All articles written by John Howard, Ph.D., except
where noted.
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Getting Our Teams in Gear
From Jim Sirbasku’s Desk
One of the ways to understand how teams operate
is to imagine gears meshing. In gear theory, we
have drivers, followers and idlers. We “gear up”
and “gear down.” Following this theory, we know
that when gears are not properly meshed, friction
results.
Work teams operate the same way. Team players
are like the followers; they do the useful work.
Team leaders are like the driver, the gear with
applied force. And, just as the meshing of followers
and drivers can speed up the gear train and
increase torque, team players that mesh well can
accomplish great things.
But what happens when a driver or a follower
needs to be replaced and the new player just
doesn’t match? It’s like pushing a screwdriver
between the gears. The jolt can throw everything
out of whack, and we learn just how fragile a team
can be.
The growing emphasis on formalizing work teams
to cope with changing workplaces is healthy, but
keeping together a successful team requires an
understanding of the importance of team mix. The
most important ingredients of a team are its
people, and each time we add a new or different
person, we run the risk of creating friction and
derailing an operation unless we ensure that each
new member is a team player, gets along well with
others, and understands the culture and style of the
team.
Although the structure, purpose and makeup may
vary, each well-built team needs these important
features:
• Players who mesh. Although determining
whether a person has the skills to play on a team
is not so difficult, the team dynamics – how
thinking and working styles match -- are not as
easy to discern. Team members do not all have
to think alike or move in lockstep, but thinkingworking
styles need to blend so that team
members can work reasonably easily with each
other. A team’s leader needs to be able to assess
a team’s strengths and weaknesses and add the
pieces that fit, with one person’s strengths
making up for another’s shortcomings, and vice
versa.
• A vision. The simplest way to see the vision is to
ask the question, “Why does this team exist?” If
you cannot clearly articulate the reason for the
team to be, it will founder. Gatherings of team
members will be pointless unless the leader
knows what he or she wants and spells it out.
• Examples to follow. In a culture that reveres
individuality, work leaders must set the tone for
the kind of work environment they expect. Are
your executives team players, or do they think
and act alone? Employees throughout the
company will quickly take note of what’s
expected at work by watching those at the top.
• Agreement on how to attain the goal. If
individuals disagree on how to get to their
destination (think tug-of-war), the journey will
be long and hard and the result will be iffy.
Consensus building is a necessary team skill.
Make sure your team includes people who can
help individual members with strong ideas reach
consensus.
• Support from the organization. Workers must
see that their employers value teamwork as
much as individual achievement, and the best
way employers can show that is with rewards.
These can be anything of value: public praise, days
off, bonuses, dinners for the team, or tickets to a
sporting event. Think of how coaches of sports
teams celebrate their successes, and take your cue
from them. Successful coaches are excellent at
team building and recognition.
If your workforce consists of individual players
performing their own tasks well but big problems
grow, it’s a sign that your team needs help.
Examine your own actions and those of your top
managers first, as highly effective teams depend
on good coaching and full participation. If you
cannot find the problem, seek feedback from
others on your top team. Also, studying the
assessments of individuals can help predict team
dynamics. A good assessment will show who will be
likely to lead and who is most inclined to follow. A
sound team needs both.
Once your workforce is playing for a
team that accomplishes its goals,
everyone will quickly feel the torque
that smoothly meshing gears provide.
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BOOK REVIEW: A Father-Son Formula for Team Building
If you want to construct successful work teams, go
to the team of experts. In the fourth-edition classic,
TEAM BUILDING: Proven Strategies for Improving
Team Performance, change management guru
William G. Dyer and his sons Gibb and Jeffrey
continue to apply their branded balm to troubles on
the job. Fans who read the previous three editions
of this team-builder’s “bible” should consider that
this one, published in March, offers six new chapters
of material designed to keep apace with today’s
challenges.
The book opens with a compelling description of one
executive’s crisis after he failed at teams. Although
the predicament might sound far-fetched to
believers, the beginning paragraphs are a lesson for
anyone who thinks top-down management still
rules. In today’s rapidly changing and increasingly
complex business environment, the opening of
TEAM BUILDING shows that the top-down mantra is
about as useful as a top hat.
But the authors designed the book more for
believers than skeptics, and quickly moves on to
practical advice for putting teams together and
ensuring their smooth operation. It offers a formula
for building high-performing teams, which it
describes as “those with members whose skills,
attitudes and competencies enable them to achieve
team goals…members set goals, make decisions,
communicate, manage conflict and solve problems
in a supportive, trusting atmosphere…”
The four sections of this book include:
• Part One: The Four Cs of Team Development:
Contest, Composition, Competencies and Change
Management Skills
• Part Two: Solving Specific Problems Through
Team Building
• Part Three: Team Building in Different Kinds
of Teams
• Part Four: The Challenge of Team Building for
the Future
Decades of experience support the authors’
influence in the business world. Patriarch William G.
Dyer, who died in 1997, is past dean of the Marriott
School of Management and founder of the
Department of Organizational Behavior at Brigham
Young University. His work there continues in many
ways, including through the Dyer Institute for
Leading Organizational Change.
Son Gibb, or W. Gibb Dyer Jr., is the O. Leslie Stone
Professor of Entrepreneurship and academic director
of the Center of Economic Self-Reliance in the
Marriott School. His brother, Jeffrey, is the Horace
Beasley Professor of Strategy at the Marriott School,
where he also chairs the business strategy group.
In the book’s foreword, Edgar H. Schein, a professor
emeritus at MIT, notes his pleasure at the
continuation of the elder Dyer’s “pioneering work…
at a time when the world needs 'team building'
more than ever." Teams everywhere, successful or
struggling, are likely chorusing their amens.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
TEAM BUILDING: Proven Strategies for Improving Team
Performance (fourth edition)
Authors: William G. Dyer, W. Gibb Dyer Jr., and
Jeffrey H. Dyer
272 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0-7879-8893-7
Publisher: Jossey-Bass (imprint of Wiley Books)
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PRODUCT FOCUS: Producing Art with Profiles Team Analysis™
A team that works well together can produce a
work of art. Think of the Vienna Boys Choir, a
group of individuals with perfectly tuned, trained
voices. Or envision a team of Clydesdale horses
harnessed together, each raising the correct hoof
at precisely the right time, as if following the lead
of an imaginary conductor. Marching bands and
football players, surgeons and teachers – all are
capable of good things individually and potentially
great accomplishments when working together.
No matter how easy they make teamwork appear,
great teams do not just happen. Mayhem could
result if the team’s goals are not clear. What if the
Boys Choir decided to play baseball instead of sing,
or the giant Clydesdales ran amok during a
parade? Individual team members must be
carefully chosen and coached. Each person’s
performance needs analysis. Effective teams need
players who want to participate and who bring
different strengths to the group. The team leader
must be able to elicit and orchestrate individual
strengths to help the team reach its goals.
Profiles Team Analysis™ not only helps to analyze
the teams that your organization relies on, but it
also helps your leaders determine how to coach
their teams to obtain the best performance from
each participant.
The PTA™ analyzes each team member in 12 key
areas. These include control and composure,
emotions and ambitions, as well as social and
analytical aspects. It examines patience, whether
or not the team member is results-oriented, his or
her precision, and whether he or she is a team
player. Finally, the PTA looks at the team
member’s positive expectancy and quality
orientation.
A PTA report card shows how the team is
performing in these key areas:
• Team Balance Table. This chart shows how
each team member scored on each of the 12
factors.
• Overall Team Balance. Are key characteristics
missing from your team? This report will show
you what’s present and what’s absent.
• Behavioral Factors. This reveals how each
team member scored on each factor.
• Team Leader Action. If you are leading your
team, you need to know how to supervise your
members. This report guides you.
An underperforming team might miss important
goals while individual members squabble over real
or imagined conflicts. Individual members may not
be motivated to perform, and perhaps no one is
anticipating problems. Teams that excel can
determine how to get a project done at the best
price, increase productivity, make sure quality
standards remain high and solve annoying
problems.
“Many hands make light work,” wrote British
dramatist John Heywood. That’s especially true if
all of the hands are working with the same goal in
mind. Profiles’ assessments will help get your team
members on the same page. Call us at (254) 751-
1644.
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CASE STUDY: ProfileXT™ Helps Fine-Tune Team at a Financial Services Firm
Employee teamwork is important in all industries, but the stakes are among the highest in the competitive
financial services sector, where employees must be detail-oriented and mesh like a finely tuned machine.
The intricate mix of federal and state regulations that employees must follow also heightens the importance
of teamwork.
When a national financial services firm wanted to increase the revenue production of its loan originators,
they used the ProfileXT™ to identify candidates with the greatest probability of good productivity. ProfileXT™
looks at workers’ traits, interests, and cognitive abilities as benchmarked by other successful individuals in
the position.
Participants
The study included 116 loan originators to examine
the relationship between employee productivity and
the dimensions measured by ProfileXT™. Loan
originators are front-line mortgage sales employees
who must comply with a web of federal and,
usually, state laws. They are licensed professionals
and need excellent communication and
interpersonal skills to be successful.
Each loan originator completed the ProfileXT. For a
year, a supervisor at the mortgage lending form
evaluated performance. An analysis identified 11
top performing and 11 bottom performing
employees. The sample of current top performing
loan originators formed the basis for the Job Match
Pattern. Further refinement of the pattern helped
distinguish top and bottom scores.
Performance grouping
Based on the information from the employer,
Profiles built a pattern that described the qualities
of the existing top performers and matched all 116
loan originators against this pattern. An overall Job
Match of 80 percent or greater identified top performers, so a percentage of 80 or above
represented a strong fit to the Job Match Pattern.
This pattern match revealed:
• 10 of 11 top performers were correctly identified
as such
• 1 of the 11 top performers was incorrectly
identified as a bottom performer
• Seven of 11 bottom performers were correctly
identified as bottom performers
• Four of 11 bottom performers were incorrectly
identified as top performers
Details
Of the 116 participants, 62 obtained a Job Match of
80 percent or greater. Ten of the 11 top
performers, or 91 percent, displayed a strong fit to
the Job Match Pattern. Thirty-six percent, or four of
11 bottom performers, achieved the same mark.
Summary
The financial services firm now uses the PXT™ Job
Match Pattern as the benchmark, allowing it to
successfully screen candidates and increase the
odds of selecting top performing loan originators.
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STRATEGIES FOR WINNING: Fire ‘Em Up!*
21 Days to a Winning, Motivated Team
Will you give 10 minutes each day for the next 21
days to fire up your team like never before?
Will you give 10 minutes each day for the next 21
days to fire up your team like never before?
The sooner you can get a new employee into
productivity, the better off you will be. At Profiles,
our managers have learned the following techniques
for managing and motivating people. These take the
usual new-employee orientation to a higher level.
This program has been successful in integrating our
new team members into the Profiles culture in just
21 days, or about one calendar month. Not only has
using this system accelerated the productivity of
new team members, but it has proved excellent in
making them feel wanted, appreciated and
accepted. Based upon the excellent results we have
experienced, we heartily recommend you implement
a similar program in your company.
Here’s a distillation of all you need to know to
motivate people – it’s drawn from all of the great
writers on the subject – along with a simple, 21-day
plan.
Employees Want Management They Can Look
Up to – Not Management that Looks Down on
Them
An honest respect for all, a genuine recognition that
everyone has something good to offer – this is at
the heart of the successful motivator. Without
respect, so-called motivation becomes
manipulation, and manipulation is never successful
in the long term. If you or your managers cannot
show respect for your people, then, before you
invest time and energy in motivational efforts, get
someone who can – and have that person read on
from here!
Take an Interest in the Career and Personal
Goals, Aspirations, Interests, Lives and
Families of Those Who Work with You
Do you know anyone who complains about getting
too much recognition or praise for a job well done?
Research consistently shows that people will go to
extraordinary lengths for a leader who takes the
time to catch them doing something right and,
when they do, provides them with sincere praise
and recognition in front of their colleagues. Praise
and recognition are more motivating than money or
any other single thing we can give to the people we
lead.
Don’t Criticize, Condemn or Complain
Dale Carnegie nailed it with this gem. When you
must draw attention to poor performance, don’t
criticize. Coach. Don’t pick at what is being done
wrong, but focus all of your attention on the new
behavior or action that will put things right;
always finish with a positive comment to let the
employee see that the reason you’ve raised the
matter is that you have seen that he or she is
capable of so much more. Correct the errant action,
provide some positive feedback, and then forget it.
Act like you expect better performance next time –
and you’ll get it.
Request – Don’t Order
Real leaders lead from the front – they don’t need
to push from the back. Everyone rebels to some
extent against being bossed around. No one minds
being asked to help.
Discuss – Don’t Argue
Maturity is being able to disagree agreeably.
Be Careful with Humor
Avoid any kind of demeaning humor. If there’s the
slightest chance of being misunderstood, keep it to
yourself. “If in doubt, leave it out.”
Listening is the Greatest Compliment You Can
Pay Anyone
Our opinions are all sacred to us. Listen – and hear
the concerns of your people.
Most Importantly of All
Model the behaviors and attitudes you expect others
to display. Show them it works.
21-Day Action Plan
Why 21 days? Research shows that it takes 21 days
to establish a habit. Take the topics discussed above
and apply them for 21 days. You will discover that
by the end of this period, you will be doing all of
these things naturally. And the level of motivation in
your team in general, even in your toughest cases,
will be at an all-time high.
To implement your plan:
Create a table with each employee’s name down the
left-hand side, and each of the motivators listed
above across the top. Rule your table so that each
person has a box against each motivator.
Target improvements. Copy this strategy and put it
in a place where you can review it daily. Each day,
make a determination to apply each motivator as
often as possible with as many members of your
team as you can. Plan to speak to each of your
team members often enough to get to know what
turns them on and off; determine to catch them
doing something right; praise them in front of their
colleagues; listen to their opinions, and so on. At
the end of each day, put a tick mark in your table
for each motivator you effectively applied with each
team member. Make sure your table is filling evenly
with marks; make sure all motivators are being
applied across the whole team. Be careful not to fall
into the trap of simply working with those you
already get along with, those you like, those who
least need real motivational lift, or with the
motivators that come most naturally to you.
Review and repeat. At the end of your first 21-day
period, stand back and admire the difference you
have made. Pat yourself on the back, and start all
over again. Select the next person you need to
target specifically, and start a new table for the
team at large.
Motivation is easy – if you care enough to put in a
little extra effort. Anyone can motivate, and anyone
can be motivated. All it takes is the right person in
the right place, managed by someone who cares.
Invest a little of your time over the next 21 days
and fire ’em up like never before.
*From the book 40 STRATEGIES FOR WINNING IN BUSINESS
by Bud Haney and Jim Sirbasku. © S&H Publishing Co., 5205
Lake Shore Drive, Waco, Texas 76710-1732. All rights reserved.
Contact S&H Publishing Co., (254) 751-1644, for reprint
permission.

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