Having the right people on your team makes a difference. For example, The Iraq Study Group (a team made up almost exclusively of American politicians) just published a major bi-partisan report with their top recommendations on what the U. S. should do about The Troubles in Iraq. Any professional soldiers on that team? No. Anyone with experience introducing capitalism to third world countries? Nope. For goodness sake, were there any Iraqies on the team? Not that I know of. So, are any of you surpised that this group of Washington insiders came up with suggestions that sound exactly like the same things we've been hearing from Washington insiders for the last 3 years? I don't think so.
If you want a solid team to take your group, company or organization in a new direction; if you have a tough problem you haven't been able to solve without a team; if you need to build momentum behind a change in corporate culture; well, you need a team with some strength, guts, pazzazz, diversity, skill, knowledge and wide ranging experience.
Don't let engineers try to solve a problem all by themselves or you'll get a complicated mess that only works when everything is perfect. Don't let quality geeks (like me) try to fix a problem all by ourselves or we'll analyze it to death, shake our heads and wag our fingers, and when we're done, you'll still have a quality problem.
To build a strong team, you need:
- Front line workers--they know the job
- Managers--they control the resources
- Customers--they'll tell you what they are willing to pay for
- Supervisors--you'll need their support (and they make great bull spit detectors)
- Someone brand new--to test the solutions
- An old hand--so you don't waste time trying what didn't work last time
- An outside expert--to tell you what you don't know--and
- A wild card--who won't cave in to group think (and just to keep things interesting).
Team work starts with building the right team. When you have a tough problem to solve at work, I suggest you build a strong, diverse team of experts who really can take a fresh look at your problems.
PS
Here's a link to a company that uses the experience of shooting a short video or commercial as a team building experience. As a former corporate video producer, I can assure you that the process of writing, shooting and editing a short video is a great team building exercise. I haven't worked with these guys yet, so if you do, please leave your feedback below.
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