Dr. Rodney Napier

High Performance, High Courage Teams Only once or twice in a career, lucky people get the chance to work in a truly cohesive, committed high-courage team. Few have ever experienced the exhilaration of working with a freewheeling, smoothly flowing, and competent team of dedicated individuals where trust is taken for granted, roles are fluid yet well understood, and authority is delegated according to ability. Talented knowledge workers will challenge the most skilled leader. Yet their potential is huge for providing creativity, support, motivation, skilled inquiry, and problem solving. Such individuals cannot be thrown together in a crisis and magically evolve into a high-performing, high-courage team. Yet, many technical environments are predicated on a premise of individuality, selfless dedication to original thinking, and competition. They provide environments that are quite often antithetical to team thinking and functioning, even in the best of times, let alone those that require courage. While collaboration is sometimes encouraged, independence and secrecy permeate many scientific and academic communities. While the concept of collegiality is intellectually valued, individuals, project teams or departments seldom seek to collaborate. Even within a department, the isolation of the laboratory or computer terminal only reinforces the isolation of individuals and the lack of interdependence. There is little sharing of methods or mentoring or peer coaching in most scientific or technical institutions, including institutions of higher learning. This is not a criticism, but a reality that must be overcome if knowledge workers are to begin moving together toward common goals. It is a reality that has to be overcome when joint ventures, collaborations, or mergers throw people together and and they are expected to create a future that replaces outdated structures, methods, and routines with a new and more cooperative view of scientific, technical or academic excellence. Principle: Establishing high levels of listening and creating meaningful dialog among team members is what moves thinking from the pedantic and ordinary to the extraordinary and from the contentious to that which is truly collaborative. The movement to team-based organizations is not simply a reflection of what is left after downsizing and cutting out middle levels of management. Teams are utilized because there is evidence that the group, when well trained and used effectively can stimulate, challenge, and synthesize beyond the capability of even the most highly trained and intelligent individual. Add to this the natural synergy and camaraderie that can evolve, and those who have experienced it will struggle through innumerable ineffective groups with the hope of achieving what they know is possible. When the pressure is on and the technical hurdles are formidable, the presence of a high-performing brain trust is particularly vital. The dilemma is that because smart people have spent their lives in so many dysfunctional groups, it is difficult for them to believe that training in the basics can take them to a new level. After years of bad experiences, what will convince them that there is enormous potential waiting to be tapped? It is akin to what happens when one attempts to convince a group of highly skilled and intellectually gifted people that they might possibly benefit from some training in listening. It feels absurd. They have been listening their whole lives and quite successfully at that. Yet, given the opportunity to learn a number of basic techniques, their excitement can hardly be contained. Most marvel that something so simple was not part of their required learning years ago. The smarter the group, the greater the resistance to the use of creative design strategies to assist their thinking, inquiry, and problem solving. It is difficult for smart people to conceive of the fact that there is something that they don't know or haven't experienced that could be so basic to their own productivity. Even so, many will be the greatest converts if innovations are perceived as worthwhile and outcomes are perceived as measurably more effective. * Rodney Napier is a principal in The Napier Group, a management consulting firm specializing in change management. He is co-author of The Courage to Act: 5 Factors of Courage to Transform Business. Rod may be reached at RodNap@aol.com or call +1 (610) 479-3850.