The reality is very different. Never intimidated by other great minds, Edison actively sought out men with a broad base of knowledge, a passion for learning, impeccable character, and a commitment to excellence. He then organized them into small teams comprised of an experimenter and two or three assistants. They were given a goal and allowed to pursue it independently.
Keynotes | The Culture Works
If I knew, I would try it myself! He was intensely interested, neglecting sleep and personal hygiene to pursue his inventions. Edison shared the vision, the work, the fun—and the rewards—with his team. Perhaps most significant, when the time came to expand operations, Edison rewarded members of his team with leadership positions at the new companies, enabling many of them to retire wealthy men.
And collaboration has also been shown to benefit the almighty buck. Mark Potter, along with his colleagues Richard T. Bliss at Babson College, and Christopher Schwarz at University of California at Irvine, set out to discover the best management approach when it came to mutual funds success.
They not only found less risk with the team approach, but as counterintuitive as it sounds, the total cost of owning a team-managed mutual fund is nearly fifty basis points lower annually than a mutual fund managed by an individual. This is just a sampling of the research that has come out in recent years regarding the power of collaboration. It coincided with technological advances that created the emergence of linked teams that could communicate faster and cheaper than could previously be imagined. Organizationally, structurally, motivationally, they are not set up to work together effectively.
And those labels accomplish nothing. Someone has told leadership that they should have teams, and so they have them. But employees are not fooled. The sad truth for leadership is that they are adrift at sea. So they fake it. They use the training and vocabulary of teams and hope for the best.
Adrian Gostick
Then, when their people fail to bring down big game, managers throw up their hands in frustration: Addressing this gap of understanding and application is our purpose. We watched how these teams functioned, how they interacted on the job and off, how they were managed, and how they were motivated. Along the way, we collected their stories. And then we noticed how often we were repeating these stories to companies, managers, and employees who were struggling to align their teams with the right outcomes.
Foodservice team that created a measured approach to grow market share and brought millions and millions in new revenue into the company… during a recession. The most exciting part about this data is that it was collected during the worst recession in our working lives, allowing us to get a glimpse of teams functioning and producing results under the most challenging circumstances. What we found was unexpected—and eye-opening. We were able to statistically establish a pattern of characteristics displayed by members of the best teams, as well as a set of rules that great teams live by.
Even more rewarding was the realization that these qualities could be shared with other teams, like yours. So, what sparks the first moments of a revolutionary team? What directs their journey down the road least traveled? And what awaits when you unlock the potential of true teamwork? All these questions have clear-cut answers and follow a surprisingly regimented process. First, these teams share a belief in their own ability to write the future.
After all, it is people in the trenches, not senior leaders, who are the true force behind any sustained change in a company.
Book Review-The Orange Revolution
Great teams universally reject the long-held view of the individual genius or charismatic CEO changing an organization, and instead place their faith fully in themselves and their ability to achieve. Like most crises, no one saw it coming. As he worked over heavy machinery, he was constantly aware of his fifty-four crewmates above him, going about the continuous six-hour-on six-hour-off routine of the submarine crew: Bunting knew these people like his own family.
And when he heard the ear-deafening bang and saw the water pour into the motor room, he immediately knew they were in serious trouble. Like all submariners, Bunting understood that if the Dechaineux was at a shallow depth and became damaged, he and his crewmates had a chance to escape using free ascent from an airlock. But in deeper waters the hope of rescue was almost nonexistent. Even if a diving bell could be brought in, it could take weeks to rescue the crew, and by then, the air supply would be long gone. As fate would have it, on February 12, , the Dechaineux had dived to its maximum depth, well below six hundred feet, in an attempt to test its systems under full pressure.
And that pressure had proved to be too much. A flexible sea hose burst. Within ten seconds, enough seawater had poured into the motor room to toss Bunting around like he was in a washing machine. Ironically, while most Royal Australian Navy recruits go through Hull Training, which simulates conditions exactly like this, submariners are exempt from the exercise. The reasoning is that if a submarine takes on water, the craft is not salvageable. Bunting, suddenly caught in that very situation, had a hard time disagreeing. With water up to his neck, and nearly unconscious, Bunting immediately understood that so far under the ocean surface, there was no one to save him and the rest of the crew but themselves.
Meanwhile, outside the motor room, the crew instantly sprang into action, triggering an emergency override, which shut down all the external valves and stopped the water intake. Other crew members rushed to the flooded motor room, fished Seaman Bunting out by his lapel, and slammed the door shut. At the same time, they blew out the ballast and lightened the load. Then they held their breath and waited; but the submarine did not respond. In that dreadful moment, most crew members said they thought of the Russian submariners who had died just three years earlier in the Barents Sea.
On that fateful day, an onboard torpedo exploded during maneuvers. While waiting for a rescue that never came, twenty-seven-year-old Kolesnikov scrawled an almost illegible final message to his wife: It looks like there is no chance—ten to twenty percent. Here is a list of personnel who are in the ninth section and trying to get out. Hello to everyone, do not despair. Many have the words memorized. Some have nightmares about them.
Working every tactic, the crew began to inch the craft upward. Soon, the submarine was rising at twice its normal rate of ascent. A few men laughed nervously as they heard cups sliding off tables in the mess hall and clattering to the floor. Still, it took three long minutes for the submarine to surface—an eternity to the desperate crew members. There was little they could do but pray that the hull would hold. Investigators later determined that had the Dechaineux continued to flood for just a further twenty seconds, the sub and its crew would have sunk to the bottom of the Indian Ocean.
That was the difference between life and death. In the midst of the crisis that threatened their lives, the Aussie crew acted like a real team, the kind that makes us tear up in movies and throw our popcorn into the air at football games. No one argues with that. What did they do, exactly, that proved their teamwork?
In the face of disaster, the submariners responded quickly and protected each other. They rescued those in immediate danger. They thought creatively to solve a problem. They functioned as a support for each other, keeping cool when things looked bad. On the technical side, they adjusted controls to right the situation. They jettisoned the ballast and lightened the load with the hopes that the sub would respond.
Certainly they were following their training.
- Hope Floats: Stories on Loss and Living On.
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- Chester Elton.
- The Art and Practice of Geomancy: Divination, Magic, and Earth Wisdom of the Renaissance;
- Rain Valley.
- How One Great Team Can Transform an Entire Organization.
Twenty seconds were all they had. They acted and then crossed their fingers. In the wake of the disaster, the sailors of Dechaineux did not resort to a hierarchy of leadership, no coach on the sideline calling the final play of the game. They identified the problem, they reacted to the problem, they did everything they needed to and we got to the surface. And they were ready to do it. Each member of the crew was extremely proficient at his job, and each trusted the others implicitly, and each was ready to sacrifice for the whole.
In fact, we will show later how leaders can do a great deal to build such highly functioning teams. But the fact is that people in breakthrough teams report their highest loyalty is their relationship with one another—the other team members. Vince Lombardi explained it like this when asked why sports teams win.
Note What our research clearly reveals is that within the most productive teams, employees feel a heightened sense of camaraderie, considering at least one of their co-workers a close friend.
The Orange Revolution
They also feel their manager cares about their well-being, a dramatically human emotion. For those who prefer numbers, 63 percent of workers found office productivity to be positively affected when co-workers are friends outside of work. All these indicators clearly point to camaraderie, or even love if you choose to call it that, as a major driver of esprit de corps, which in turn drives productivity and achievement.
Those who are able to form friendships early on the job are likely to acclimatize quickly and stay on board for the long term. Some of it was pure silliness. The factory on the hill where the lightbulb was created housed a small organ where the men would sit together during midnight breaks and make up little ditties about their boss and their job while sharing smoked herring and hard crackers: And yet as close as Edison was to his teammates, he did not enjoy visits from outsiders, even those who might invest in his work.
He complained that each morning, the appearance of visitors would bring a night of productive work to an abrupt end. His attitude might have been a little extreme, but not unique. Breakthrough teams regularly report feeling conflicted about the demands of senior leadership, shareholders, or other outside forces. Because of this, many of the teams we met were at one point or another at odds with their bosses.
Some had even ignored customer research or short-term shareholder gain in their drive to do what they thought was right for the organization long-term. They are not determined to be difficult, just to be the best, and that requires what we define as an Orange mind-set. Let us explain this term.
We even created a system to help managers understand and implement the powerful tools of motivation, engagement, recognition, and appreciation. Since then, our research has come to show us that the same practices of appreciation and recognition that create revolutionary leaders also contribute to the success of breakthrough teams.
While most recently linked to election protests in the Ukraine, there have also been Orange uprisings in Ireland, China, England, and the Netherlands. These revolutions signal a transition—a spirited quest driven by people to improve the world around them. And whether a transformation actually occurred or not, one aspect of these historical events deserves acknowledgment—each revolution, right or wrong, was inspired by the passion of individuals: In business, an Orange Revolution possesses that same depth of passion.
However, the intent is not to topple a regime. Instead, this Orange Revolution begins in the hearts of team members—focused on conquering barriers, expectations, and stagnancy. Breakthrough teams understand that important work relationships require effort. In the interest of the greater good, team members agree to set standards for their interactions.
Rather than feel restrictive, team members report that a code of personal and team conduct kicks the door wide open to possibilities, where success and rewards inevitably follow, unfettered by petty interpersonal problems. According to the authors, all breakthrough teams follow The Rule of 3 p. The power of cheering for one another transcends the workplace and into the home and our lives outside of work.
One of the best and most practical business books I have ever read. This is a book I would definitely take with me if I were stranded on an island somewhere and could only bring three books. Well written and witty, with amazing and uplifting stories to inspire and warm the heart. The Orange White Paper.
How one great team can transform an entire organization. Wow —Breakthrough teams commit to a standard of world-class performance.
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- Auf Mallorca liebt sichs besser (German Edition).
- MARIO MISSIROLI: Il più rivoluzionario dei conservatori (Italian Edition)!
- Wisdom of the Toga: Mythic Patterns That Shape Our Lives?
- The Science of People at Work.
No Surprises —All team members are accountable for openness and honest debate, and each knows what to expect from the others. Cheer —Team members support, recognize, appreciate, and cheer others and the group on to victory. The Science of People at Work.