The Secret of Teams by Mark Miller

A few days ago I finished another leadership business fable The Secret of Teams: What Great Teams Know and Do by Mark Miller. Through the character Debbie Brewster and her mentor Jeff Brown, the author reveals to us the secrets of high performing teams

In this book what we find is that there are three pillars of high performing teams — talent, skills and community. And the author emphasizes that all three of these need to be there for a team to succeed.

Talent is acquired in a team through selecting the right team members. Without right talent, the team won’t be able to perform well. So a lot of emphasis on the selection process. I remember Patrick Lencioni refers it as getting the right people on the bus. Of course this selection process includes not only just hiring but also firing to make sure the team consists of right talents.

Skills are increased and improved through continuous training of the team members. Winning is hard work which wont come without constant practice.

Community is the ultimate gelling factor amongst that turns some individual performers into a group of coherent team members. The group spirit will develop and thrive when team members genuinely care about each other. This is the secret sauce that makes the sum greater than the whole.

Bu then the goal for leaders is not to build a high performing team but rather achieve results. High performing team is the strategy to achieve those results. Once leaders build a good team they should take less decisions and empower the team to come up with solutions.

Originally published at http://ashikuzzaman.wordpress.com on June 30, 2021.