Facilitating Teams No Matter Where

What I find interesting about cultural differences is how they shine a light on our own progress. My wife found that when she worked with developers in developing nations, especially those where women's rights and liberation are not as far along as they are in the U.S. she saw a distinct difference between the way that the teams respond to her when she's leading meetings compared to when her male counterparts, even those that are lower on the org chart, lead meetings. 

That being said, it's all quite subjective and she hasn't taken on a study to determine the extent or even the actual existence of the slight, real or perceived, but as I said, it's telling if only because it helps us appreciate our own progress to see how other countries are doing. 

What's doubly interesting to me is that when she was leading a team of developers in South America, most of whom were women, her ability to inspire and lead the team was amplified instead of undermined. I find these cultural bridges interesting and illustrative and would love to see more studies about them. 

One of the tools that I utilize Dr. Z is communication outside of standard team meetings . . . calls, messages, emails, chats, Slack, etc. By including team members in one-to-one, relationship-building communications bonds are formed outside of the team that can then be brought into the team. For example; one illustrator/designer we use lived in Honduras. 

There were difficulties in communication via language barriers, there were challenges in terms of understanding roles and capabilities, and there were problems with work hours and investment of time. Many of these can't be dealt with during team calls, and they are still challenges to building trust and creating a cohesive team. 

By sending notes, messages, memes, links, and other information about illustration and graphic design we were able to form a friendship that we took over to the team and our team calls. The same can be done with any team player. Find ways to connect with them outside the team so that you build a rapport that can be ported over to the team arena. 

Measurements of Team Effectiveness

The question we were asked to address was how would you measure the success or effectiveness of a team, both over the short-term and long-term? And the context was in terms of our reading regarding team training.

I believe that there are several measurement factors that go into determining the effectiveness of a team. As the question states, there are short-term and long-term aspects, but there are factors that are more relevant and prescient that should be addressed, many of which are subjective in nature. 

I was recently a part of a workgroup/team that came together for major product development and launch and there were several success factors that we measured. Among these were the objective ones such as: (a) the time to produce the product, (b) the quality of the product (which is a bit of subjective measurement), (c) whether or not the team can continue to produce in the future. 

However there are several that are not measured by these three aspects, several that are far more subjective in nature, such as: (a) whether or not the team functioned efficiently, (b) did the team react to the work effectively, harmoniously, and easily, and (c) did the team evolve from an immature state to a more mature state and are they continuing to evolve. 

I think it's these last three questions that are far more relevant to measuring the health of a workgroup and the future capabilities of a workgroup, and measuring these would be far more difficult to measure, and therefore more difficult to influence positive change in. 

One of the best measurement tools to help achieve this would be debriefing and after-action reviews. Although debriefings may not seem like a typical measurement tool, it does work as a collector of valid information if performed well, and if they are executed in a series over time then a measure of improvement (or decline) can be taken. 

Gregory et al. (2013) state in describing sustaining conditions to foster teamwork that "by implementing systematic debriefing meetings, employees will be reminded of teamwork competencies and desired knowledge, skills, and attitudes that were once learned during the team training program" (p. 475). Later in our reading, Tannenbaum et al. (2013) state when discussing debriefings and how to determine if they produce desired improvements and changes, "some of the improvements are cognitive in nature, while other are behavioral" (p. 499). It's these two types of subjective aspects of teamwork can be measured via debriefings then it's possible to track and make improvements over time. 

References

Tannenbaum, S., Beard, R., & Cerasoli, C. (2013). Conducting team debriefings that work: Lessons from research and practice. In Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S., Cohen, D., & Latham, G. (Eds.), Developing and Enhancing Teamwork in Organizations: Evidence-Based BestPractices and Guidelines (1st ed., pp. 268-297). Jossey-Bass.

Gregory, M., Feitosa, J. Driskell, T., & Salas, S., (2013). Designing, delivering, and evaluating team training in organizations: Principles that work. In Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S., Cohen, D., & Latham, G. (Eds.), Developing and Enhancing Teamwork in Organizations: Evidence-Based BestPractices and Guidelines (1st ed., pp. 268-297). Jossey-Bass.

Leading Virtual vs Real-World Teams

Comparing Chapters 8, and 13, how do virtual teams differ from temporally separated teams and how are they similar?

I really enjoyed parts of the essay by Cohen and Alonso (2013) and how they discussed leading virtual teams. With the ubiquotousness of virtual meeting capabilities within our business world and the need for a greater understanding of how to fully utilize the tools and capabilities to work as well away from the office as we do in the office, I thought the messages were timely and provided some good guidance. 

I found myself relating to a lot of what they advise, if only because there are times when I find myself leading virtual teams as well as on-site teams, and both need to be as effective as possible in completing projects and being productive. I especially liked the table presented that provided tips for overcoming process challenge to virtual teamwork (Cohen and Alonso, 2013, p. 260). I do not have as much experience leading temporally separated teams. The closest I've come is a few hours time differences, usually, Texas compared to California. Still, there are aspects of that team leadership that I had to be cognizant of and take into consideration, much like Espinosa (2013) discusses in his chapter. However, I thought one oversight that was not discussed as much as was needed to be was the aspect of cultural difference in temporally separated teams.

Espinosa (2013) discusses not just temporatlly separated teams but also teams separated by distannce but within the same time zones. Espinosa (2013) writes "spatial distance does not necessarily change the pattern of team interaction," (p. 420) which is true but does not necessarily cover what I feel is a predominant issue of cultural differences. My wife, working as a software project manager has had to lead offsite teams in Honduras and in India. The Honduran team was in the same time zone as she and the team and India was a twelve-hour difference. In both cases, she has had more challenges with cultural differences, those regarding the speed of work product, expectations, and role of females in business and society, than mere time differences caused. Then I look at my time in the military, when we were spread out as a battalion over different continents, the fact that we were all from the same unit, that we understood the expectations, the mission, and had a similar language and standards, all benefitted us despite a time difference. 

At no point does Espinosa (2013) nor Cohen and Alonso focus enough time and effort on the problems that cultural differences cause but focus instead on just the aspects of physical difference. The physical difference is a challenge to be sure, but the cultural differences can serve to make virtual team-leading several degrees harder if they aren't understood and addressed from the very beginning. 

References

Cohen, D. J., and Alonso, A. (2013). Virtual teams; The how to's of making "being virtually there" successful. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and Guidelines (pp. 239–267). essay, Jossey-Bass.

Espinosa, J.A. (2013). High performance in temporally separated team work. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and Guidelines (pp. 406 - 438). essay, Jossey-Bass.

Health Care Leadership Lessons

Chapters 10 and 11 focus on health care, but in many ways the lessons in these two chapters can be transferred to any industry. What are the key lessons in these two chapters and how might you use them in your career?

While reading Chapters 10 and 11, I thought exactly what the prompt addresses, many of the aspects, techniques, and tools that are addressed would be just as valuable in my organization as they would be in healthcare. I found the same thing to be a part of my thoughts when I read about leading virtual teams in the previous chapters. I thought that the leadership techniques in Chapters 8 and 9 could be used to address challenges in any workteam, not limited to just virtual work groups. 

Almeida et al. (2013) write, citing several studies, that "medical databases consistently identified ineffective communication among medical teams as a leading cause of preventable medical errors and patient harm throughout the health care system" (p. 300). I know from having worked for years in our industry of construction and safety in the energy industry that our own databases find the same challenge of communication leading to accidents, injury, and harmful or environmental releases. 

Communication, I often tell my managers and supervisors, is the key to overcoming almost every challenge in our project development and delivery. Poor communication leads to problems and difficulties. Good communication leads to smoother operations. Lencioni (2002) discusses trust and the opportunity to speak openly and have conflict within executive teams. Without trust, without there is no conflict, without the conflict, there is no opportunity to speak openly and communicate. As Covey (2008) writes "low trust slows everything—every decision, every communication, and every relationship” (p. 1).

Additionally, Almeida et al. (2013) write that "establishing a history of failed initiatives gives rise to the dynamic "if we like low long enough, this too shall pass," and typically, pass they do. Enough of these failed initiatives can lead an organization to its destruction" (p. 309). This too is general enough to be applied to any industry. We've seen that in many instances where initiatives are left to crumble into dust and are not picked up again. 

Finally, Lyubovnikova and West (2013) bring up a framework of their own that can be applied to any team, regardless of industry. They discuss that the three aspects that should be followed are "skill differentiation, temporaral stability, and authority differentiation" (p. 334). All of these are techniques and tools that can be used, in my opinion, to help any organization regardless of industry. Having them generated via a study on healthcare shows that the healthcare industry has a leading effort to improve their processes, and proves out how it can best be used. But any leader should take these and apply them to their own industry as well. 

References

Almeida, S. A., King, H., Salisbury, M. L. (2013) Teamwork improvement in health care: A decade of lessons learned every organization should know. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and Guidelines (pp. 331 - 372). essay, Jossey-Bass.

Covey, S. (2008). Speed of trust: The one thing that changes everything. Simon & Schuster.

Lencioni, P. M. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. Jossey-Bass.

Lyubovnikova, J., West, M. A. (2013) Why teamwork matter: Enabling health care team effectiveness for the delivery of high-quality patient care. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and Guidelines (pp. 298 - 330). essay, Jossey-Bass.

HOT Fun Running

July is a tough month for fun runs. I had to wake up at 5 this morning, a Saturday, to get to a fun run and continue my “fun run a month” challenge (see more HERE). Last month, in June pickings were slim because I had traveled to the UK for two weeks, and I was in Kansas another week. That leaves very few weekends for fun runs. 

This month, there were just two beside the July 4th fun runs. Many of the July 4th fun runs were booked up and I couldn’t get in. So, I signed up for really the only other one I could find. The Lunar 5K in Friendswood. 

Friendswood is a bit of a hike for me. It took about an hour for me to get there. But then again, that’s what I drive every day for work. In fact, my office was right there, a few blocks away. Silly ole world. 

I was surprised by several things about this run. 

• First, I was surprised they started the raceafter the kids 1K. Note to race directors out there. Having your start time for the main race depending on kids running a 1K . . . Not smart. But maybe I’m becoming crotchety. 
• Second, wow was it hot. I was melting in the heat. I weighed myself before I left and when I got back. I lost 4 lbs while running. That’s some heat!
• Speaking of weight, I have lost 30 lbs since last year at this time. I would have expected that at some point I would feel lighter. I don’t. It was killing me on this run.My splits aren’t bad, but man oh man, I think global climate change is effecting gravity cause WOW I was slow and it hurt!
• I was looking around as I ran and was pacing and trying to beat several people. I looked at them and thought, I bet I can beat them. Then naturally I thought about the standings and it hit me, most of the people I key in on are in their 30’s! I think I still see myself as a 30 year old when I go race these races. I’m not! It hit me today that by next year about this time, I’ll find myself in the 50 year old standings! (Maybe then I can win every now and then . . . Probably not)
• I need to start taking and prepping more gear. I had a towel, my flip flops and an extra shirt, but it was so hot that I should have brought several towels and probably some cooling towels as well! Thank goodness I had my emergency picnic blanket in trunk (never know when you’ll need to quickly have a picnic, right!) otherwise it would have been a fiasco. 
• I got blown away in the final sprint today. Some young twenty year old blew by me. I tried to pick it up to keep up with her, but I couldn’t. I felt like Bill Cosby as Dr. Huxtable, being destroyed on the track. What’s he say? “today I saw 23 on the track, and it flew right by me without even breathing heavy?” Well I saw that today. 
• Finally, I’m starting to see many of the same people at these races. I tried to inspire this years ago with SEAL PT, but now I’m seeing the same people at these runs and we chat to one another. Little things like “Saw you at that last one, how’d ya do?” And “Feeling good today?” It’s probably because I wear pretty much the same stuff every race. But it’s fun to have some race day buddies. Everyone needs race buddies right?

Three Process Improvement Schemes

In our text on Adult Leadership, Beer (2013) describes the Strategic Fitness Process, designed to help overcome what he calls the Six Silent Barriers to Team Performance. Curtis (2013) also describes a framework called the Process Maturity Framework in his essay How Organizational Process Maturity Improved Performance. 

While Beer (2013) describes a specific set of barriers; (a) unclear strategy and values, (b) ineffective senior team, (c) laissez-faire leadership, (d) poor coordination and communication, (e) poor leadership development, and (f) inadequate vertical communication both up and down. He calls these the silent killers of team performance that he claims "represent an unhealthy organizational and management context for teams" (Beer, 2013, p. 29).  

Beer's (2013) prescription for dealing with these barriers is the SFP, which "enables the organization and its leaders to gain the benefits of open feedback while eliminating the negative consequences of speaking up for the lower-level people" (Beer, 2013, p. 40). Curtis (2013) also identifies that software teams have suffered from barriers. Curtis (2013) also sees communication as a potential challenge. Curtis (2013) states, "breakdowns in communication and coordination frequently represent team process issues that were often caused by managers or customers external to the team" (p. 50). Curtis (2013) also writes that leaders for software teams were commonly not well trained and developed, but rather that the teams were placed under the direction of a "team lead, who usually had no training in management or team leadership" (p. 56). This lack of proper leadership and leadership development are the same challenges that Beer identifies as his third and fifth barriers. 

There are aspects of both Beer's barriers and SFP and Curtis' Process Maturity Framework in other business and leadership writing. For example, Beer mentions that laissez-faire leadership has a negative influence on teams and is something that should be avoided. Similarly, writing in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni (2002) writes that one of the parts of the dysfunction pyramid is an avoidance of accountability that leads to low standards. Lencioni (2002) elaborates on accountability that leaders "hate to do it, especially when it comes to a peer's behavior because they want to avoid interpersonal discomfort" (p. 98). Earlier in the fable, Lencioni (2002) lists the absence of trust as the base of the dysfunction pyramid. Beer writes about aspects of trust that barrier 6: poor vertical communication was brought on by a leadership team that was ". . . either not motivated to and/or did not know how to create a safe, honest, and collective conversation . . . " (p. 35). Therefore, it would lead to better communication and coordination. Lencioni (2002) also writes about factors that are a part of Curtis' Process Maturity Framework when he writes about status and ego leading to inattention to results. Lencioni (2002) writes "the key is to make the collective ego greater than the individual ones" (p. 72). Similarly, Curtis (2013) discusses the benefits of "egoless teams" (p. 56). 

Whether in the Process Maturity Framework, the SFP, and even the pyramid outlining the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, each author sees the benefits of applying a process and framework to the problem of team disunity and confusion. This tends to fall in line with other essays in Salas et al. (2013) discussing the fact that leaders are not as important as we might tend to think. Haskin’s, writing in Salas et al. (2013) even states that other than in the case of morale, performance will for the most part not change for the team regardless of the leader. This connotes that leadership alone cannot change how people work and relate to one another in work groups, but rather frameworks like the SFP, the Process Maturity Framework, and the pyramid of dysfunction; these are the measures that can influence change, create positive relationships among the team members, and develop a product that is more effectively produced. 

References

Beer, M. (2013). Silent killers of team performance: How honest, collective, and public conversation can overcome them. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and guidelines (pp. 27–47). essay, Jossey-Bass.

Curtis, B. (2013). How organizational process maturity improved software team performance. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and Guidelines (pp. 48–84). essay, Jossey-Bass.

Lencioni, P. M. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. Jossey-Bass.

Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S.J., Cohen, D., & Latham, G.(Eds.).  (2013). Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based practices and recommendations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Trust is Key

In the text for my class on Adult Leadership, Meisinger (2013) describes different strategies to lead executive teams and includes many tips, strategies, and thoughts that would be beneficial for any president, COO, or CEO who must bear the responsibility of leading executives within an organization. Executive leadership is different and more complex than the team or departmental leadership and Meisinger (2013) points this out by writing that “for executive teams, the stakes are often more significant for the individual members and to the organization as a whole. This creates some additional dynamics” (p. 183).  

These dynamics, Meisinger (2013) points out can include downstream effects on morale and function of the organization in other departments; “if employees see that members of the executive team are not working collaboratively, it’s likely to have a ripple impact throughout the organization” (p. 183). There is a great deal of importance in ensuring that leading executive teams is done well, and there is one key that can help ensure that it is done well, with a minimum of negative impact on the organization. That key is trust. 

All of the conflicts that Meisinger (2013) discusses and the advice that she provides throughout the chapter is similar to the advice and the conflicts discussed by Lencioni (2002). Meisinger (2013) discusses the risk of distrust when writing “dysfunctional teams will lead to failures of communication on a key business issue. There will be distrust and disagreement over critical resource allocations (p. 184). Meisinger (2013) also writes about how to overcome this by writing, “leaders must lead a team of executives in such a way that open sharing and debate on competing viewpoints are encouraged, but without behaviors or actions that disturb the trust among the team’s members” (p. 185). This is almost an exact duplication of the advice provided Lencioni (2002) when he writes, “teamwork begins by building trust” (p. 63). 

Lencioni (2002) spends much of his fable about a Silicon Valley software organization building, establishing, and maintaining trust within the executive team. There are multiple examples of the leader, making the team comfortable with each other and specifically with conflict within the team, such as when the leader notices a lack of debate; “I’d have to say that more than anything I’ve been told by others, I see a trust problem here in the lack of debate that exists” (Lencioni, 2002, p. 45). Conflict, Lencioni (2002) writes, is okay and healthy for executive teams as long as there is a foundation of trust between them. 

Leaders must also trust the members of the executive team to do the work for them. Lencioni (2002) demonstrates times when her main character, Katheryn, waits while other members of her team express the goals, she hopes they will understand on her behalf. Meisinger (2013) also writes that “leaders of executive teams have to know when to remain silent. Frequently, top executives are where they are because they have a clear vision of what needs to be done and have the drive and intellect to know how best to get there” (p. 186). Covey (2008) emphasizes this as well when he writes, “in a high-trust relationship, you can say the wrong thing, and people will still get your meaning. In a low-trust relationship, you can be very measured, even precise, and they’ll still misinterpret you” (p. 6). 

Trust is a key to any functioning team. Covey (2008) writes, “the first job of a leader . . . is to inspire trust. It’s to bring out the best in people by entrusting them with meaningful stewardships, and to create an environment in which high-trust interaction inspires creativity and possibility” (p. 319). As Meisinger (2013) writes, having that level of trust and potential for creativity is more important for executive teams because of the opportunity to inspire those who look to the team for direction and to influence harmony within the organization. 

Despite all the advice that Miesinger (2013) and Lencioni (2002) bring up in their writing, the most important is that of establishing trust for the executive teams. Without that trust between members, the work of the executive team can undermine not just the work of that team, but also the work within the organization. 

References

Covey, S. (2008). Speed of trust: The one thing that changes everything. Simon & Schuster.

Lencioni, P. M. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. Jossey-Bass.

Meisinger, S. R. (2013). Leading executive teams: The good, the bad, and the ugly. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and Guidelines (pp. 182 - 207). essay, Jossey-Bass.

 

 

 

More On Ill-Structured People

My classmate brought up a problem he had with a soldier in his unit who was determined to undermine the group and the team. It was an interesting dilemma for sure.

I think we’ve all had to deal with similar situations as leaders but the one you describe sounds especially tough to deal with. In terms of “derailers” I’m in the midst of dealing with a few in our senior leadership team, but what I find interesting about all of these leaders is that if you pointed out to them that their actions were having negative effects, they would never come around to see it from your lens. So often we get stuck in our own perspective.

In previous classes, we spent a lot of time talking about self-authorship, and the ability to see problems from several different perspectives, understand that no problem has one solution and can be seen from several different lenses, or even that there are “ill-structured” problems, problems with no binary or right and wrong answer. According to Jonassen (1997), "these problem types do not represent well-defined classifications, but rather represent a continuum from decontextualized problems with convergent solutions to very contextualized problems with multiple solutions" (p. 67).

I've come to believe that there are also “ill-structured people.” People, we want to understand and want to help come around, but it’s just not ever going to happen, particularly in the way that we hope. These derailers I’m dealing with will probably never come around, but by finding some small area of alignment I hope to limit the divisions they cause. When I read about the person you were dealing with I thought of this idea of “ill-structured people” and how they interact in teams. 

Reference

Jonassen, D. H. (1997). Instructional Design Models for Well-Structured and Ill-Structured Problem-Solving Learning Outcomes. Educational Technology Research and Development, 45(1), 65–94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30220169

Ranger Leadership

I liked the passage in Haskin's essay where he states, "leaders matter less than we think. Most leaders - the evidence is quite clear on this - are pretty average. 

Replace one and an organization will soon resume its previous course" (Salas et al., 2013, p. 7).   In my organization, we build and develop custom CBT's for our members. For years we had a terrible narrator. We found great CBT content could be brought down by poor narration, and great narration could make poor CBT content better.  

For me, the untold part of this is that leaders, even great leaders, can't affect or overcome poor processes, nor influence too much beyond good, streamlined, and efficient processes. This tells me that a good process can overcome bad leadership and bad processes can undermine poor leadership.

A link I see in Buzachero's essay is the fact that there are layers of teams and team leaders that can help overcome poor processes or poor leadership. In my unit, we had three squads, with one weapons squad in a platoon, three platoons, and one weapons platoon per company. 

When planning platoon-level missions we always ensured a 3:1 ratio in terms of attacking manpower to a defending enemy force, but also we planned to have one team or platoon in reserve to bolster and take up the slack for unforeseen problems. The need for this reinforcement might be due to poor planning, poor execution, or even poor leadership. We knew which team leaders, squad leaders, and platoon leaders were weaker than others, even if we never would admit it.

Haskins brings up that leadership doesn't matter as much as process and procedure. Buzachero shows that successful healthcare organizations have teams that are mutually supporting and are tied together with a hierarchy or framework to help lead the organization. Neither of the authors tend to believe that leadership, even greatly charismatic leaders, are a necessity nor are poor leaders debilitating if you have good, solid processes and other teams and frameworks that can help when needed.

Reference

Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S., Cohen, D., & Latham, G. (Eds.). (2013). Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and guidelines (Vol. 33). John Wiley & Sons.

Do Leaders Matter?

 Part 1 consists of six essays structured as case studies. What two essays are most relevant to you and why? And what essay did you find to have the least relevance and why?

I had high expectations for the six essays that began the Salas et al. (2013) book on developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations but found myself disappointed by the first, third, fifth, and sixth essays. The second essay, written by Haskins, Do Teams' Leaders really Matter, and the fourth essay on Making a Difference with Health Care Teams by Buzachero both resonated with me.

Having a background in the military, I saw myself in the experimental design that Haskins discusses having within the military; teams with similar types of soldiers, similar training, similar age, etc. I was a part of that cohort and saw first-hand what Haskins describes, how leaders would come and go within our team and little changed about our effectiveness but our morale was affected, especially by poor leadership. I also could identify the different leaders I had in the military and placed them on a bell curve and thought about the outliers specifically. There were a couple on the far end close to positive and it made me thankful for the opportunity to work with them. 

The essay by Buzachero on Making a Difference with Health Care Teams described a situation of leadership that is similar to what I experienced at my non-profit training organization. The Team of Equals he discusses is similar to our organization's board, then the command and control, our executive leadership, the small expert-dominated teams, and the teams with multi-faceted leaders and groups. All of these, including the co-management teams, are and can be found at our organization. So this seemed to have the most relevance to my work and understanding of the dynamics and groups we have in place.

The essay that had the least relevance was the fifth essay on Developing Leaders on Any Team written by George O'Leary. There are aspects of truth to his statement that "you can generally categorize everyone on your team into three groups: winners, losers and followers," (Salas et al., 2013, p. 18). What O'Leary doesn’t focus on is that leaders can emerge from any of these categories based on circumstances. In my own organization, we have developed leaders from the ranks of followers and changed losers into winners.

Reference

Salas, Eduardo, Tannenbaum, S., Cohen, D., & Latham, G. P. (Eds.). (2013). Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and guidelines. John Wiley & Sons.