Building a Kick-Ass Team From the Ground Up Part 1: The Start Up Phase

Teams Succeed Together

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Building a kick-ass team is one of the most rewarding experiences for any leader. To see the team YOU established succeed and thrive creates a sense of pride and satisfaction like no other.
 
Do you remember how it felt to be a part of an awesome team? You were in sync, you had fun, and you were an unstoppable machine. Everyone was connected and continuously driving in the same direction to get stuff done.
 
This blog marks the beginning of a series of posts that will walk you through the full cycle of not only building a team, but also supercharging it!  Today, we start from the beginning, which involves creating your vision, crafting roles and selecting the right members. Over the course of the next few months, I will address other topics such as the settling in period, navigating through difficult times, celebrating successes and preparing for transformative windups.
 
The “Kick-Ass Team Building From the Ground Up” series will also include tons of practical tips and tricks for boosting your own leadership capabilities, so please follow along for full access to an abundance of insight and advice. 
 
Without further ado, welcome to part one of our series – The Start Up Phase!
 
There are countless reasons why you may be forming a new team right now. It may be the beginning of a new project or initiative, or there may be an important new business direction underway and you have to pull a group together.  Regardless of the reason behind the new team formation, here are your steps to get started:  
 
1. White-Boarding
Let me preface by stressing one thing – do not skip this step! Even if you’ve been handed a group of pre-selected individuals to begin with, I encourage all of my clients to start with a blank slate. Before you go sticking boxes on an org chart, ensure you are crystal clear on your own vision. Grab a whiteboard and consider these key questions:

• What is the primary accountability of the unit?
• What are long term/short term goals that need to be attained?
• What output will this team specifically be responsible for?
• What may have changed from before, and/or what problem(s) need solving?
• What are the timeframes, challenges, known issues, potential pitfalls?
• Who are the stakeholders the team will need buy-in from or interface with?
• What does success look like with this team and how will you measure it?
• How will this team differ from others?

 
Having this information readily available will assist you in figuring out which roles are required on the team and what work you’ll be in charge of overall.  It will also provide a basis to review the team’s progress once set up.
 
2. Suss Out The Work
When beginning to build a team, it’s common for leaders to immediately think about managers – how many they need, who they will be etc. But there is a major drawback to this approach. What tends to happen is teams end up with too many people trying to lead without clear and distinct accountabilities – and you know what they say about too many cooks in the kitchen!
 
Instead of beginning with management, do a bottom-up build. Consider the day-to-day work of your team and allow your structure to fall into place according to what actually needs to get done.
 
In order to ensure you stack your structure with the right number and level of roles, consider these questions first:

• What work is routine or repetitive?
• How much creativity/problem solving will be needed?
• Is the work time bound?
• What information will need to be communicated? Frequency?
• How detailed is the work?
• What processes will be followed? Systems used?
• How much subject matter expertise is necessary?
• What decisions will be made by which roles? (Decision rights)
• How much autonomy will there be?
• What work processes go together? Need to be separate?

 
Your answers to the questions above should start to create a picture of how many people you really need to DO the day-to-day work?  And in contrast, how many managers are required to manage the people doing the day-to-day. 
 
If you can, quantify the output that will be delivered – you may have to make a few assumptions at this point – and think about the ROI (return on investment) of your resources.  You tend to get bigger return with ‘doers’ than with ‘managers’.
 
Here are some common pitfalls that many leaders face during this step of a new team formation:

• Not having a clear picture of the work that needs to be done day-to-day – this leads to confusion and poor productivity at the outset, which doesn’t make for a good start
• Planning for too many resources before the work is available. Consider spacing out the ramp up of your team or you’ll have people twiddling their thumbs at the beginning
• Assuming all the people you have can do whatever you throw at them. Most people prefer some structure and clear expectations

 
3. Map Your Structure
This is when you get to move the boxes around.  When creating an organizational structure, I prefer using an accountability-based approach – that is establishing a hierarchy with clarity so everyone will know who is on the hook for what. 
 
Clear accountability is a critical success factor for a smooth running team. Also vital, yet sadly overlooked, is ensuring that each Manager fully understands that their responsibility includes the development of their team members, not just direct reports. This includes formalized succession planning for managers to have replacement plans for their own roles – setting this up in the beginning will make your job a whole lot easier. 
 
Now layout a future focused org structure identifying how each role reports.  Every role on the org chart needs a unique and clearly defined accountability in order to reduce confusion and improve self-sufficiency. Notice we haven’t talked about the people yet?  This is done on purpose. 
 
Million Dollar Tip: Never design your structure around your people.  Big mistake! (Send me a message if you want to know why)
 
Here is an example of how you might divide work initially in order to support your longer-term structure to ramp up staffing over time:  

Org structures evolve due to many variables over time, but having a plan to begin with a ‘target’ operating model (future structure) will help as you begin the hiring/selection process. Look for talent who can grow and be developed over time into expanded roles.
 
4. Spec Your Jobs
I know this may seem tedious, but believe me, this is worth the investment! Not only will this step get you thinking about what work is needed to be done and the talent you will need, but also the document you create will serve multiple purposes over the life cycle of the team (e.g. sourcing people, evaluating compensation, performance management). 
 
Each role needs its own spec - a profile. Consider all the elements similar to a job posting you would need, which details the skills necessary, the type of characteristics required to be successful and the education or knowledge you feel is a must or nice to have in each job.
 
If you’ve never done this before, you can cheat by ‘Googling’ similar jobs and reviewing postings for relevant content.  They will give you a clue for the type of jobs in the market (no one I know ever got into trouble for using another job posting for inspiration).  Just ensure your job spec thoroughly outlines the work duties, tasks, and responsibilities so that a potential employee has an idea of what they’ll be signing up for!
 
5. Pick Your Talent
Finally, it’s time to talk about people. I could write a whole blog on just this step – I love selecting talent – but I’ll save that for another time! For the sake of moving along, I’ll keep this section brief.  
 
If you already have a pool of people to select from, resist the temptation to simply slot in people you know in the boxes.  Do yourself a favour and review them against the job spec for ‘fit’, and ask yourself if they are the right people to do the job.  If not, you may need to post the role.
 
This is the step where it really pays to have objective help in screening candidates and conducting interviews.  Having someone to whittle the list of candidates down to a choice few will save you time – they can also be your point person to field follow up calls and emails. 
 
I highly recommend involving several people that you trust in the interview stage to help you screen for ‘fit’. It’s important that anyone new joining the team or business matches both the style and organizational culture of the company. If you have management roles, start with those first and perhaps have them join you in future interviews as you build out the team.
 
Prepare a series of questions that will help you probe and qualify the candidates until you find the right people to fill your roles. I also recommend considering the use of a comprehensive assessment tool that can give yet another dimension about fit to the team and clues for how best to manage and communicate moving forward. 
 
Dots Leadership Solutions can assist you with crafting your structure, developing job specs, preparing your selection strategy and even screening, assessing and interviewing candidates – it’s kind of our ‘thing’. Give us a call today and let’s chat about the next team you’re building.
 
Stay tuned for our next blog in the 'Building a Kick-Ass Team' series Part 2 – Team Identity

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