Are You Risking Your Team's Success in 2010?
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I was asked to "shadow coach" a junior program manager in his new role. His first big challenge was assessing the skills of a team who had been together for months, but who were behind schedule in launching their product.

This new PM was now responsible for figuring out who would remain with the team and who would be replaced. My role was to walk him through the process of asking the required questions and reviewing the results with him. Ultimately his job would be to select the right team for turning this situation around and launching the product in six months.

What made the situation more difficult for the PM was that he came from this talent pool and felt he had a handle on their strengths and weak areas. I sensed early on that some of the members were his friends outside of work.

My "informal" role was to guide him through the process of making a tough decision as fairly as he could without losing his heart in the process.

Focusing on the Right Things

Given our turnaround challenge we had two weeks to assemble the team:

• Identify the required skills and knowledge for this "new" project
• Interview and select team members who would remain with the group
• Complete a resource gap analysis of missing expertise
• Negotiate with managers for shared resource expertise

Three questions we asked each of the current team members included:

1. "What do you consider to be your expertise?"
2. "Do you feel that you're in the right role with the right responsibilities?"
3. "How do you feel that you contributed to the team's current situation?"


We were listening for a sense of responsibility for the team and personal accountability for their area(s) of expertise. In other words, how much "skin in the game" did they have with this team and the product? We also wanted to find out if their current role and responsibilities weren't playing to their strengths.

A sense of urgency combined with the right attitude and approach to problem solving was critical. Although not optimum, we could always create a patchwork quilt of expertise with shared resources.

Moving Forward, Holding Back

When was the last time you assessed your contributions at work, in general, and to your team, in particular?

Are you moving your team forward or holding them back?

Can you identify your skill gaps? Would you know what steps to take to raise your performance level, adjust your relationship cache, and adapt to shifting conditions before someone asked you to do so? Do you trust team members to tell you--do they "have your back"?

But let's also reverse the situation. Is your team holding you back?

Now, would you say that your current behavior and performance is consistent with your past peak performance? Is this the "true you" or an outer skin you're wearing because of the environment you're in today?

This "Great Recession" continues to play havoc in the workplace. You might be camouflaging yourself to survive in your current environment. It's not unusual for people to shift their performance and expectations downwards in order to accommodate the lowest common denominator of fearful behavior on the team.

You might consider asking the same three questions above that this PM asked his team members. We were able to select the right team for the right reasons at the right time.