When ‘A’ Players Make ‘B’ Teams

photo by .mw

photo by .mw

A few days ago we saw what it means to be the leader of a team and Alberto Contador clearly wasn’t it.

Today provided us another good lesson, compliments of Messr. Contador.  He was riding comfortably behind two rival challengers and one of his teammates who also happened to be contending for a podium finish.  In the next frame, Contador stands on his pedals and tries to break away.  The two rival contenders chased him down, but his teammate did not.

Ultimately, Contador may have knocked his teammate out of a top three result and may have cost his team a chance at sweeping the podium for the first time in 85 years.  All for a shot at proving his strength (though he was chased down) or to gain an additional ten seconds, at best, on his rivals over the course of the final of the mile climb (this would have been easily made up downhill).

There was no point.

This is a clear example of when having an ‘A’ player on your team actually makes your team weaker. In a business setting this may be the star who doesn’t communicate, doesn’t allow others the opportunity to shine or throws his teammates under the bus in external situations.

His results may be stellar, but the team’s cumulative results decrease when he’s added to the team.

Don’t get so blinded by the seemingly shooting star that you lose sight of your collective team’s performance.  We often start to blame the others for being inferior.  In reality, we’re promoting bad behaviors, poor values and deteriorating the morale on our team.

‘Stars’ are great and we should all be so lucky to have them, but if they don’t play well with others then what good are they?

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Note: I believe we oversimplify when we see business people in a caste view.  The rankings are fluid.   ‘A’ players don’t exist independently of an organization.  And who you’d view as a ‘B’ or a ‘C’ player on paper could be enormously valuable and raise a level or two on your team. More on that here.

Posted by brentdaily on July 22, 2009 | 4 comments so far | Cycling, Management, collaboration, group dynamics, teamwork

Milking Productivity From Groups

photo by robert francis

photo by robert francis

An excellent post at PsyBlog on the effects of group dynamics on productivity.  Basically, the more people you add to a group the less effective the group becomes when the workload is additive. One interesting study showed that when people were asked to clap or yell as loud as they could their output in a group of six or larger was 1/3rd of what it was on their own.

As the author notes, “… a group problem-solving session relies on the brains of the best people in the group - social loafing wouldn’t necessarily reduce productivity in this group as markedly.”  So this doesn’t wholly apply to our knowledge businesses, but I think we can all remember times when we were guilty of this or saw it in others in a group.

The post recommends several ways to minimize the effects of social loafing, including:

  1. Make it known the task is important
  2. Foster a group identity / belonging to the group
  3. Make the contribution of other members well-known so as to decrease the ’sucker effect’

All good, but there are a few worth adding.

  1. Assign a communicator. Team construction is vital.  Having a communicator on the team who’s primary job isn’t necessarily measured in output, but rather whether everyone is aware of what others are doing, is a start.  His job is to make sure everyone knows the latest developments and thus implicitly communicates the accomplishments of others on the team so as to minimize the ’sucker effect’ even further.
  2. Frequent iteration. Apply the Agile method of software development to your team.  Break large tasks down into daily or weekly deliverables.  Assign the responsibility for the task to the individual.  If it requires the team to collaborate it is still that individual’s responsibility to get everyone together to accomplish the assignment.  Deliver something every week and iterate as required.
  3. Show your work. Time should be set aside for each individual to ‘present’ their contribution to the rest of the group.  Even if it’s just thought starters, the contribution should be formally recognized so that it is visible to every member.
  4. Limit group size. Seems obvious, particularly given the graph on the PsyBlog post that shows individual effort halves in groups of 8 or more.  Group dynamics expert and HBS luminary, J. Richard Hackman, found that the optimal group size is 4.6.  Obviously, it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish but err on the side of too small and you’ll force everyone to shoulder more of the load.
  5. Relinquish ownership. Unless ownership of the project and the subsequent success or failure is fully granted to the group, individual’s will have some cover to hide behind.  While the output/goal may be dictated by someone outside the group acknowledge there are many ways to arrive at the same destination.  Grant the freedom to determine that path to the group and let it be known that the rewards and recognition are all theirs.

If other solutions have worked for you please leave them in the comments for others to see.

Posted by brentdaily on June 4, 2009 | Add a comment | Culture, Fit, Leadership, Management, Motivation, collaboration, group dynamics, productivity, teamwork