If there is one huge area that this pandemic is testing us in, it’s leadership. With everyone working remotely, how do we reorganize ourselves, establishing each of our roles?

In this episode, I speak with Andrew Neitlich about the difference between teams and working groups, and how to create an incredible team that can face any kind of adversity (like this pandemic!).

About Andrew Neitlich

Andrew Neitlich is the Founder of the Center for Executive Coaching, the leading executive coach training program for successful professionals seeking their next level of flexibility, freedom, and fulfillment.

He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and is the author of three books in the ‘Guerrilla Marketing‘ series, ‘The Way to Coach Executives‘, and ‘Elegant Leadership‘.

His own coaching practice focuses on helping dynamic leaders in growth companies be even more successful. Andrew lives in Sarasota, Florida.

Check out this episode if you want to learn:

• How to know if you’re in a team or a working group
• Why working groups aren’t actually a bad thing
• Key advice for starting your own business

🎧 Listen to the podcast here:

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A Leader’s Guide To Teams And Working Groups With Andrew Neitlich

How do we reorganize our teams when we’re all over the place — some people are remote, others are in the office? 

Even before people were sequestered in their homes, the first (thing) I’d always want to talk to a leader about, I borrowed from (Jon) Katzenbach — he wrote a great book called ‘The Wisdom of Teams‘. The first thing he noted was: do you want a team, or do you want a workgroup?

In most companies, people come to work and they leave. It’s about compliance — we’re collecting a pay-check. If this person goes, it’s not a big deal. A workgroup is where we want to do the job, but we’re not going to give it our all — we’re not committed. We’re not going to stick our neck out for people.

When we look at true teams — usually in sports, a symphony, a play, or something like that — (that’s) where we see what a real team looks like. The quality of (the) relationships are different than what we often see in organizations. If you have a team, you can win the Super Bowl. You can be a world-class orchestra. You can do amazing things.

Most companies don’t want to put the effort into creating a team, and quite frankly, many don’t even need a team. When we’re working virtually, it’s even harder to create a true team. All the case studies I have about teams, people are face-to-face. They’re getting to know each other. They’re taking the time to care for each other.

To do it in a virtual setting adds a degree of difficulty, and makes me wonder: let’s start with workgroups, because companies have enough trouble making workgroups work.

Oftentimes in my work, I hear leaders say that they need to build a team, but it never seems to work out that way. It usually ends up being a workgroup, and that’s seen as negative.

What’s wrong with a workgroup? To have an outcome, make the outcome happen, and work effectively together. Maybe it takes the pressure off, not to try hard to have a team. Certainly, it puts the pressure on if you say, ‘we want a team’. Suddenly, people are expecting things when you use the word ‘team’. There’s (a level of) trust (and) commitment (needed in teams), that you don’t (always) see in companies.

If we want to be truthful, maybe we have to tone down the language and say, ‘it’s a workgroup’. Then all we have to do is communicate, give people tools, have a clear goal, and communicate regularly. Before you know it, you can make things happen.

'The leader is not the most important thing on a team. It's having a clear goal.' Share on X

It sounds like, if we do well enough as leaders, we can end up with teams being built on their own. 

I’ll bet that’s true. One of the things we have to do is look at our own relationship with teams. You know my personality profile — I’m not very sociable, but for me, an ideal team is a tennis team, where I’m 7 to 8 feet away from an opponent, and on a sort of a ‘loose’ team.

I played with a football team, (where) we came together as the true team. We won one game the whole season, and we celebrated like never before. It was an amazing achievement. No-one expected that from us. Personally, I can’t say that teams are something that (necessarily) need a leader.

One of the case studies I remember from business school was an insurance company that wanted to transform itself. They created a workgroup, and they put a weak leader on the team. We struggled as a class for 1.5 hours trying to figure out how this team was ever going to succeed.

It turns out it was one of the best working groups that the company ever had. They achieved their mission. It’s one of the lessons that Katzenbach talks about in his book: the leader is not the most important thing on a team. It’s having a clear goal.

That word (collaboration) drives me crazy. I’ve seen organizations go overkill with collaboration. We’re collaborative, and then what happens? Someone goes up to their manager and says, ‘I want to try this.’ The manager will then say, ‘That’s not collaborative.’ Suddenly collaboration becomes an excuse to avoid tough conversations.

I know at least two major organizations I’ve worked with where it’s impossible to get a yes, but easy to get to a no. Everybody has veto power, because it’s collaboration run amuck. You have to talk to everybody. If anybody says, ‘no’, nothing happens — so nothing ever happens.

Like you, ‘collaboration’ is a buzzword that can drive me insane. At the same time, I look at it from a design perspective, where it’s about gaining as much insight as you can from different sources, so that you have a diversity of ideas that you can pull from.

It’s simple enough.

It’s funny, my experience in sports is a little different. Most of my life, I’ve been playing sports, and I’m always asking, ‘How can we function better as a team?’ Some people do well with sports, and others might need a team to perform well. As a leader, how do you balance that?

I got to interview one of the (most successful) basketball coaches in the NCAA — I did it with Corey Crowder whose son, Jae Crowder, plays in the NBA. Corey played for the Utah Jazz, and I learned a ton from him.

One of the things he would do to create his teams were exercises that you don’t see in companies, like, ‘we’re going to be the best team, so that in the last two minutes of a game, no one can outrun us.’ He would have his team do all these suicide (running drills). You’d have to hit a certain mark, or you do it again.

He had his teammates carrying each other over the line sometimes, to make sure those drills happen. He’d have people from his team live with each other.

You can’t tell me that that happens in a corporate setting — it’s not the level we’re willing to go to. The only thing I’ve seen close is when people return from the military, they talk about that shared sense of purpose. It’s a remarkable thing, and they often struggle because when they go into regular organizations, they don’t see anything close to that. They see people faking it.

If I have a group of people who are working well, do I need to establish a ‘team’, or scale it back to a workgroup?

We have something we have to achieve. Let’s look at the goal, get the right people together and make sure everyone’s clear on the path forward. We’ve looked at the risks. Let’s have enough time to communicate — not just about in-the-weeds communication, but also how we’re doing.

When things don’t go well, it’s usually because of turf, ego, or agenda. For instance, in healthcare, I was part of a number of performance improvement projects, where healthcare delivery systems would set up teams to improve things, but the reality was they also had to reduce costs. They had to be more productive while improving or maintaining the quality of care and patient satisfaction.

Inevitably, if somebody had people working for them in their department, they were going to find ways to resist doing what had to happen. They wanted to protect their people, and I don’t blame them — they were afraid, or didn’t want to make that hard decision. They wanted someone else to make it for them.

I (also) remember a so-called team that was supposed to form among the faculty of 11 different universities in a specialized field. They were getting a big grant (from) the National Science Foundation, but when push came to shove, it was about, ‘how can I get the most equipment? How do I maintain my power?’

Whenever people leave the goal and it becomes something like, ‘how do I win? How do I (advance my) hidden agenda?’ — that’s where teams tend to go wrong. In fact, we see it in sports all the time, when you get that one person who wants all the glory — those teams tend not to do as well.

In essence, it’s about leaders setting expectations, and communicating that effectively.

'A workgroup is where we want to do the job, but we're not going to give it our all. We're not committed.' Share on X

In the Center for Executive Coaching, we have a simple one-page sheet that says that part of engaging and motivating a team is letting them know how they’re doing, and we have a template for that. It’s amazing to me how people making millions of dollars don’t even have that kind of conversation with their team. There’s no standard for performance.

I’ve worked with a number of organizations where people are afraid to say what needs to be done. They’re afraid of being perceived as negative, when it is probably constructive to have that conversation.

I remember one meeting — and again, it was a healthcare delivery system — where the CEO was being questioned about some of the things that she was doing. She stood up and said, ‘I’m the CEO. One of the values of this organization was supposedly respect.’ She started tearing into the various people for trying to have a dialogue. You can imagine how demotivating and disengaging that behaviour is — it isn’t that complicated.

I used to be an employee, and I didn’t like it, because I couldn’t be myself. Now, I love working the way I do — I have people I work with all around the world. I imagine with the pandemic and people working at home, more people are thinking about, ‘how can I be that free agent, more than anything else?’

Starting up a business always has its challenges. You have to be focused on planning and strategy. What’s your advice?

If you’re starting a business, the number one thing is the runway, (meaning), ‘I have enough cash to support myself and my family, and not be desperately trying to get this done.’ That runway can come from investors, from debt or from savings.

96% of the time, you’re going to fail. I think of it more as oil drilling — how do the oil drillers do it? They might have 10 fields that they have to try, but they test at a low cost, knowing that five of the fields are going to be dry, six, seven and eight might be OK, break even. Nine might be good, and 10 might be a gusher.

It’s more having a portfolio approach, not thinking, ‘This is the idea. This is going to work.’ That idea could change multiple times, (and) that’s where companies need to be a little bit more flexible. You’re (either) going to get the result or not — but trust your people enough that you’re going to let them drill. Let them test these different holes at the lowest risk, and find that gusher eventually. Before you know it, you have a boomtown.

It’s allowing for a certain amount of vulnerability along the way.

I’ve started a number of things, and some have gone by the wayside. Some have had a good run, and then go away — and some continue. I’m never going to be the Google people or the Elon Musk who bets everything and goes big. Those are the people that the media tends to obsess about, but they’re not the majority of entrepreneurs out there. They test (their ideas) and (they) grow over time, but it doesn’t have to be this big giant unicorn or gazelle or whatever they call these things.

I don’t need every parking spot in the mall. I want one spot and I’m happy. I’m going to have a good life, take care of my family, and enjoy my time.

It goes back to the goal of a team. What are you trying to achieve here? Do you need to rule the world like Jeff Bezos, being a serial monopolist — or can you start a nice business, make a difference to people and make a good living?

You’ve given lots of food for thought as always, Andrew. 

Let me go back to basketball — on a basketball team, different players have different roles. If you’re on a team with LeBron James, he’s going to get the ball (at) that last second. You know that the goal is to get him the ball, but the players all have important roles. There’s the person who does the three-point shot. There’s the bruiser on defense. Everybody has a role according to their strengths, but they have to understand their role and know how to play.

Everybody has a role according to their strengths, but they have to understand their role and know how to play it. Share on X

📌 Important Links:

• Center for Executive Coaching
• ‘Guerrilla Marketing for Coaches: Six Steps to Building Your Million-Dollar Coaching Practice‘ by Andrew Neitlich
• ‘The Way To Coach: Leaders, Executives and Managers’ by Andrew Neitlich
• ‘Elegant Leadership’ by Andrew Neitlich
• ‘The Wisdom of Teams’ by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith

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