Challenges
- Corporate leadership is not sure whether the division president has what it takes to lead innovation.
- Team roles and work processes have not kept pace with the complexity of the industry.
- Traditional succession planning efforts are complicated by competing generational values.
- Two members of a fifteen person team are actively disengaged and poisoning the workplace culture.
- A sales team wishes to raise performance to the next level following a record breaking year.
Outcomes
- The team leader sponsored a 2013 “accountability initiative” in which any words or behavior not aligned with organizational values was brought to the larger team for resolution. Within six months, natural attrition resulted in a new composition of talent.
- A weekly planning session was instituted to research, design, and implement best practices for co-worker, customer, and community engagement.
- Ten percent of the team’s work week was allocated as “protected innovation time” where teammates were encouraged to brainstorm and collaborate in creating new approaches, process improvements, and efficiencies.
- The team leader deferred credit for the product development group’s success despite having contributed the ideas that won the most industry praise.
- A task force stocked with representatives from every workplace demographic was charged with defining the core competencies, goals, culture, and work-life balance expectations for the chief executive of the future.
Submit your entries via email to steve@teamclock.com. The first five correct responses will enjoy the delivery of a signed copy of Team Clock: A Guide to Breakthrough Teams.
Happy Thanksgiving!
