Recently, a couple of sports events reminded me that everything rolls in cycles, and understanding that sure relieves a lot of stress. I’m a motor racing fan with a special affection for Formula-One, which is the top level of that sport. Also, I pay attention to baseball when my childhood favorite, Dodgers, are in playoff mode. I believe that there are some great business lessons to be learned by having a close look at how a successful team is created and operates in the unforgiving environment of top level competition.
This past week, Brawn GP clinched the world championship of Formula-One with driver Jenson Button at the Brazilian Grand Prix. And since I live in Los Angeles, the spectacle of the Los Angeles Dodgers crumbling under fire from the Philadelphia Phillies had my attention. Whether it is a Grand Prix team or a baseball team, they all have cycles, and the goal is to find and occupy that sweet spot at the top of the cycle. When we find that spot, of course we want it to go on forever, but that simply isn’t the way life operates. The team will only get to that sweet spot if everyone learns to mesh properly and play their part very well. It takes skillful leadership to guide a group through this process and make the bonding process effective.
It is only in the fairytale that everyone fits well together instantly and gets to sit around the conference table living happily ever after. Not everyone will fit. Some will have to be dropped from the group, and others will have to be marginalized. Without the skilled leader, you can find that your group is stuck in the process of trying to get a team to jell, and if that goes on too long, you aren’t moving forward in a successful way.
Once the bonding and meshing is successfully achieved then everyone can take a moment to smile and celebrate that the sweet spot has been found! But then the role of the leader has to change. That person now has to move from building, to work at keeping the team balanced, and that can be as difficult as being a Cirque de Soleil acrobat.
There can be up to nine critical factors that go into making a winning team. (1) You need clear goals and objectives. For the Grand Prix and baseball teams I mentioned, winning a world championship neatly fills the bill. (2) There has to be open communication including a tolerance for confrontation. Poorly lead groups think that confrontation is negative, misplaced aggression. (3) Great teams are made up of people who trust and support each other. You can’t drive a race car at its limit if you are concerned about whether a mechanic tightened a wheel nut properly. (4) Even conflict has to be handled in ways that won’t destroy team balance (5) Procedures covering everything have to be clear, sound, and written down. (6) You need to know that all leadership has an invisible “sell by” date that sometimes is ignored at the team’s peril. Timeliness of the leadership is important. (7) One of my favorite guidelines is that a strong team reviews their collective and individual performance regularly. In the sports world, every on-track or on-field moment is now captured on video so there are no alibis or buck passing. (8) Each person on the team has to have a good sense of their personal contribution and development. (9) Internally and externally, friend or foe, you have to interact effectively with other teams.
I hope that you’ve known the jubilation, joy, and champagne soaked moments that go with winning, whether it’s a contract or a crucial game. At those peak moments, it is easy to think that the process is endlessly repeatable. We can easily lose our way when human nature leads us to recall the adrenalin rush of past glories rather than focusing on present accomplishments. Some key team members may bolt, seduced by promises of more money or some other perk, and the team becomes less stable. In the present business environment, key customers may have radically reduced budgets. Sometimes a general feeling of unhappiness creeps into the room. All of this means that sharp leadership has to quickly hustle back to the formation or reinvention phase to begin building the new team.
So the business life cycle goes through these phases. First, is the formation or reinvention of a business. Next is that meshing and bonding process for the leader and team members. If they handle that process well, they can move into the golden age of accomplishments and growth. Almost inevitably, the lessons on how they got there get lost in the mists of self satisfaction, and they drift toward the dangerous running on empty phase. If you have a close look at businesses ranging from the American auto industry to a couple of old tech giants, I think you’ll see examples of the cycles at work. In business you can’t stop planning for the future, even on the days when it’s hard to get your mind beyond present problems. An understanding of the cycles won’t save you the hard work, but it will help you avoid some of the crashes and no hitters.
Let me know your thoughts by e-mail: nelson@makingittv.com
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