In a previous post I railed that military organizations practice
leadership to a degree not normal in industry and business. Separately I
received two messages that reinforce that view while one posting to this
list cited a contravening experience. In every large organization, like
the military, there always are contrary experiences, all of which are
worthy of respect. Never-the-less, I believe that one foundation of a
truly effective learning organization is leadership, great leadership, at
all levels of the organization.
I have been mulling over this concept and quite coincidentally am
re-reading a small book called "Peopleware" "Productive Products and
Teams" by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister, Dorset House Publishing. In the
introduction to part III of the book the authors list three concepts for
building effective teams.
1. get the right people
2. make them happy so they don't want to leave
3. turn them loose
These resonate (isn't that a new buzz word 'resonate'?) with several
leadership concepts I was taught many years ago,
1. know your people
2. take care of your people
3. help your people succeed
Albeit great leadership is not this simple and building a learning
organization is not this simple, but are these good concepts to start
construction?
In knowing his/her people the leader must work to assure that they
are able to work, and learn, together. If this is not possible the
leader should separate the people who are unable to collaborate from
the base 'team'. The remaining people would be happy and not want
to leave. That is they would be the 'right' people. The person
separated should be guided to a team in which they have a better
chance to succeed.
Turning them loose, that is allowing them to try, to risk, the leader
would be helping the individuals to grow and the teams to grow with them.
To me individual and team growth is success. Simply put, team growth
infers that the team has learned how to meet or exceed objectives more
efficiently. In the process they will have learned more about their
individual capabilities and their joint capabilities.
Suppose they fail in an endeavor, and I am an advocate of allowing
a team to fail, then turning them loose infers that they are free to
learn from the failure. Helping them to succeed the leader helps
them explore the failure and preventive/corrective measures to
preclude repeating these unhappy results.
Freedom to learn from mistakes means freedom from recrimination from on
high. The leader makes an assumptions about the attitude of the people in
the team. The assumption is that they are responsible professionals who
wish to succeed. They are the kind of people who recognize their own
mistakes and are prone to self punishment, that is there is no need for
the leader to point out the failure.
Just as every freedom has its responsibilities, this freedom has a
responsibility to learn from success. Many leaders are consistent in
convening a meeting to seek causes of failure but miss the opportunity to
review the details of a success as a learning experience. This is a
perfect time to celebrate the contributions of individuals and point out
the synergies in the team effort.
As for opportunities I am going to venture a 'sexist' statement. I find
that women are great team members with one exception, they don't
attribute enough of the success to themselves. In helping them be happy
in their success I think leaders must be clear that they should take credit
for their contributions. Upon success both the male and female members
should stand tall. Mostly, men don't need help in this aspect.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's better at sea ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
bhobler@cpcug.org Still a Submariner
William J. Hobler, Jr. Preferrably Bill
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness
and truth. Leo Tolstoy, in War and Peace
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