Defining success: Process or product?

The Split

It’s a common characteristic of dysfunctional workplaces to feel a sense of disorientation, lack of vision, and a rush “to get things done.” Perhaps it’s in the rush of things that a split occurs. You may not feel it right away, but you’ll begin to feel the consequences quicker than you’re ready for them. This split is one of focus, vision, and community. One moment you’re operating as a team and the next you’re in a war of departments. What once was a synergistic and low maintenance operation is now a bureaucratic nightmare. How did this happen?

I’ve been here on far too many occasions. I’ve experienced it as the person “in the trenches”, I’ve experienced it as the manager pulling his hair out, and I’ve seen it happen to too many smart but unsuspecting victims. Ideally this is where I would outline the steps you can take to solve this problem immediately. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple.

We’re all so unique and have our own idiosyncrasies and this makes it difficult to standardize…well, anything. What I can do is give you some tips to help prepare your team to fight this split and identify warning signs.

Creating Intrinsic Motivation

Before the project takes off, take the time to sit down with your team and ensure that they can work with each other. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of your team. This should be Management 101 but the lack of focus on team building is a tragedy and it spans across too many industries.
The following is a checklist of things you should do in every project kickoff meeting:

1. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of your team
2. Identify the hidden strengths of each member
3. Identify the goals of each member and create plans for reaching those goals
4. Create opportunities for growth and create plans for evaluating them

For more information, see my post: The Kickoff – Starting a project the right way.

Understanding Success

Whether you’re working on a small project or you’re dealing with an on-going product, your team needs a clear understanding of what it means to succeed. As a manager or an executive, it’s easy to assume that the success is purely financial and this should be implied. What you need to remember is that your team typically consists of individuals that do not see a significant financial gain when a project or product is successfully released.

The simple fact is this: you need the team to succeed. This is no secret and you’d be naïve to think that your team doesn’t know this. To you, the success of the project/product is dependent upon the each member of the team successfully delivering quality tasks that are on time and within budget. To each member of the team, this is part of their job description.

Unifying the vision
By creating opportunities for growth, this gives each member of your team the freedom to learn and have some standards to have their growth measured against. This freedom is characteristic of any learning organization and it is characteristic of a good leader. When the members of your team have the freedom to grow and are encouraged to do so, they’re more prone to work at their full potential and not fall victim to social loafing.

Watch for bad apples

Nobody’s perfect and no single strategy is a silver bullet. You’ll likely come across team members that insist that you’re simply pulling some form of mind-game and creating the illusion of growth. Others will insist that personal growth isn’t enough and that they want the assurance of financial growth.

Perhaps you’re in a position to offer financial growth. The question then is do the members of your team deserve it? Are there things that they need to work on before they can be considered for a promotion? If you’re working at a company that had adopted a more transparent approach, then perhaps sharing this information could be useful.

The simple fact is that everybody can grow and improve in certain areas. If there’s a chance for immediate compensation for such growth, then that’s great and your team should be more than grateful. You goal, however, should be to focus on the importance of personal growth.

Process yields product
It doesn’t have to just be about the product or the process. You can have your cake and eat it too if you’re smart. You focus on the process of how your team achieves success and you spend time refining this process. What you need to understand is that strategic focus on process yields the product.

If you’re not careful, you’ll find yourself three months down the road with nothing to show.