Artful team-building is a business fundamental, says motivational speaker Walter Bond
Leadership is one of the most frequently thrown-around buzzwords in corporate America. Seminars, trainings, and billions of dollars are committed to the idea that while leadership may be an abstract concept, it stands essential to the long-term success of any enterprise, large or small. ‘Teamwork,’ meanwhile, is discussed much less in the business community. But what is leadership but a skillset for leading teams toward their full performance potential?
Failing to develop a practical framework for thinking about optimal team-building is a serious strategic misstep. Why? Because teamwork matters. We take this fact for granted in sports, where it is accepted fact that a given team’s performance is far more complex than the sum of its parts.
Recent research has begun to confirm the fundamental importance of team dynamics. Google undertook a year’s long project, codenamed Project Aristotle, to study team performance. They expected to find a perfect combination of technical skills that would ensure an effective team. They found something very different: “We were dead wrong. Who is on a team matters less than how the team members interact, structure their work, and view their contributions. So much for that magical algorithm.”
This point confirms everything I’ve learned as a consultant: great teams aren’t founded on getting the right ratio of organizational titles or degrees. So, what does matter for successful team building at the leadership level for franchise systems? Communication styles. A combination of individuals with complimentary team behavioral tendencies, not just a combination of business specialties. Leadership that’s committed to listening as much as speaking. Leadership that operates with a sense of service toward the work life of team members, not with regal self-aggrandization.
Teams are people working together to get things done. The art of teamwork is the art of helping people work together to become more than the sum of their parts. And this art must be the domain of any successful business leader. All great franchise systems, you can always trace it back to their leadership team.
