You Need More Than a Set of Goals

Great Business Teams author Howard Guttman was a guest in a past Business901 podcast and though the podcast was supposed to be about his latest book Coach Yourself to Win. In the midst of it all we had a unique discussion about virtual teams when I asked:

Joe: Many teams are not necessarily all in one place, did you go into how to work in a virtual environment?

Howard Guttman: Yes, absolutely, because, you’re right. In the world, we’re in today; it’s an asymmetric world, and there are a lot of people that you may be colleagues of, who you’ve never met. But what we do, is; if you think about, let’s say an organization or a team that works functionally versus dysfunctional, they’re essentially five areas that they need to get closure on.

One is; they need to be in agreement regarding strategy. The second is; they have to be able to translate that into business priorities. The third is; they have to have clarity regarding individual accountabilities. The fourth is; they need to be clear regarding ways of working; the protocols. And when I say that, I’m not talking about values. I’m saying, when issues come up, how do they escalate? How do they force closure?

When decisions come up, when are they unilateral, when are they consultative, when are they consensus? When communications occur, who’s in the loop? Who’s not? And then, finally, they have to get clarity on their business relationships; their interdependencies.

When we work with these global teams, what we’re really trying to do is get clarity around those five things. Essentially, where our focus is, is recognizing that, it’s more about the ways of working, the interdependencies, and the accountability that usually makes or breaks these teams.

Many times, companies are under the erroneous notion that if they’re clear regarding their goals, or their strategies; it should just work out. It’s a fallacy.

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