“The Orange Revolution: How One Great Team Can Transform an Organization” by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, Free Press, $25.
Based on input from a 350,000-person “Best Places to Work” survey, the authors identified the characteristics of top-performance, breakthrough teams. They call it the “Rule of 3”: Wow, No Surprises, Cheer: Up.
Wow covers six traits: 1. Dream BIG; ambitious goals set the bar high. 2. Like “The Little Engine That Could,” they believe they can. 3. & 4. They take calculated risks and measure results to ensure they know when the plan needs tweaking. 5. Perseverance is all-important because it’s rare that any team can go from start to finish without having to work around obstacles (i.e. time, resources, naysayers). 6. They tell stories that make and sell their points to others.
No Surprises deals with trust. High-performance teams trust each teammate knows their role and takes responsibility for execution, communicates with honesty, asks for help when they need it, acknowledges and respects the diverse perspective of teammates, and puts team goals in front of individual goals and ego. They also understand that surprises cost money and waste time.
Cheer: Up cultivates respect from the esprit de corps developed under No Surprises. When teammates trust each other, they applaud each other’s (and the team’s) efforts. Relative to rewards, it’s about a job well done, not money. When mistakes are made, teammates come to the rescue rather than pointing fingers and playing games “Excuses” and “Blame Game.” By combining respect with an “I’ve got your back” attitude, they’re able to minimize conflicts and quickly work through them.
Visit carrots.com/orange for free resources, including videos on the Rule of 3 and a weekly orange e-idea (the “e” stands for esprit de corps).
“buy in: saving your good idea from getting shot down” by John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead, Harvard Business Review Press, $22.
How many times have you heard “No” flat out, or in the form of “Yes, but”? You’ve also undoubtedly encountered the characters the authors use in their parable about a great plan for the improving Centerville’s library. Among the naysayers, you’ll meet Pompus Meani (who values self-importance over doing the right thing), Heidi Agenda (who always has a personal reason for opposing just about everything) and Bendi Windi (who hasn’t had an original thought in years).
The naysayers disguise “No” and kill good ideas four ways: 1. confusing the issue (and everyone), 2. delaying action, 3. fear mongering and 4. diversion by ridicule and character assassination (ass-ass-ination?).
Let’s look at the idea killers and ways to defuse and diffuse them:
Confusion — It’s the “What about, what about, what about?” attack. With this endless-questioning tactic, conversation quickly drifts off-point. Once it does, people have difficulty connecting the dots, and assume the idea has not been thought through.
Death by delay — It’s easy to employ; all it takes is a suggestion that a committee needs to assess an idea’s merits, or that other already pressing issues will take a backseat to the new idea.
Fear mongering — This attack focuses on fear of the unknown (i.e. the future). It raises anxiety levels. Often historical missteps are brought out to remind people of “what happened the last time.”
Ridicule — Focused on the idea presenter, it’s a “did you really do all your homework” attack. By calling the presenter’s competence into question, it derails the idea.
So how do you deal with the idea killers? Face them head-on. “Don’t scheme to keep potential opponents out of the discussion. Let them in. Let them shoot at you. Even encourage them to shoot at you!” Do your homework. But don’t overwhelm idea killers with data that makes everyone’s eyes glaze over. Use simple, common sense answers that make complex issues easy-to-understand. Why? It’s hard to shoot down common sense. And never add fuel to their fire by becoming the bigger bully when attacked.
Jim Pawlak is a nationally syndicated book reviewer.
