Everybody Shufflin’ – Team of Teams
I had a number of people ask about the IQ team shuffle video that we posted on social media recently, so here is a bit of background.
Early last year we started to look at our team makeup differently. As consultants our work life often varies and can involve many changes in our projects and work teams throughout the year, so we explored ways to help our people feel connected and empowered to make decisions. Our aim was to provide support by giving our people access to experienced team members, but at the same time encourage them to work with people they actually enjoyed being with and learning from.
We embraced a new concept – What if your team leader was also someone you liked????
If we expect our leadership group will act with smart autonomy, and trust them with our work, our brand, and a corporate credit card 😊, then why shouldn’t we trust them to find good outcomes working with colleagues they know well? We trust that our people come to work to be the best they can be and having a trusted team leader is a good start.
Connected, supported and trusted … not a bad base.
To achieve this, we borrowed from recent thinking inspired by Stan McChrystal – Team of Teams (trust and purpose drives us in a complex world) and David Marquet – Turn The Ship Around! (intent based leadership) and even Jeremy Rifkin – The 3rd Industrial Revolution (lateral networks and relationships) – we love our books!!
We then left it to individuals to talk to their leadership group and find chemistry. It was a bit like speed dating but without the super awkward moments!
And now?
We “shuffle” our teams once a year. Not perfect – but better. We are still evolving, but we have seen:
- Stronger commitment to supporting each other
- Commitment on real feedback (good and not so good) and hard performance discussions
- Retention well ahead of the industry
Not sure what the next stage is, but it’s working.
Cheers
BP
Recent Comments