Leading a Small Team

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Leading a Small Team

• When size DOES matter!
• Kate Russell
• CEO, Cystic Fibrosis New Zealand

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"Groups" are not necessarily "teams". Yet many
people refer to almost any work group as a
"team". This kind of fuzzy thinking can create
confusion and the frustration of unmet
expectations.
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Format for the Day

• What happens at CFNZ?
• What challenges have we experienced?
• How have we tackled those challenges?
• Hints and Tips for healthy teams
• Identifying and celebrating diversity and talent
• Conflict management
• What makes a good team leader?

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Cystic Fibrosis NZ

• TINY team becomes SMALL team
• How we got to where we are
• Who does what?
• Who reports to who?

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The Challenges

• Small office dynamics small changes make a big
  difference!
• An all-female environment
• Lots of work and too few people
• Varied workstreams and multiple titles
• Maintaining some distance

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What has helped us?

• Strong leadership
• Honesty
• Recognising talents and weaknesses
• Celebrating success
• Honest analysis of failure
• Streamlining our work
• Personality testing
• Involving everyone in as much as possible/
  seeking team building ops
• Constructively managing conflict

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General Colin Powells rules for great teams

• Reward productivity and innovation
• Downplay status differences between management
  and employees
• Consistently demonstrate how membership in the
  team is instrumental to employees achieving their
  own goals.
• It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better
  in the morning.
• Get mad, then get over it.
• Avoid having your ego so close to your position
  that when your position falls, your ego goes with
  it.
• It can be done!
• You can't make someone else's choices.
• Check small things.
• Share credit.
• Remain calm. Be kind.
• Have a vision. Be demanding.
• Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

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What makes a great team?

• Loyalty
• Identification with the organisations mission
  and vision
• Diversity
• Role taking
• Constructive policies
• Strong Leadership
• Cohesiveness
• Common vision

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Recognising and Fostering Talent

• Good leadership requires that you KNOW the
  talents and weaknesses of your team members
• Foster talent nurture and make the most of it
• Expose weaknesses and look for ways and means to
  strengthen
• Have a BUDGET for training

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Make a whole from many parts

• Look at each members workstreams
• Find points of intersection
• Identify where one persons work impacts on
  another
• Work to align workstreams to allow for seamless
  productivity
• As far as possible give team members WHOLE jobs
  to do

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Teams have the potential to tap tremendous
synergy. Team-work is like a salad. Individually
each ingredient may be tasty and fresh but it
will certainly not be a gourmet experience.
Together, the individual ingredients can enhance
each other to produce startling flavour
combinations! Each ingredient retains its
character and strengths but contributes to a more
exciting and effective over-all result. Eliza
Mendzela Menhurst Making strategic change more
successful
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• A TEAM
•  Possesses a common vision and purpose that
  members help develop and take pride in
•  Has members who feel responsible for the team's
  work, not just for their individual contributions
  
• senses the "value added" by the team to the
  wider organisation
• strives for improvements and is "future
  orientated"
• develops sound internal relationships
• displays interdependence and trust
• encourages open and honest communication to air
  differences constructively
• develops a common understanding of individual
  roles
• respects the diversity of team members
• matches people to required outcomes to maximise
  team effectiveness
• allocates leadership roles to maximise benefits

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What about the Head Honcho?

• To effectively influence team members, leaders
  should have credibility, developed by 
• Demonstrating integrity having values and
  behaving in ways that are consistent with them
  keeping promises and confidences.
• Confidently expressing direction for the team
  being self-assured, but not dogmatic being open
  to discussion, but not easily deterred.
• Being positive and optimistic complimenting
  members' achievements offering encouragement and
  assistance when performance is low expressing
  optimism that the vision will be realised.
• Finding and using common ground focusing on
  points of agreement when trying to influence
  others.

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The Big Cheesecontinued

• Managing disagreement presenting both sides of
  an argument when members are inclined to disagree
  with the conclusion.
• Coaching showing the way and providing advice
  while granting a degree of autonomy to members.
• Appreciating team members' perspectives
  inquiring about their agreement with decisions,
  the obstacles they encounter, the
  dissatisfactions they experience, their needs and
  the interpersonal problems they may experience.
• Disseminating information sharing key
  information that only the leader can obtain.

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What happens when there is conflict?

• The role of conflict in a team (or any other
  situation for that matter!) is determined by the
  way in which it is managed. Conflict can be a
  positive driving force for change or a
  disruptive, insidious destroyer of morale and
  productivity

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Conflict Resolution is a team game!

• Listen to each others concerns
• Acknowledge opposing perspectives
• Respond appropriately
• Dont get personal!
• Commit to a plan of action to resolve the problem

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Conflict between team members

• Handled informally the members get together and
  have a honest talk
• Handled more formally mediation
• Counselling full team meeting presentation of
  issues and fact

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Personality Testing does it help?

• Test results do not require a change of
  personality, but maybe a change in behaviour
• Understanding how other people understand!
• How it has helped the CF team the big picture
  thinkers meet the details people half way!
• Understanding type and how it
• affects how we perceive
• change, development,
• new ideas, conflict

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Players win games, Teams win championships

• Bill Taylor