I recently wrote a post about the importance of understanding your team's purpose. After all, purpose drives everything. It drives what's on the team's "agenda" and what's not (I am using the term "agenda" more broadly than meeting agenda. I am referring to the specific areas the team should be focused on).

An important step in clarifying team purpose is to first understand the "type" of team you need (and want).

With the economy recovering and business picking up, I have been asked the following question several times by clients and potential clients in the past few weeks...

"How do we keep growing and maintain our culture at the same time?"

That is a great question.

Things seemed to be changing quickly. In just a matter of three months, Ben was unexpectedly promoted from Consultant to Manager, Angela was hired and then quit, and now Henry was coming on board.

“So, how’s it going?” Ben's Manager Steve asked.

“Swamped,” Ben replied. “Henry’s started as of last Tuesday and so far seems to be working out pretty well.”

“Great,” Steve responded without knowing that Ben was about to continue.

“It’s nice having another resource around.”

“What?” Steve asked as he looked sharply back at Ben.

My clients often ask me,"How big should our team be?"

My answer is typically...it depends.

It depends on the purpose of the team.

The challenge on many teams is a lack of clarity about a team's true purpose. In most cases, team's don't even know that they don't know their purpose.

This is usually a bigger issue at the senior leadership team level, where a CEO, VP, or Director leads a
team of other leaders.

I have found myself reading works by Napoleon Hill, an American author who was one of the earliest producers of the modern genre of personal success literature. In the early nineteen hundreds, Andrew Carnegie commissioned him to interview over 500 successful men and women in order to discover and publish their formula for success.

Last week Dick Winters died at age 92.

He was described in a Wall Street Journal article as the leader of a valiant World War II paratrooper company that became famous a half-century later in historian Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers. I first read the book while I was on active duty, and then later watched the HBO miniseries (about 10 times).

The Leadership Story

It had been almost three weeks since their last one-on-one, but having returned from India and with Angela's sudden departure, Steve was anxious to get the process started again. He reflected on how easy it was for pressing matters to get in the way of focusing on important things like coaching his people.

Ben was rushed and a bit frustrated that he had to attend this one on one. Especially today, it seemed there were so many deadlines waiting on his attention.

In  my last blog post, I talked about a client I worked with in Fort Collins, Colorado and how important it is to have clarity about your senior leadership team's purpose.

But let me take a step back.

I recently worked with a team in Fort Collins, Colorado helping them build alignment and cohesion.

The CEO was a technologist. The Sales VP wanted to see a more sales-driven organization. The Engineering VP needed more engineers to meet the demands of a singificant customer contract. The CFO wanted to instill process and financial discipline. The HR VP was mostly focused on administration.

Each person came to the team with his/her own agenda and vision.

The team was a mess.

Performance reviews are right around the corner. This year, make them more meaningful using our Workplace Expectations Profile.

It's a simple and inexpensive tool that will help you understand your employees' work expectations, and help them understand yours.

I know that many of my clients here in Denver and Fort Collins are typically clear about expectations when it comes to salary and benefits, but other expectations often go unspoken.