Is Your Cause Clear?
Posted on 02. Feb, 2012 by Adrian in Blog, Orange
Many teams in today’s companies are not true teams at all; they’re faux. Organizationally, structurally, motivationally, they are not set up to work together effectively. “Team” is simply a vague label placed on groupings, or even the entire organization as a whole. And it accomplishes nothing. Someone has told leadership that they should have teams, and so they have them. But employees are not fooled. They continue to be departments of people that simply have the blanket of “team” thrown upon them. Take a peek underneath and you’ll find a group of individuals largely fending for themselves.
What our 350,000-person research study for The Orange Revolution clearly revealed is that within the most productive teams, employees never lose sight of the big picture. This helps create a focus that guides their cumulative effort to shared achievement. We often think of creative, world-changing teams as functioning biologically, like living cells. Cells create organs. Organs produce organisms. Organisms combine to form organizations. And if the cells in the heart don’t understand where they fit into the common cause, their function—at all levels—will be impaired.
Causes are the driving forces of the teams we studied. And yet, in the process of articulating a cause and gaining full buy-in, most groups encounter their share of land mines. The first is the tendency for complexity. While a cause is a single purpose that defines what we are all about, too many of us have all worked in teams with so many goals, values, and priorities that it’s hard to keep them straight in our heads, let alone reach an agreement on which overriding idea will guide everything we do.
And even if a team achieves agreement on a single cause, other hurdles emerge; for instance, employee resistance. Fear of the unknown, comfort with the status quo, or even personal agendas can cause people to determinedly cling to what’s known, despite indicators that point to bumpy roads ahead. Cynicism can also run rampant when teams are seeking buy-in. Many of us have worked at places where the commitment to a professed cause was hardly aligned with actions. And because of that we learned to keep our heads down and wait out new change initiatives. It is essential that employees feel leaders are authentic about their commitment to the cause before they buy in.
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, told us that keeping his firm focused on a cause of living and delivering “wow” isn’t easy; they have to work on it constantly. But there’s a method to the madness: The intent of all the Wow at Zappos is to do something that’s above-and-beyond what’s expected, something that has an emotional impact on the receiver.
It seems to be working there, just as it is in Breakthrough Teams all around the world. In the great teams we studied, their purposes may seem as different as night and day, and yet they do share some similarities. You’ll find to establish transformational common causes, Breakthrough Teams:
- Involve employees at all levels in establishing not only the cause, but the values to get there.
- Align the team cause with the larger goals of organization.
- Create a unique, concise cause statement that helps make the team stand out in its industry.
- Communicate the shared purpose clearly and frequently, holding it up like a rallying flag.
- Align goals, deadlines, and celebrations to the cause.
It’s remarkable how powerful a single common rallying point can be in establishing breakthrough results. In fact, the path to turning your team orange starts with a clear cause.
About Adrian Gostick
Adrian Gostick is a global thought leader on workplace strategy and the author of several successful books on employee engagement. The Carrot Principle by Simon & Schuster has been a regular New York Times bestseller, and 24-Carrot Manager has been called a “must read for modern-day managers” by Larry King of CNN. His latest book, The Orange Revolution, was a #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller."
The Carrot Principle
Human performance accelerated? Is this book about the work place or the human race?
With breakthrough research of 200,000 people over ten years from The Jackson Organization, and massive, new global data collected by Towers Perrin, The Carrot Principle demonstrates how constructive praise and meaningful rewards powerfully motivates people from every walk of life and inspires employees to excel, engage, and bring their best to work every day.
The Orange Revolution
Following the enormous popularity of their bestselling The Carrot Principle, Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton return with a groundbreaking guide to building high-performance teams. The powerful research reported inThe Orange Revolution reveals that the true driver of exceptional success for great companies is not a genius CEO. Breakthrough success is driven by a particular breed of breakthrough team that generates its own momentum.
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