Take a small, eclectic group of friends, mix together with some great minds, a garage and a big ambition to change the nature of computing and what do you get? The answer, of course, was the birth of the Apple Mac, the fastest-selling machine that beat any PC created before it.
The story of the now infamous Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak is widely known, and while one may not think that the most people-friendly leadership skills could be found at Apple, the story is worth examining in more detail when it comes to its team approach.
The brilliant minds that formed the Mac team were incredibly competitive – both within Apple and externally.
The ACT suggests that treasurers must be slick operators
Their burning ambition was to beat all the other PCs that were on the market at the time. The team and its leader, Steve Jobs, were single-minded in their focus to create an affordable PC that could be used with minimal fuss by non-techies.
This relentless focus on creating the Mac often led to the most stretching goals and deadlines being set, and stories prevail of the caffeine-fuelled, break-free days and nights spent building the prototype.
Of course, this often led to those creative minds having bust-ups and fallouts, some of which were told to dramatic effect in the film Jobs.
Thinking about one’s own experience of leading or working within a team, it is worth taking a few moments to consider what made that team a success or failure. There are often signs that a manager can spot to help them gauge the health of the team they are working in. The diagram below gives some checkpoints for leaders to use to see where their team is strong, and areas on which they can help their team to develop.
Looking back at the Apple example of a team, a few clues start to unravel why a seemingly unorthodox group of people had such success, including: focus, clarity, productivity, stretch and feedback.
Of course, the Apple team wasn’t perfect, as the film depicts. Spotting the signs of an underperforming team can be really helpful to managers.
Author Patrick Lencioni wrote a book called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The first half of the book introduces the reader to a fictitious management team and the journey of its members together, and the second half discusses the key reasons for team failure. It is an excellent read and recommended for anyone working within or leading a team.
Lencioni explains that there are a number of dysfunctions exhibited by underperforming teams. These characteristics are linked and build from one to another, leading ultimately to the potential of team failure.
So, what makes a team go wrong?
Characteristic 1: Absence of trust
Typically, teams that have low trust levels come about as a result of team members not being prepared to be vulnerable with one another. This will often manifest itself in people hiding mistakes, not admitting their weaknesses and generally not asking for help.
Characteristic 2: Fear of conflict
When team members do not trust each other, this can often lead to members staying quiet when they disagree, or withhold ideas and contributions that otherwise could benefit creative behaviour. The reason for staying quiet is that it is easier than starting conflicts with colleagues. Often, cliques will form and conversations are had behind closed doors rather than airing issues as a group.
Characteristic 3: Lack of commitment
When there is no conflict, it is difficult to get issues and ideas out in the open and debate them properly. This means when an idea does gain traction among some team members, if it has not been debated and buy-in gained, the team will ultimately not commit to the decision or action. This can have a knock-on effect of not having clear and agreed goals, which can lead to ambiguity and lack of focus.
Characteristic 4: Avoidance of accountability
When teams are not committed to the objective or goal, it is unlikely that the individuals within them will take full accountability for the team’s actions. Even the most dedicated employee would find it difficult to hold others to account if they do not believe in the cause.
Characteristic 5: Inattention to results
If people aren’t committed or held to account, personal agendas can start to distract the team and members’ eyes are taken off the ball. This can lead to goals being missed and results not achieved, which, in turn, can affect commitment and motivation.
So what can managers or team members do to move away from underachievement and change to a productive, high-performing team? There may be no ‘I’ in team, but there is a ‘me’. Each team member has an important role in the success of a team and leaders need to be aware of the impact they themselves have on creating the right environment for all team members to:
By setting standards, a leader can perform their role in overcoming barriers to high performance. Clear performance standards start to tackle issues around trust, communication, commitment and results. Standards are important because:
Standards can come from lots of different places and most leaders will be surrounded by them. Their organisations are usually a source of standards, which many will recognise in the shape of values/goals, KPIs and defined internal behaviours. Other places to look for standards are through competitors or industry benchmarks.
The ACT has developed its own benchmark competency framework, which defines the skills and competencies a treasurer needs no matter what stage of their career. Developed after extensive consultation within the profession, it sets the standards for not only the technical treasury skills needed, but the business and behavioural skills, too.
In order to be a rounded leader within treasury, the ACT suggests that treasurers must be slick operators when it comes to influencing and working with others effectively. These skills, of course, are critical when applied to the need for leaders to drive the performance of their teams and overcome the barriers highlighted above.
To this end, learners on the ACT’s Diploma in Treasury Management qualification, which leads to AMCT member status, are now required to complete a new unit called The Treasury Manager. This unit explores the leadership skills required from treasurers, covering topics such as leading a team, encouraging teamwork and collaboration, influencing, negotiation and conflict management skills. In short, all the soft skills needed to help drive a high-performing team.
The ACT also has an online diagnostic tool, which helps leaders to identify the strengths and development areas of their team, the Capability Analysis Tool. This checks more than 80 competencies from the ACT’s competency framework and can offer managers a real insight into both themselves and their team’s effectiveness.
Looking for some of the signs of performance in your own team and striving to improve them can only help build success. With Apple’s charismatic leader and team focus, business performance naturally followed. In Steve Jobs’ own words: “Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people.”
Vanessa Harwood-Whitcher is director of professional standards and learning at the ACT.
This article was taken from the October 2016 issue of The Treasurer magazine. For more great insights, log in to view the full issue or sign up for eAffiliate membership
