The Performing Project Team

In Chapter 4 we talked about the project development phases: forming, storming, norming, and performing. The last phase is where you want your team to act. This is where synergy effects take place. Both individual and team performance are at a peak. If you have ever experienced this stage in a project you know that magi-cal things can happen. Seemingly unsolvable and insurmountable challenges turn out to be manageable with your team. Productivity is high, quality is great, and

your project moves along according to plan and maybe even faster. It may even feel effortless. Everything is running smoothly. People don’t talk about plans, they execute them. And everyone knows exactly what to do, when, and how. At the same time, every team member knows what the other team members are doing. The single team member can totally trust the team as a whole and all of the team mem-bers. All the little wheels work together. The team forms one unit and performs as such. It is an atmosphere of complete trust. It is not that there are no problems aris-ing. But the team embraces them, taking them as challenges and chances to prove its individual and group competencies. The team is more than the accumulation of individuals. It is performing synergy.

This is no illusion or fairy tale. It is real. And as a project leader you can get there — move your team to this performing stage. Let’s have a look at some of the basic rules to comply with and apply.

5.1.1 Rule 1: Be a Role Model

The first rule of successfully promoting performance is that you want to lead by example. As important as a team is, it is you as the project leader who builds and helps norm the team. Corollary, promoting performance has to start with you. Not only are you committed to your role and its responsibilities, but your actions are in sync with the project vision and you follow all collaboration rules. You deliver on time and as expected. In short, you serve as a role model. As such, you encourage your team members to do the same.

Take the example of the president of the Alinghi sailing team, Ernesto Bertarelli. He participated in every team competition. The goal was to find the best team member for each position. He did not exclude himself from the team norms.

He was and acted as a team member, like everyone else. He lived the team values and was judged by the same measurements as every other team member. What counted was the purpose of finding the best team. To find the best person for each role, you must not exclude yourself from the quest. You actually start with yourself, participating with the rest of the team. This behavior and these actions help build trust and respect within your team.

As an example, let’s look at the captain of a soccer team. He is formally leading his team on the field. He also acts as a role model during training. He actively par-ticipates in the team’s training. He teaches junior team members, integrating them into the team. He knows that it is not the individual player who can be the decisive factor but the integration of the whole team that wins a championship.

When Lee Iacocca became CEO of the then-ailing Chrysler corporation, he realized that he had to cut salaries. This was only one of the many steps he had to undertake. And he started with himself by cutting his own salary to $1. You could say that this was easy for him because he could afford it. This is true. What counted, however, was the gesture of applying the same rules to himself. This sent the message that, “I am one of you. Let’s do it together.”

The new CEO of a telecommunications giant realized that customer service was one of the most critical areas of improvement of the company. Managers lacked understanding of the basic needs of end customers. The new CEO wanted to change this and thus ordered that every senior manager spend at least one day each quarter in a company storefront, selling products and services to end customers.

You don’t have to be a CEO to be a role model. It can start with small things.

For example, actively participate in the discussion when conducting project reviews as team members state what they like or dislike. This shows everyone that you are open and receptive to feedback from others. You take it seriously and act upon it.

Or, you could ask a third, neutral person to facilitate project reviews. This may make it easier for team members to provide feedback on your performance.

No matter what project you are working on, be aware that as project leader you are a role model to your own team and others. Act as such. Walk your own talk and be true to your own principles. Demonstrate authentic leadership.

5.1.2 Rule 2: Create the Right Environment

The second rule of successfully promoting performance is that you as project leader want to create an environment in which your team can prosper. In the team norm-ing workshop mentioned in Chapter 4, not only does the team talk about roles and responsibilities, but they also want to find out what work environment is best for the team and for individual team members. This starts with the location, which includes the office space.

In today’s world, virtual teams are becoming more and more common.

Technology helps link the various team members, who may sit in different offices or even be distributed across the globe. There is email, the telephone, online chats, video conferences, online document sharing, you name it. Still, there is no substi-tute for bringing the team together. If it is not possible for the team to sit and work together, maybe there is the possibility to set up a permanent room that is reserved for team meetings. If parts of your team are located in a different country, it helps a great deal to visit them at least once so that they get to know you in person.

Find out how flexible working hours can be and when you have common work-ing hours where everyone needs to be present. If at all possible, account for the individual motivations of your team members.

In one of the projects I managed we had a very experienced senior business ana-lyst. He performed on a very high level. The quality of his analysis and documents was impeccable. Alas, I noticed that the work packages he worked on in the late afternoons did not have the usual quality. We talked about this. In the conversa-tion I learned that in the afternoon he was thinking of his little kids, wondering what they were doing at the end of the day. He wished he could be there with them, getting them to bed. We agreed to change his working hours. From that day on, he left our project office at 5 pm, giving him enough time to spend with his kids.

In return, he finished any open work packages in the evening or early morning.

Within days, all his work packages yielded the same high quality. He was highly motivated and contributed a great deal to the success of the project.

This little episode taught me how important it can be to account for personal motivations and interests. We are not working machines but human beings. Just as we have to know the underlying motivation of a project, we need to understand the motivations of our own team and every team member. If you are working with a large team, focus on those you are working with the most. You want to know what makes them tick, what motivates them on a daily basis. Maybe it is their love of the work, or maybe it is just the money. Whatever it is, try to find it; not to control them but to understand them better. Take them seriously and value their motiva-tions. Treat your team members as you want them to treat you. For example, if you have to leave early because you have tickets for a concert of your favorite band, it motivates you to start early on this particular day and finish on time. Would you expect other team members to honor this? Would you do the same for them?

The motivations of each individual on your team drive their daily work and their attitude toward it. You do not want to make assumptions about them that turn out to be flawed. This could lead to quite a few misunderstandings, especially when you are working with cross-cultural teams. If you want to promote perfor-mance in your team, take the time and find out what motivates the team as a whole and each individual on your team. Discover what your team and the individual team members need to perform. Learn how you can help the team perform.

It may not be possible to fulfill all needs. Try to fulfill the most important ones and see how this impacts team performance. Find out what blocks team members from performing and try to remove these blocks. Cover the team’s back so that it can focus on the job. In return you can expect that the team will cover yours.

For example, in a past software development project I limited the time develop-ers had to face the customer, sitting in endless meetings while their code was wait-ing for them. Whenever there was important information affectwait-ing their work, I shared it with them. On the other hand, team members did not let me stand in the rain when I needed a realistic assessment of possible technical problems we had and how they were progressing in their work. It was a win–win situation. I covered their back and vice versa. This, too, is what teamwork and team performance is about:

helping each other.

5.1.3 Rule 3: Empower Your Team

Being a role model and creating the right environment for team performance are important ingredients to promote performance. Alas, team performance is about your team. Acknowledging the strengths of individual team members and the potential synergies from teamwork are one thing. But it does not stop there. You have to enable your team to do its job and perform. This is what the third rule to successfully promoting performance is about: empower your team. This means you

have to give your team the power and all the information it needs to do its job and perform.

Give your team and each individual member the opportunity to prove their strengths. Empowerment is the opposite of micromanagement and top-down lead-ership. Empowerment is about trusting your team. It calls for you to show every team member how to solve problems by themselves. Empowerment means that you teach your team how to become less reliant on you as a project leader and instead to trust and show their own strengths and the power of the team. Embrace the previous rule of creating an optimal environment where the team as a whole and each team member can best fulfill their roles and thus contribute to collaboration, sharing, and the purpose of the project.

In a nutshell, if you want to promote team performance you have to empower your team to perform. Give your team the opportunity to excel and have an active hand in project success. Empower your team through your effective leadership.

This goes in two directions. On the one hand, apply all five project leadership pyra-mid principles and contribute to project success. On the other hand, help your team as a group and team members as individuals become leaders in their own roles and thus contribute to project success. Give your team the freedom to act, and share the information and power necessary to do so. This doesn’t mean the end of your lead-ership. Empowerment does not come for naught. It is directed toward a common goal: the successful delivery of your project. “Empowerment means you have free-dom to act; it also means you are accountable for results” (Blanchard et al., 1998, p. 90). Accountability is two sided. If an individual team member is successful, so are the team and leadership; if an individual fails, so do the team and its leader. It is therefore your responsibility as project leader to make sure that your team under-stands this and supports each other practicing it. This is why empowerment takes effective leadership — your leadership.

5.1.4 Rule 4: Develop a Solution-and-Results Orientation toward Problems and Risks

One of the characteristics of performing teams is that they focus on solutions and results rather than problems. As project leader you want every team member to understand how important it is to identify problems and risks. Furthermore, it is even more important that they not despair and stop thinking and acting when facing a problem. Instead, they should analyze the root of the problem or risk and take appropriate measures to solve or control it. From this perspective a problem or risk is not seen as a potential show-stopper but a chance to learn and prove skills and competencies on the individual and/or group levels. The question is not what a problem is all about but how to solve it for the benefit of the project and move on.

This distinguishes a problem orientation from a solution-and-results orientation.

The latter one is forward looking toward achieving the project vision. A problem orientation, on the other hand, holds the person accountable for solving the problem

in the past and present. As a consequence, performance becomes impossible. This is why the fourth rule of successfully promoting performance is to help your team develop a solution-and-results orientation toward problems and risks.

Practicing a solution-oriented approach to project challenges by itself is no guar-antee of performance. It is an ingredient. It helps the team to be or at least become proactive and work toward achieving the project objectives.

As project leader it is not your responsibility to solve every potential problem or risk. What you want to do is empower your team to solve problems by themselves.

This improves problem-solving competency and self-confidence on the individual and team level. You don’t talk so much about problems, mistakes, and shortcom-ings. Instead, you elaborate on future chances and perspectives.

The last thing you want to do is seek a scapegoat for a problem. It is counter-productive. All it does is deteriorate team morale. Team members end up withhold-ing problems from the team, information flow ebbs, and collaboration is held to a minimum. This is the end of teamwork and team performance. Instead of trying to find a scapegoat, attack and solve problems as a team.

The chances of a group finding the solution to a problem are much greater than letting the accountable individual try to solve it by him- or herself. Accountability for solving a problem does not imply that the person has to solve the problem alone.

It means that that person or group drives the solution. If the accountable individual is not able to do so alone, it is his or her responsibility to ask for help.

In cases where the team cannot solve a problem even with a joint effort, you still have the chance to escalate the issue and ask for help. If you do, outline what you have found out about the root causes of the problem or risk and share what you suggest doing. If you do not have a clue about a possible solution, say so.

If you cannot or do not want to escalate an issue, you may be able to work around it or live with it. Similar to developing a project plan, you cannot account for every possible detail. Nor will you be able to solve every problem or risk. As a matter of fact, oftentimes you will not even want to. In other words, do not attempt to solve or con-trol every single problem or risk. Sometimes problems disappear or dissolve without you doing anything about them. Keep the big picture and overall direction in mind.

5.1.5 Rule 5: Invite Productive Competition

In some project situations you may want to conduct team internal competitions to promote and improve team performance. This is especially the case when the proj-ect takes place in a competitive environment such as the world of sports. Corollary, the fifth rule of successfully promoting performance encourages you to invite pro-ductive competition in your team.

The team internal trials of the Alinghi sailing team serve as an example. The goal of the trials was to find the best person for each role on the boat, which secured the optimal team performance. The individual performance was seen in light of the overall team performance. In other words, the trials were not about individual

performances but to find the best collective performance. The ambition was to improve the team performance and become a better team.

Team internal competitions may also be useful, for example, in software devel-opment projects, where two teams follow different approaches for a technical solu-tion. They develop a prototype that illustrates their approaches. The aim is to learn which approach and solution may work best. From this perspective the team inter-nal competition serves the purpose of promoting creativity and innovation.

Both examples show that competitiveness, for example, in the form of team internal competitions, can help promote performance. The prerequisite is that the competitiveness aims at improving team performance; it is linked with collabora-tion and social sharing.

5.1.6 Rule 6: Let It Happen

Suppose you are acting as a role model and you have created a supportive environ-ment in which team performance can prosper. What else can you do to promote performance? Simple: Let it happen. This is the sixth rule of successfully promot-ing performance. Let the team do its job. By the time a soccer match starts, for example, there is not much the coach can do about the team performance. It is showtime. Now the team has to prove its talents and show what it has learned.

There comes a point when you actually do not want to push individuals to perform. If you sense this is still necessary at this stage, you have probably missed something at an earlier stage, say during team norming or in one-on-one meetings

There comes a point when you actually do not want to push individuals to perform. If you sense this is still necessary at this stage, you have probably missed something at an earlier stage, say during team norming or in one-on-one meetings