Have you ever watched a soccer game in which one team was one or two players less because of red cards or injuries? Have you seen games with this situation where the handicapped team was better and even won?
What you experienced there is a common behaviour of groups. The team with the worse position or with less possibilities has big chances to perform better. Why is that? I think it has a lot to do with distraction. There aren’t so many people that are really good in managing their daily business, in fact they aren’t good in thinking about different tasks at the same time. So if you aren’t focussing on what is important, you will get distracted.
One of the most common reflexes when looking at new projects is to make them bigger and to ask for more resources. That will increase your budget and you think that you buy yourself time as you made the problem bigger than it really is. Believe me, that’s not true. You actually put a lot more pressure on yourself by doing so. You increase expectations and you get yourself so much management attention that you’ll be so busy to report and justify that you don’t have enough time for your project.
The same reflex comes into play when projects are late. I think it was my first course in economics when we were told that increasing team size during a project won’t bring productivity. Even though this knowledge made it to the economic starters, the reality is different. It still happens all the time and the results are still frustrating.
We’ve learned that it’s not about how much resources you have; it’s about having the right focus. (Stephen Liguori, executive director, Global Innovation of GE)
That’s where a big advance of startups comes into sight. Startups are usually very small groups of people that have an enormous amount of work to do and therefore are forced to reduce surroundings to the minimum. That’s just a normal reaction. Additionally there’s that “we can show it to the big guys” thing in their heads. The motivation is not money or the nice and warm bed they’re lying in. Their motivation is the wish to show the world what they can do with their limited resources. It’s that feeling of never giving up as there’s always something to do. And I’m not only talking about the founders here. This is also true about the team members!
If you’re able to manage a corporate team in the way that they think of themselves as people that are so handicapped by the situation there’s a realistic chance that you can build up this soccer team with the two players less that fights for its life. You might experience much more productivity and great pragmatism as your teammates will focus on what is really important and will fade out all those normal corporate environmental things. The common goal of heroism and being better than everyone else will arise in your team.
So keep it small, the expectations and your team.
Categories: basics
the lean consultant | mantro.net 