Katzenbach and Smith: The Wisdom of Teams — Transcript

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1. 0:01the wisdom of teams by john katzenbach
2. 0:04and douglas smith is a true classic
3. 0:07among 20th century business books
4. 0:10it uncovers the wisdom of what teams can
5. 0:13truly achieve
6. 0:15and how can they perform at their
7. 0:17absolute best
8. 0:26the wisdom of teams creating the high
9. 0:28performance organization was first
10. 0:30published in 1993
11. 0:33and it is a testament not just to the
12. 0:35enduring appeal of the topic
13. 0:38but of the quality of the research
14. 0:40within it
15. 0:41that it still remains in print nearly 30
16. 0:44years later
17. 0:45both authors had been consultants at
18. 0:48mckinsey and company and at the time
19. 0:50they wrote it katzenbach still was
20. 0:52and this gave them access to a wide
21. 0:55array of case studies that they could
22. 0:57draw on
23. 0:58for illustrating their points and for
24. 1:00drawing their main conclusions
25. 1:02their book is drawn from interviews
26. 1:04across 47 organizations in the united
27. 1:07states
28. 1:08and despite this wealth of knowledge
29. 1:10that they drew upon they did recognize
30. 1:13that the conclusions in their books are
31. 1:15both obvious and subtle obvious
32. 1:18in that they contained no great
33. 1:20surprises
34. 1:22which in itself shouldn't be surprising
35. 1:24to us because if there were surprises
36. 1:27then what's the value of our experience
37. 1:29of working in organizations
38. 1:31but the findings were also subtle
39. 1:34in that implementing the understanding
40. 1:37gained from the book is by no means
41. 1:39trivial there are lots of important
42. 1:41details to get right
43. 1:43and the devil is always in the details
44. 1:47so cats and back and smith describe
45. 1:49their findings as both common sense and
46. 1:51uncommon sense
47. 1:53which i suppose is exactly what we
48. 1:55should hope for because teams are made
49. 1:57of people and when people come together
50. 2:00the situations they create are both
51. 2:02messy and hard to characterize precisely
52. 2:06as a result some commentators have
53. 2:08criticized the book both for being
54. 2:10obvious and also
55. 2:13for being too wordy with all of the case
56. 2:15studies that they use to illustrate
57. 2:17their points
58. 2:18but perhaps the biggest single idea in
59. 2:21the wisdom of teams
60. 2:22is that there is no single big idea
61. 2:25teams are complex and there are lots of
62. 2:27smaller ideas that you need to get right
63. 2:30to build a powerful high performance
64. 2:32team
65. 2:34so why do we need teams
66. 2:36well the first important idea in the
67. 2:38wisdom of teams is the ability of a team
68. 2:41to outperform the individuals within it
69. 2:44indeed the very first sentence
70. 2:47of section one
71. 2:49sums it up nicely
72. 2:51teams outperform individuals acting
73. 2:53alone or in larger organizational
74. 2:56groupings
75. 2:57especially when performance requires
76. 3:00multiple skills
77. 3:01judgments and experiences
78. 3:04but katzenbach and smith also found that
79. 3:07teams offer a number of benefits outside
80. 3:10of the performance that they can create
81. 3:12these include
82. 3:14developing the individuals within the
83. 3:16team
84. 3:17enhancing the organizational culture
85. 3:20around it
86. 3:21solving
87. 3:22challenging problems
88. 3:24and making better more robust decisions
89. 3:28so we clearly need a team
90. 3:31which raises the question what precisely
91. 3:33do we mean by the word team
92. 3:35and the definition that katzenbach and
93. 3:37smith came up with
94. 3:39is probably the most widely used
95. 3:41definition of a team in the business and
96. 3:44managerial context they said that a team
97. 3:47is a small number of people with
98. 3:49complementary skills who are committed
99. 3:52to a common purpose performance goals
100. 3:54and approach
101. 3:55for which they hold themselves mutually
102. 3:58accountable this encompasses three
103. 4:01necessary conditions that katzenbach and
104. 4:04smith put forward for what a team needs
105. 4:06to have
106. 4:08the authors summed this up in a powerful
107. 4:10diagram at the start of the book
108. 4:13accountability and skills together
109. 4:16yield performance results
110. 4:18commitment and accountability taken
111. 4:20together lead to personal growth
112. 4:23and skills and commitment create
113. 4:25collective work products
114. 4:27there's another iconic illustration in
115. 4:29the wisdom of teams and it's at the
116. 4:31start of part two
117. 4:33it's a team performance curve which
118. 4:35shows the evolution of the team
119. 4:38in five stages
120. 4:40from a simple working group to a high
121. 4:42performance team
122. 4:44in a working group the main function of
123. 4:45the group
124. 4:46is to help out individuals to perform
125. 4:48well in their
126. 4:50own domain of responsibility
127. 4:52therefore what the group itself does is
128. 4:55share information and ideas and
129. 4:57facilitate the making of good decisions
130. 5:00and solving problems
131. 5:02a pseudo team doesn't necessarily share
132. 5:05a common sense of purpose nor does it
133. 5:07hold one another accountable
134. 5:09they merely act as if they are a team
135. 5:12and adopt the label of a team
136. 5:14underneath it however each individual is
137. 5:17still trying to demonstrate their own
138. 5:20strengths
139. 5:21and to act in their own best interests
140. 5:25a potential team however is trying to
141. 5:27improve its performance but it doesn't
142. 5:29yet
143. 5:30have
144. 5:31enough understanding of its shared
145. 5:33purpose and nor does it have the
146. 5:35mechanisms to hold one another truly
147. 5:37accountable
148. 5:38and
149. 5:39before it can achieve
150. 5:41highest performance levels
151. 5:43a potential team needs to find new and
152. 5:46more effective processes to support
153. 5:48collaborative working
154. 5:50a real team is a small number of people
155. 5:53with complementary skills who are
156. 5:55committed to a common purpose
157. 5:57performance goals and approach for which
158. 5:59they hold themselves mutually
159. 6:01accountable
160. 6:03so what then
161. 6:04is a high performing team
162. 6:06a high performing team goes beyond
163. 6:09every element of what a real team is its
164. 6:12members are committed not just to the
165. 6:13growth and success of the team
166. 6:15but to the growth and success of each
167. 6:17other
168. 6:18as a result high performance teams can
169. 6:20outperform any other kind of team
170. 6:23and can usually achieve more than
171. 6:25outside observers would really expect
172. 6:28katzenbach and smith devote a large part
173. 6:30of the book
174. 6:31to giving us ideas for how we can
175. 6:34develop and build high performance teams
176. 6:37there are lots of ideas in the book so
177. 6:39all i can do is extract a few of my
178. 6:41favorites and summarize them briefly to
179. 6:44give you an indication of what you'll
180. 6:45get when you read the book there are
181. 6:48four key lessons in chapter one and i'm
182. 6:50going to summarize the first two of them
183. 6:53together
184. 6:55these state that challenge
185. 6:57and success are the two biggest
186. 7:00motivators for a team
187. 7:02the authors find that teams are
188. 7:04energized by real challenges
189. 7:07and what drives performance is to a
190. 7:09greater extent a performance ethic than
191. 7:11a team ethic
192. 7:12the team takes pride in its achievements
193. 7:15the need to perform well
194. 7:18can itself
195. 7:19drive both the accountability that a
196. 7:22team needs
197. 7:23and the shared sense of direction
198. 7:26so what does all this mean about
199. 7:28individuals
200. 7:29well you probably heard the expression
201. 7:31there's no i in team
202. 7:34but there is a me if you look carefully
203. 7:38a high performing team is made up of
204. 7:41individuals
205. 7:43it is the diversity of those individuals
206. 7:45that gives the team its strength and
207. 7:47power
208. 7:48the team needs complementary skills not
209. 7:51just clones and if you can harness those
210. 7:53skills effectively then you can get to
211. 7:56higher levels of performance
212. 7:58top teams are particularly problematic
213. 8:01cats and back and smith found
214. 8:03because at the top of an organization we
215. 8:05find teams made up of people who are far
216. 8:08more likely to try to assert themselves
217. 8:11as individuals
218. 8:12rather than to collaborate and hold one
219. 8:14another accountable in a true way
220. 8:17if you like
221. 8:19their shared performance goals are
222. 8:21weaker because they are more focused on
223. 8:23their individual success
224. 8:26katzenbach and smith suggested a number
225. 8:28of solutions
226. 8:30among them is the need for the ceo to
227. 8:32create a collegiate atmosphere
228. 8:35to set expectations and demonstrate
229. 8:37behaviors
230. 8:38that will foster a sense of shared
231. 8:40responsibility
232. 8:42another approach is to divide the top
233. 8:44team into smaller sub teams so there is
234. 8:46even greater
235. 8:48levels of accountability
236. 8:50within those sub teams
237. 8:52ultimately you need to find mechanisms
238. 8:56to incentivize people to subordinate
239. 8:58their self-interest
240. 8:59or to harness their self-interest
241. 9:01directly to the performance of the team
242. 9:04perhaps the most surprising finding that
243. 9:07katzenbach and smith offer us
244. 9:10is the importance of skills mix
245. 9:12compared to that of personalities we are
246. 9:15way used to the idea that a high
247. 9:17performing team is one with a suitable
248. 9:19mix of personalities but cats and back
249. 9:22and smith find that skills are more
250. 9:24important it's the skill mix that counts
251. 9:26not the personality mix
252. 9:29which appears to fly in the face of
253. 9:31models
254. 9:32from people like meredith belbin ammar
255. 9:34garrison and mccann
256. 9:36that we look at in other videos in this
257. 9:39series
258. 9:41however it's important to note
259. 9:43that both the belding team profiles and
260. 9:45the murgaris and mccann model
261. 9:47are not actually about personality
262. 9:51they're about team role preferences
263. 9:54they're about the team behavior skills
264. 9:57that we prefer to demonstrate when we're
265. 9:59in the team
266. 10:00so we can reconcile this together in a
267. 10:03complete way
268. 10:05as is often the case katzenbach and
269. 10:07smith are right
270. 10:09and their findings are consistent with
271. 10:11all of the best research in the field
272. 10:13the wisdom of teams is one of the most
273. 10:16important business books that you can
274. 10:18read
275. 10:19if you are a team leader or a manager or
276. 10:22just an organizational leader dependent
277. 10:24upon teams for the success of your
278. 10:26organization
279. 10:28or indeed
280. 10:29your own performance
281. 10:31then you need to read the wisdom of
282. 10:34teams
283. 10:35[Music]
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