Your team doesn't have to meet an inglorious fate. History, including as recently as yesterday, includes teams that have overcome the odds and achieved extraordinary feats. We know this, because we've spent over two decades obsessed with teams that do big things. Specifically, we've pursued answering one question: How do they do it? Specifically, how do members of a successful team function together – in the midst of churn and constant change – to succeed when it seems they don't have a prayer of delivering your business imperative?
We found the answer. As a part of an expanding team of professional development specialists, consultants, and coaches, we've invested over 65,000 hours observing and studying what teams do (and don't do) to deliver on their business imperative. Our work includes supporting leaders and teams at global companies including P&G, Nestlé, Novartis, Cigna, Ford, Harley-Davidson, and others, as well as start-ups and those in academia, government, and nonprofits. In addition, we've studied teams in the world of sports, exploration, entertainment, and more. In each case, we found a common and undeniable pattern of steps, a code, successful teams use on their way to making a meaningful impact.
Just like Powell's team left us all with a map we can now use to safely navigate the Grand Canyon, so there is a replicable framework with clear steps that your team – any team – can take to succeed and do big things. We want you to have and experience that process. That's what this book delivers.
Teams that are ignorant about the severe odds they face, or choose to deny the facts, risk more than business results by rushing to their boats shouting, “We have to succeed!” Because such teams are ill-prepared for the perilous whitewater rapids that are most certainly ahead, the careers and happiness of teammates are at stake.
Your solution is more than people-centered; our work with leaders and teams around the world makes clear that big success occurs when the best of each teammate is brought forth in relation to the people around them. To that end, your team can and should be one of the greatest levers to improving the leadership of every team member.
Whether you're curing cancer, building buildings, developing software, selling widgets, organizing a charity, mobilizing first responders, coaching Little League, or huddling with financial experts, your team is influencing your organization's health in significant ways. The imperative is that this is done productively, where your team impacts other teams in ways that enable them to also do big things.
This book, and its valuable map for team success, is designed and written for you. Whether you're a team leader (or aspire to be), or you play a different role and are committed to doing your best to help your team succeed, we've delivered the content so theory can more easily be put into practice.
We as human beings are not here to be inconsequential or do small work. We are here because we matter. And we want to matter more. It is in our control to do the extraordinary, and it is our fortune to do so as a team.
While history creates its heroes out of individuals (insert your favorite here), even their work would be forgotten if it hadn't been for a team coming together around or behind them to do something more significant than any one of them alone. Indeed, people working together – a team – is usually the only reason big things are achieved.
Your team can make an epic impact – and in the process have an epic impact on you. Your Grand Canyon awaits.
Because the proven methodology in this book works, as your team quickly begins to do bigger things, your team is going to stand out. And here's why.
This book doesn't conform to the established thinking and doctrines of most other business books. For starters, being a high-performing team is not the ultimate objective. There's more. (Heresy? Perhaps, but you're about to prove that today's teams must go beyond mere basics to succeed.) Nor do we pontificate about the importance of trust, communication, alignment, accountability, and every other well-studied dynamic of successful teams.
That's because we have proven that teams that do big things don't do what's normal. They do what is exceptional. Specifically, developing your team to be trustworthy, communicate more effectively, and so forth isn't what your business is asking you to do. (More heresy!) Your business is demanding results.
Transformation occurs when you enable your team members to better deliver what has to get done by equipping them to be their best, bring out the best in others, and partner across the business to deliver shared objectives. When people are enabled to be their best, the business does its best. Now, because of your boldness, you will see an increase in the greatest practices of humanity, including trust and all the other values your team and organization cherish.
This is about the heart of the matter – being who we all know we can be – together. That's how big things are done.
1
TEAMS THAT DO BIG THINGS
Those who know history increase their ability to make it. Here's a brief look at a team that made an epic impact. These seemingly unexceptional people demonstrated that together most any team can do big things. And they left a map for you to do the same.
At 1:00 P.M. on May 24, 1869, a team of 10 explorers pushed their boats into the water and floated away from Green River Station, Wyoming. They were determined to do something that had never been done: travel and chart the Green and Colorado Rivers of the western United States. At this point in history, the details of the nearly 100-year-old country's map were largely complete – except for one conspicuously large space. In an area the size of France, cartographers had simply written “unexplored.” The region was unknown. And for good reason.
Downriver, danger lurked. To begin with, the desert terrain was nearly all rock and sand. Native Americans roamed the untamed and unknown territory. And the river – it was already legendary. Tales were told of waterfalls that made Niagara look small. Others claimed the river disappeared completely like an enormous snake vanishing down a hole.5
The last portion of the journey would take the explorers through what is now known as the Grand Canyon, a gouge in the earth 277 miles long, 18 miles wide, and a mile deep. Today, tens of thousands of people apply for the chance to raft the river for sport; occasionally, some lose their lives as they do so. But to the team pushing their boats into the water that day some 150 years ago, the wild Grand Canyon wasn't there for fun. It was a job, something they were hired to do. It was something they had to do.
The leader of the band was a short, one-armed Civil War veteran named Major John Wesley Powell. As a would-be scientist, he had little experience in the Wild West. Still, he beamed with optimism. He'd assembled nine other men, all with varying degrees of experience as explorers and hunters, to complete the party. Some joined the team just days before their launch, motivated by the need for adventure and a paycheck. Altogether, these men weren't the best of their time, but they were all Powell could afford.
Prepared with supplies and food to last 10 months, the team reflected their captain's confidence. What they didn't know – couldn't know – is that they had prepared for the wrong trip. Their approach and planning were suited for entirely different circumstances. How they thought about their environment and each other was based upon the only resource they had: past experiences.
But there was nothing like the land they found themselves in. No river could compare to the one they were floating down. To achieve their objective, they'd have to do what they'd never done before.
The purpose of the expedition was to map unknown territory. For Major Powell, there was an additional objective: fame. The big thing he wanted to accomplish was earning a reputation as a legitimate scientist. While celebrity and fortune appealed to the members of Powell's crew, their primary objective was altogether different, yet equally clear: survival. While they'd never been on this particular river before, they knew enough from legend that they would be tested and pushed like they'd never been before. Success was not certain.
We'll return to Powell's journey into the great unknown shortly. First, though, consider the team you're on or the team you lead. What's your Grand Canyon? What's the significant objective the team must accomplish to positively and meaningfully impact the business?