentor the EBT, will then be positioned to proceed as follows:
» Pull their EBT together, pose the agreed topic question, and emphasize how important this issue is to your organization’s future.
» In the event this is the first time EBT members have served in such a capacity, they ought to be advised to consider the following approach:
– Figure out when and how to set time aside to discuss, resolve and implement a solution: notwithstanding they still have to cover their normal job roles.
– They should list the associated issues and organization advantages to be gained from resolving the matter.
– They should clarify what they believe the optimum outcome ought to be.
– As their minds attune to the topic situation, they should come-up with an inspiring team name as a rallying call.
– The EBT should then figure out what the key challenges are involved in making a breakthrough; and then prioritize them 1, 2, 3…
– Then for each prioritized challenge, they should determine an action initiative in the form of WHAT, HOW, WHO, WHEN, WHERE (last one; where to go for allies/advisors). The HOW, WHO, WHEN cover the key moves necessary to address this priority issue.
– Any action initiative should include with it:
- A) An agreed approach to address ‘mid-initiative blues,’ when momentum might slack-off.
- B) An agreed moment to celebrate success in a prudent way by all those involved. This can also be done along the journey at key progress moments.
– This final initiative approach should then be shared with the team’s assigned senior team ‘pairing,’ so all parties remain in sync and the EBT can be encouraged at key moments.
So now it becomes evident that you will pretty quickly have a fired-up EBT moving ahead with its assigned enterprise-wide topic. This not only frees up your senior team members to move along with other important matters – such as strategic issues, developing their team leaders, mentoring-motivating their own domains, or important coordination with senior colleagues – but it’s yet another example of how to fully engage your people, as well as let them feel as though they count.
Done in the right way, it will be viewed rather favorably and likely inspire others in your organization to seek similar EBT assignments. Outcome: You will build an organization-wide appetite for 2-3 EBT’s at any one time – not too many, so as to dilute people’s attention. Why not set-up your first Enterprise Breakthrough Team tomorrow?
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