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Winning teams

Nobody can doubt that there is every advantage in being the leader, or a
member of a winning team. Every advantage, but one as it happens. If you
were to give three teams the same task in a competitive situation some-
thing interesting occurs. The winning team feels good and looks forward
with confidence to the next challenge, which is hardly surprising. But it is
dangerous. If you then offer them a somewhat different challenge they will
try to apply the previously successful tactics, taking scant notice of what is
different. They do as so many of us do. They try to force fit the problem to
their preferred solution. That rarely, if ever, works so winning teams are
on the way to becoming losing teams even as they enjoy their triumph.
Look at your team and consider the following.

n Have the team won a reputation for success?
n Do they feel that they have the formula for success?
n Do they look carefully at what must be done to identify what is

different?
n Having identified differences do they willingly respond by changing

their approach?
n Are they creative in developing creative initiatives?
n Do they actually take pride in finding better ways of doing things?

If winning teams tend to freeze around the winning tactics, losing
teams melt. They start the process by looking beyond the team for victims
of blame. The boss is a very likely target as are other departments, cus-
tomers or vague circumstances. If displacing blame for failure turns out to
be yet another failure, losing teams start to blame each other and any
sense of team spirit evaporates as factions engage in backbiting and
aggression. In short, a losing team rapidly becomes no team at all.

n Does my team fail or have they experienced failure up to the time
when I took over?

n Do they try to pin the blame for failure on others?
n Do they fight among themselves?
n Are there factions within the team vying to out-blame each other?
n What can I do to pull them together?
n How can I give them an easy victory?
n How will I stop them from believing that a single achievement

means that they have a “one size fits all” success formula?

Getting people to work together 73