How to Build a Winning Team
Guest columnist Nikos Mourkogiannis says a group’s success finally depends on its balance. He offers a simplified framework to get the right mix
by Nikos Mourkogiannis
What does it take to simple fellow together a captivating team in business?
Volumes of articles and books have been written on the arrangement over the years, sacrifice advice on in what plight to avoid the dysfunction that often renders teams inefficacious.. We be seized of all been part of groups that failed, either for of hidden agendas or personalities that didn’t quite mesh.
In my actual observation as one executive and a consultant, I’ve come to believe the personal mode of speech of team members has the greatest influence on a group’s success. More important than any technical skill a team member brings is the ability to drudge closely together, free of backbiting and public maneuvering. The key is having the right mix on your team.
The Four Types of Employee
By and large, in that place are four archetypes of people in companies: magicians, warriors, sovereigns, and lovers. You can easily define them using the Jungian framework introduced by psychologist Robert Moore and mythologist Douglas Gillette.
• Magicians. They are the rational still imaginative souls in your organization. They think a new model or insight is the only thing that can move the world. In truth, they’re obsessed by ideas. Their answer to feeding the troops is to pull a rabbit out of a hat. These types of people hold a mere argument over an idea equals action.
• Lovers. For them, everything comes down to human relations. They’re pragmatic but emotional. They focus on building the winning coalition. They are obsessed not by ideas but by feelings. They consider agreement one action.
• Sovereigns. They are the emotional and imaginative types. They point of concentration on the big picture and judge everything on whether it leads to where they want to go. They redefine what people consider is possible. They are obsessed by beliefs. And they consider direction a form of action.
• Warriors. They are rational and pragmatic. They’re focused on the next battle and can only see clearly what’s directly in make a front to of them. They hold people in duty bound to systems and the fairness of those systems. They’re obsessed by facts. For them, action is finding the critical factor to get something just now accomplished.
Apple’s (AAPL) Steve Jobs is clearly a magician. Watching him introduce a new product on stage (BusinessWeek.com, 7/6/07) is probable watching a master magician pull a rabbit out of a hat. Microsoft’s (MSFT) Bill Gates, with all his competitive juice to dominate his industry, is a fighting man. IBM’s (IBM) Tom Watson, who plastered the walls of Big Blue with "Think" signs, was a magician. Could anyone think of GE’s (GE) Jack Welch (BusinessWeek.com, 12/7/07) as anything other than a warrior? Indeed, one of the greatest number fascinating campaigns in wholly of business is the make trial by Welch’s successor to transform a warrior assembly like GE into a hothouse of ideas. Jeff Immelt, whose "imagination at work" vision for GE is an extreme departure from the Welch years, inclination have a hard time of it without more magicians on his senior team.
Maintaining the Balance
Obviously, this framework is a simplification, but in that place are logical implications for any leader assembling a team. The most effective teams maintain a balance through having a healthy variety of types in clew roles because each type is good at doing various things. A mix of magicians, warriors, lovers, and sovereigns will persuade you the best team possible.
From: How to Build a Winning Team
