Playful team leadership

Electrolux organizes an internal leadership mentorship program. During one year young leaders can rely on the support of a more experienced leader. I was invited to run a full day workshop to conclude this mentorship program. The topic of my workshop is

Team Leadership: transforming a group into a fabulous team

It's a precious clockwork.

As illustrated in the model above, the factors determining the power of your team leadership are all interconnected, like a precious clockwork. Every factor depends on and has an impact on all other factors.
The central axes are the effectiveness and the spirit of the team. In a sweatshop company, the the leader only focuses on the effectiveness. In a boy scout company, the leader only focuses on the team spirit. Todays team leaders have to balance both.

At the heart of the model is the yellow cogwheel: Personal leadership.
While preparing this workshop, I had the opportunity to exchange some ideas with some of my friends and respected team leaders such as Marc Michils, former CEO Saatchi, now heading a nonprofit organization; Dirk Jacxsens, CEO Leonidas, Kristof De Wulf, CEO Insites Consulting and Koen Marichal, professor at the Antwerp Management School.

Here are some of the insights from this discussion.

No hiding

One of the potential dangers of team work is that some people hide themselves in the team and wait for the others to take the initiative. In a fabulous team such hiding is not possible, since the team members will not tolerate this.

Not just information sharing

One of the major benefits of teamwork in todays complex world is not just the sharing of information (we have too much data) but the creation and sharing of insights and even foresights. 

Fresh eyes and free mind

There are to kind of interviews that can give the team leader some valuable insights.

First talk with new people one month after they just joined the team. They look at things with fresh eyes and thus can make you aware of things that you overlook or that you think are obvious. Second always have an exit interview with people that leave the team: they probably feel more free to speak out their mind.

Airbags inside

In todays rapid changing environment it is impossible to plan for the long term or to control everything. The leader has to make it clear to the team that uncertainty is part of the game.  However, the leader has to promise there will be airbags to protect the team members, in case something turns out wrong. There will be no blaming, but joint responsibility.

Rebels with a cause

Avoid a team with only "yes-men" that just want to please the leader. Allow some rebels in your team, allow some turnover in your team. This will keep you alert. Make it clear that they can disagree within the team, but once the decision is made, it should be one voice face, one voice.

The ultimate glue

Shared values are the ultimate glue. They are what keeps the team together when all the rest breaks down.

The happiness barometer

Every Friday the team members at InSites consulting, an international market research company with offices in Belgium, UK, USA and Rumania fill out their happiness barometer. In this fun and simple metric team members use the universal symbols of a weather report to indicate how they experienced the past week: sunny, partly clouded, overcast or thunderstorm. That's all.If they want, they can ad a personal comment. This barometer is a quick and dirty tool allowing the coach to feel the temperature in his or her team and an invitation to take further action, where needed.