HOW TO BUILD A WINNING TEAM

More important than any technical skill a team member brings is the ability to work closely together, free of backbiting and political maneuvering. The key is having the right mix on your team.

By and large, there 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 yet imaginative souls in your organization. They think a new idea 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 think 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 an action.

Sovereigns. They are the emotional and imaginative types. They focus 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 front of them. They hold people accountable to systems and the fairness of those systems. They’re obsessed by facts. For them, action is finding the critical factor to get something immediately accomplished.

Obviously, this framework is a simplification, but there are logical implications for any leader assembling a team.

The most effective teams maintain a balance by having a healthy variety of types in key roles because each type is good at doing different things. A mix of magicians, warriors, lovers, and sovereigns will get you the best team possible. When one type dominates, friction and conflict can occur: a fall-off of creativity, a lack of flexibility, risk aversion, and paralysis. That’s why the most effective leaders know who they are and surround themselves with people who complement their strengths and offset their weaknesses. The warrior needs a magician, a sovereign, and a few lovers.

Clearly, there is beauty in balance. That is the place where individual team members become more sensitive to each other’s needs. Too many magicians and your team will be pondering opportunities all the time, but will lack decisive action, even though the thinking will be excellent. Why? Because magicians are more concerned with having it done “right,” rather than having it done. They’re especially vulnerable to pursuing superior technology at the expense of something that customers would buy. And a group of them in a room will look more like a debating society than a high performance team. Too many lovers and you have another set of problems. These employees value consensus to the detriment of results. They hold far too many meetings. They do too much talking and not enough acting. The lover excessively relies on outside advice and often appears to lack both competitiveness and edge.

Too many warriors, on the other hand, will experience difficulty if anything in the environment changes. They won’t be proactive and will consequently miss opportunities competitors may exploit. They appear as a parade of soldiers, and they can be innovation-challenged. Too many sovereigns will often pull an organization in too many directions at once, or will radically change direction often. Sovereign-dominated teams will have no center of gravity and will keep many unresolved business issues up in the air all the time. They appear fragmented, with poor communication, and they often struggle with strategy and direction.

Task III. Work in pairs. 1. Give the detailed description of each group/archetype of people within a company. Then join another pair and compare the results. 2. Can you consider your academic group a team? Are there any warriors, lovers, sovereigns, magicians in it? What archetypes would you add to make your group more balanced? To what archetype do you belong?

Task IV. Read the following statements. Choose one you like most and comment on it.

1. I’m a great believer in luck. The harder you work, the more you get it.

2. You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.

3. Cash and careers are built on countless sums of fears.

4. Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look after themselves.

5. The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on.

6. We don’t have to be great to start, but we have to start to be great.

7. It is not our abilities that show what we truly are. It is our choices.

8. The better we know ourselves, the less we criticize others.

9. All people smile in the same language.

10. Count your smiles instead of your tears. Count your courage instead of your fears.

11. Smile is the second best thing you can do with your lips.

12. Smile. Let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday.

13. A smile can mean a thousand words and can hide a thousand problems.

14. Never surrender you dreams to noisy negatives.

15. Don’t ask time where it has gone. Tell it where to go.

Task V. Read the following dialogues. Try to guess the meaning of the business idioms given in bold. Give their Russian equivalents.

1. A: I think we're going to end up giving this man his sick leave, just as he asks.

B: Maybe. But it goes against the grain.

2. A: Who in Malaysia buys outboard motors anyway?

B: There's a sizeable leisure market. But a lot of fishermen have taken to using outboards — if we can get a foot in the door there, we'll be laughing.

3. A: The Minister says they're planning for a twenty-five per cent annual growth rate.

B: Huh! I'd take that with a pinch of salt.

4. A:Have you read this translation of the foreign trade regulations?

B: Oh -- er -- I sort of skimmed through it on the plane... It's a nuisance, all this red tape.

5. A: You mean Paul tricked Norman into confessing?

B: Well, it was no use asking him point-blank. The boy would have simply denied it.

6. A: I'm surprised the Drum Hotel is still open, especially at this time of the year.

B: Apparently, they've decided to keep a skeleton staff in case they get a few late holiday-makers. Trying to hedge their bets, I suppose.

7. A: Darling, how about taking me out to dinner tonight at the Coconut Grove?

B: What! They make you pay through the nose at that place...

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