Lack of shared clarity about direction is often the cause of the team getting stuck. When a group lacks clarity about the task at hand, it’s not just easy but natural for people to get frustrated and lose interest in what they are doing.

What does shared group clarity look like? Each member should be able to explain simply and clearly what the whole team is accountable for and what the collective purpose is, similar to the elevator pitch one should have prepared when pitching a business idea to someone. When done successfully, every team member should be able to see their own sense of the shared clarity reflected when listening to each other.

How Do You Gain Shared Clarity to Optimize Teamwork?

Shared clarity can be gained by discussing and aligning the teams direction. Instead of using ambiguous goals like: “Make money!”, be more clear and detailed about the direction, as in: “By the end of the year, our goal is to build two additional stores.”

Shared Clarity for Temporary and Ongoing Teams

When a group, such as a project team, is temporary, it’s important to align members around the collective task they are to perform.

When a group, such a department, is ongoing, it’s important to align members around the ongoing purpose of the group.

Either way, the tasks and purposes must be clear and shared by everyone in the team.

Personal Challenge to Gain Clarity:

Answer this question: What’s the purpose of this teamwork relationship? Describe it fully and then ask your partner or partners to answer the same question.

Team Challenge to Gain Clarity:

Ask the team members: If we were already finished and successful, what would our outcome look like? Have every member describe this fully in writing.

For both challenges: Talk about what you each wrote down until you can all articulate a common and clear description of your purpose and the desired outcome.

By taking these important, preliminary steps to achieve clarity about the common goal before the start of the teamwork, you can maximize the efforts of the individual team members and the whole team toward the most powerful and successful outcome.

More about maximizing teamwork, his Leadership Gift Program for Leaders, and Christopher Avery’s coaching and speaking engagements can be found on ChristopherAvery.com

90 days AFTER returning to their teams following the October 2008 intensive, I asked participants “How likely is it for you to recommend a friend or colleague to Knowledge Team Leadership?” On a scale of 1 to 10 participants rated it 9.44.

“What would you tell them?”

They said:

- “This class has great content and great presentation. I’ve used the material over and over since the class and it has had a meaningful impact in how I approach team dynamics”

- “The course offers valuable insights into the concept of teamwork and shared responsibility and gives one valuable tools to achieve success in these areas”

- “Lots of good ideas and challenging thoughts condensed into a short time investment”

- “This course focuses on what the individual can do to help create responsible teams. Many other courses concentrate on how to get others to do things. This course recognizes the importance of changing your behavior. Everything in this course can be used throughout your life – work or at home. It can also be a great tools for your kids.”

2009 sessions scheduled already in San Antonio, London, Dallas, Santa Clara, and New York city. Check out the dates.

If you are considering attending, I urge you to claim your spot now. Don’t wait another day.

My fascinating interview with businessman, round-the-world yacht racer, and adventurer Simon Walker is ready for you to listen. In an earlier post I wrote about Simon’s celebrity with Fast Company and other media.

Our interview is an hour long. Topics include:

• How Simon started sailing
• How Simon built a round-the-world racing crew
• The difference leadership and teamwork makes
• Which is more challenging, sailing around the world or business?
• Is it fair to compare sports leadership and teamwork to business?
• Simon’s principles for building and leading championship teams.

Click on the BlogTalkRadio widget above to go to the Blog Talk Radio website. While there you can listen, download the mp3 to your favorite player, and subscribe to the RSS or iTunes feed for upcoming shows. You can also request reminders for all my upcoming episodes. And, if you please, I would appreciate it if you rate the show and leave a comment.

The picture of Simon above, if I am correct was taking while rounding Cape Horn, a particularly treacherous place. Here’s a video of one of Simon’s racing yachts in rough weather.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp45fL0u0QU[/youtube]

The good folks at Agile University yesterday published my team building commentary titled: How to Frustrate, Thwart, and Ultimately Bring Down Any Team in 4 Easy Steps Without Even Trying. Click the AU link above to read it, or read it below, after the video window.

Or, just watch this video…

[youtube][/youtube]

How to Frustrate, Thwart, and Ultimately Bring Down Any Team in 4 Easy Steps Without Even Trying

By Christopher Avery

Everyone says they want to be on a winning team. And nobody ever says they want to be on a lousy team. So how come we get the frustrating teams much of the time?

Here are the steps you can take to make sure that your teams remain the worst, most frustrating experiences ever. Master each of these 4 steps and then be sure to pass them to others so they too can bring all their teams down.

P.S. These steps are especially important if you want to bring agile practices to a standstill…

Step 1: Assume someone else is responsible for team building

Never, under any circumstance, should you allow yourself to feel a sense of ownership for the quality and productivity of the whole team, collaboration, partnership, or relationship. By all means, let someone else do that, preferably someone you can despise for not having as much technical competence as you. Also, assume team building is so much black magic instead of a skill set composed of straight-forward repeatable conversations anyone can bring to any relationship any time. Repeat after me: “I specialize in ‘hard’ skills.”

Why? Someone – anyone – regardless of their role in the team, who cares about the productivity of the team will make a huge difference in putting into motion the conversations and ideas that build the team. But when no one does, then it’s completely up to chance whether the team develops effective dynamics.

Consider this: 15 years ago I had the opportunity to interview dozens of science and engineering staff in a couple of large failed programs. Everyone was a “top 10%” graduate from a “top 10″ university, the crème de’ le’ crème. When asked “To what do you owe your participation in this failed program?” the #1 response was “I got put on a bad team.”

Memorize that line so you can repeat it in your next review, or even earlier, maybe tomorrow.

Step 2: Resist attending to anything other than the most narrow description of your role accountability

Whatever you do, refuse all invitations to meetings, orientations, or informal gatherings where the team’s overall mission might be discussed. If you do, you might get sucked into caring. And if you actually cared, then you might feel a sense of ownership, and next thing you know you’ll be sub-optimizing for your own role and optimizing for the whole.

Why? The #1 point of leverage for team building and team leadership is to talk together about the larger goal. I call it the what-we-must-do-together-that-is-bigger-than-any-of-us,-requires-all-of-us,-and-none-of-us-can-claim-individual-victory-until-it-is-achieved conversation.

Step 3: Care less whether others on the team and extended teams are winning or losing

By all means, whatever you do, maintain a constant vigil of nonchalance about how what you do affects others on the team or beyond. This is relatively easy to master. Besides repeating the mantra “I don’t care” you can also:

1. Assume the only way to motivate anyone is with the carrots and sticks of management, which peers on teams don’t have available, thus you can’t affect other’s commitment.
2. Never ever ask “What’s in it for you-beyond a paycheck-to work on this project?” That way, you can continue to not care, and you also don’t have to know whether you are stepping on someone’s win.
3. Also never own up to having any inspiration at all about why you come to work other than for continued employment and a paycheck. That way you can maintain low interest and commitment to most things.
4. Finally, assume that other people and departments should do what you think they should do because you all get a paycheck from the same company.

Why? Most people say they want to be on a winning team. That means actually practicing win/win/win at every level and juncture which requires some caring, knowledge and effort. And that means understanding how peer motivation works (you can understand it if you want to) and committing to generate as many wins as possible out of every decision and action.

Step 4: Make only agreements you must in order to get others to leave you alone. Don’t worry about keeping them.

Since there is a fuzzy authority system in teams, collaborations, and partnerships, feel free to say and do anything you can to get people to leave you alone. That usually means resisting opting in and engaging until they twist your arm, and then saying whatever you must in order to end the pain and move on. Making agreements you never intend to keep is a great way to ensure continual frustration and failure.

Why? Teams, collaborations, and partnerships operate on a different frequency than the hierarchical functions of an organization. Where authority structures create the fabric of the institution, making and keeping agreements of all types, from operating rules to delivering work, creates the fabric of the team.

All kidding aside…

In sum, to make sure you continue to be frustrated your entire career by being on lousy, low-performing teams, then whatever you do, please don’t register for or attend Knowledge Team Leadership: The Art & Science of Being Amazingly Effective in Any Team, October 21-22, in Boulder, CO. If you do, Christopher might show you how learning to get more done with others may be the single greatest thing you can do to boost your career. P.S. Seating is limited and should fill soon. Hurry.

* Christopher Avery, Ph.D. wrote the popular book Teamwork Is An Individual Skill: Getting Your work Done when Sharing Responsibility (which Fortune Magazine claimed is the only teamwork book worth reading), co-founded the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN), and is the developer and Agile University trainer for Knowledge Team Leadership: The Art and Science of Being Amazingly Effective in Any Team. More information at Agile University or at Knowledge Team Leadership.

© Copyright 2008, Partnerwerks Inc. Permission granted to re-publish only in its entirety including the “about” paragraph and copyright statement.

P.S. Yes, you may republish this in your online or offline media. If you want to alter anything, just ask first.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Team Leadership Expert Christopher Avery, PhD, to Lead Highly Effective Two Day Team Building Workshop

Unique Team Building and Leadership Workshop Intensive Teaches How to Develop Excellent Team Dynamics

Comfort, TX, August 22, 2008 – Nothing feels better than knowing exactly how to make a team click and acting on that knowledge.  The thin line between success and failure often depends on our ability to work with  team members that are spread too thin, live in different time zones or cultures, may not be aligned around the project and don’t have common goals.  In a perfect world, we’d lead or work with a team of people that practice the highest standards of shared responsibility every day, in every situation with everyone around them. According to Christopher Avery, PhD, and author of Teamwork is an Individual Skill, “It is possible to master leadership under conditions of shared responsibility.” With this in mind, Avery is offering a uniquely effective two day workshop to teach team leaders, members, project managers, and coaches a proven approach to systematically take responsibility for succeeding while depending on others over whom they have no control and deliver results every time.
“Throughout my 20 years in the field, I’ve found one fundamental principle that accounts for the difference between truly great team builders and those who are average, struggling or failing.  The difference is in how they deal with personal and shared responsibility.  Effective teams feel it.  On effective teams, if one person drops the ball, another picks it up, and if one person makes a mistake or falls behind, another lends a hand.  Low and average performing teams seem to lack this sense of shared responsibility. I developed the Knowledge Team Leadership program to give team leaders and members the tools they need to deliver results and have fun with any team starting immediately,” adds Avery.

Knowledge Team Leadership is an intensive two days of hands-on proven-on-the-frontline leadership development and team building program held October 21-22 at Agile University, a division of Rally Software, in Boulder, CO, USA.  Participants will walk away understanding why a team does or doesn’t generate a felt sense of shared responsibility, a set of team building activities they can use at work with any team, and diagnostic and interpersonal “tools” that can be used immediately. Most importantly, participants will learn there is always some effective action they can take to build a team any time.  According to past participant Dale Legband, Director, R&D, KLA-Tencor, “The powerful teams I’ve created since attending this seminar five years ago have delivered almost every project run on-time and on-budget and employee retention has been excellent.”

Knowledge Team Leadership was developed and is facilitated by world class expert on personal and shared responsibility, Christopher Avery, PhD.  A popular speaker, author, and mentor, Avery is committed to redefining responsibility in all societies throughout the world.  His book, Teamwork is an Individual Skill: Getting Your Work Done When Sharing Responsibility is in its ninth printing and was recognized in by Fortune Magazine as “the only teamwork book worth reading.”

The cost for this high impact event is $1395.  Space is limited so act quickly.  For information or to register for Knowledge Team Leadership, visit http://www.christopheravery.com/ktl or contact Christopher Avery at christopheravery@christopheravery.com.
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In this hour-long show I shared some of the most important truths I’ve learned in 17 years of studying and teaching team leadership communication skills for team building. These included busting a bunch of team building myths that are still prevalent in our society and businesses, and spilling the beans about the top four thinks I would do to build any team any time.

I also previewed the upcoming Knowledge Team Leadership intensive I’ll be leading in in Boulder, CO, October 21-22, and I answered a number of questions I’ve been asked about that session.

Promised Show Notes

I promised to post my notes from the show for you to download. Here they are:

Christopher’s PDF of show notes

And I suggest you download this one-pager of 3 case studies of client results for clients using Knowledge Team Leadership:

KTL Case Studies of client results

What about the bonuses?

I just got off the phone with someone asking about the promised bonuses. Here they are…

Each person who registers at my site (and my site only) by August 29 will receive a private 20-minute coaching session with me:

• in-person during the workshop or on the phone before or after
• recorded (if on the phone) for you to re-listen later
• valued at $300+

Additionally, when 3 or more people on the same team register my site (and my site only) and attend together, their entire team (even if more than the 3 participants) will receive a 1-hour coaching session with me:

• before, during (if time allows) or after the workshop
• recorded (if on the phone) for you to re-listen later
• valued at $1700+

Note: What’s the big deal about registering at “my site?” There are other sites where you could register. I’m not opposed to you doing that, but my bonus offer is only for those registering at www.KnowledgeTeamLeadership.com. It’s intended to be a benefit to readers of my Responsibility eTips and blog. You too can sign up for Responsibility eTips at the top of this page and get first notice of information and opportunities I’m involved with.

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By the way, I continue to update my research on the best team leadership, team building, and teamwork skills in the world, and I teach them in Knowledge Team Leadership.