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17 Observations on What Makes Great Teams Great by Jordon Cooper

As I started writing this, I can overhear another team at Lakeview Church work through an exercise that will give them a mission or vision statement.  They are trying to figure out what kind of team they want to be and how to word their "statement".  I am glad I am not in that room. 

In my experience on all sorts of teams, I have been through similar meetings.  We discuss the role of the team, the mission of the team, the vision of the team, and core values of the team, the logo of the team, the official donut of the team for hours and even months.  One team I was on talked about these things off and on for over two years before it was eventually disbanded.

Team has become one of those wonderful buzzwords of the postmodern world.  As much as I hate it being abused, I also know the importance of it and what it models to the church and the community.  We are not a collection of Lone Rangers but a community of believers that work together.  I may groan when I hear the term but I appreciate what it represents more and more.

I wish I knew everything that made up a great ministry team but I don't, so I threw together my list of 17 observations.  It isn't anything definitive or irrefutable, nor is it anything terribly profound, just some draft thoughts to get some discussion going.  I have a feeling that the list will be changed lots.  Let the discussion begin!

1. Great teams get things done that matter.  Some of my favorite teams that I have been on have been election campaign teams.  We had a candidate that we thought could make a difference and we worked to that end.  Who wants to be on a team that isn't going to make any difference?  A friend of mine can't get anyone to be on his church's Board.  One of the reasons may be is that they don't think they can change anything.  Impotency is the biggest danger to any team.  Once you feel impotent, you are just going through the motions and wasting everyone's time.  I don't even know why people allow impotent teams to continue.  It is like they like to share the pain.

   The mission statement of every great team is always "we want to change the world."  That is true in the church too.  Great teams want to make a positive impact on the church and community.  If they don't, they are wasting my time and meeting room space.

2. Great teams aren't always cool.  We live in a culture that worships cool.  Teams are authentic.  That means that we have to risk something and sometimes put ourselves in positions that don't always show our manipulated and projected self image.  If you want to be cool, get off my team.  Teams need people to be real.  Without authenticity, we are playing games.  It may take us a while to get to that place but if you aren't interesting in coming along, others will be more than willing to take your place.

3. Great teams are online.  The greatest communication revolution of all time is here and team is about communication.  I am not talking about a team website (although in context of idea #9, it isn't a bad idea) but with e-mail, intranets, and instant messaging.  I talk to my team both day and night from home and work via Yahoo! Instant Messenger.  Our projects are tracked via our intranet/mailing list at Yahoo! Groups.  Get online and learn to communicate as a group.  Great teams aren't online because they have to be online, they are online because they want to communicate.  Teams also love things that speed up some processes.  Why?  We have lives at home too and it is nice to spend some time there.

4. Great teams are lead by great listeners.  A friend of mine went to his team leader at the church to talk over some problems he was having with the team.  He left frustrated because he felt that he was completely ignored.  That was his last day of effective ministry under that leader.  I had some "leaders" give one of the teams that I am on a whole new process and concepts of ministry once.  I was confused and a little overwhelmed by all the new data.  This seemed to perturb some of the leaders and when confronted, I said that "I needed some more time to process this information."  One of the leaders immediately became frustrated and started to challenge my confusion (not an overly productive conversation) while the other leader quietly listened to my concerns.  I was later able to go to him and talk things through.  I lost a lot of confidence in the person who couldn't or wouldn't listen to my concerns while gaining confidence in the one that did listen.  If you can't listen to and work through what is being said to those on the team, you can't lead it anywhere and are just deadwood.  Someone who can't listen is dragging everyone else under and disempowers faster than you can say "apathy."

5. Great teams are rarely surprised.  This goes along with the last point.  The reason I was feeling overwhelmed and frustrated is that I had all of it dumped on me without knowing it was coming.  If you are on a team with great people and you trust them, you shouldn't have to surprise them with anything.  Data and ideas don't need to be protected or sheltered on a great team.  They are presented earlier in the process for the simple reason that we trust each other to work things out.  If you can't trust your team, then you are wasting yours and their time.

6. Great teams trust each other.  I was on a team once where there was an element of mistrust.  Even if one person does not trust the others around the table, it starts to erode the team element.  When I trust those around me, it frees me to do what I do best instead of checking up on them.  When I am trusted, I know I stretch my wings and go places where I may not have gone before.  It gives me the confidence to think outside and leave the box and explore new possibilities.  It allows me to think revolutionary thoughts instead of wondering if anyone cares about what I am thinking.  Trust liberates teams.  Distrust destroys them.

7. Great teams may not have a great leader.  It is all about a great solo leader right?  Not any more.  If you aren't a great leader leading a great team, you need to realize it.  If you are a leader in name only, then you have to find the real leader or maybe accept team leadership.  If your focus is clear enough, you may not even need a leader, the path may be set.  The path leads you, not a person.  The leader may articulate that vision but if he or she really has to lead us, then we are all in trouble.

8. Great teams stand up for each other.  If someone from the outside wants to call out a member of the team, the rest are ready to take some of the fall.  They rise and they fall together.  It isn't about getting all the glory nor is it about avoiding the fall.  There is no shame in giving it all and failing.  No is their any shame to accept the fact that someone on that team may have made a mistake and life goes on.

9. Great teams have great t-shirts or coffee mugs or pirate flags (original Mac development team) or DC-3 wings (Ideo).  An icon that sets the team apart from the rest of the world or even the church.   Some may question that it hurts unity but I don't think it does.  It gives the team an identity and some personality.  The pirate flags flying over the Mac development building are legendary but so can a coffee shop, some team shirts or a team space within a church.  You aren't creating a secret society or a private club but a space where people can experience community and hang out.  Don't make that into a top-secret lair.  I know of one ministry who put a big lock on the door to their space and only gave out the combination to a handful of team members.  He used it to control the team instead of building it.  It didn't matter how many times they told people they were "valued members of the team", they knew they weren't.  If you don't trust me with the combination for the door, you don't trust me with too much else.  Don't use the icon or space to control, use it to welcome in.

10. Teams have great stories and they need to tell them.  If you are looking for an icon to represent your team, think of a defining story or experience you have gone through.  Maybe it was a road trip, a series of all-nighters, or a time when you relied on God as a group like never before.  Maybe it was a time when one of you came to Christ.  My old church that I attended before becoming a pastor send a team to Haiti every year to work on some short term missions.  No greater stories come home than those that have a person choosing to follow Christ or rededicating their life to the Lord.  Those stories need to be told and rallied around.  Make those stories a part of who you are.  As important as vision is, where you have come from is also a galvanizing factor.

11. Great teams finish things up.  I was on a team that did an amazing job of getting the job 80% done and then would let the project fizzle out.  It was so frustrating.  After a while we would start something and everyone knew that the idea would lose momentum and die so what is the point in continuing or even starting something new.  It comes down to implementing ideas and strategies.  When I realized that this team could do neither, it turned our time together into a stressful, painful event.  Since we never finished anything, I never felt any sort of completion or the satisfaction of a job well done.

12. Great teams attack life together.  They party together, they drink coffee together, they talk.  We entertain each others families.  Great teams live life together.  I am not talking about communal living but if you shudder of the thought of seeing them after your meetings, chances are you aren't that effective as a team.  The great teams in the church that I have been on have worshipped, prayed, and served together.  Christ unified us and brought us to community.  It wasn't a function or a task that just drove us.  We cared and loved each other.  Living life together makes a group bigger than a task, it melds them into family.

13. Great teams do not rely on hierarchy.  The more clearly defined organizational chart the team that I am on has, the more I get worried about the effectiveness of this team.  I was on one church team that had pages of organizational charts.  They all ran up and down.  If I wanted that kind of organization, I would go work at General Motors.  Don't get me wrong, not all organization is wrong but when I start to see "Team-Leader" and "Assistant Team Leader" and a chart that is several levels deep, I ask myself if I joined a team or the civil service.  Teams are flat, not command and control based organizations.  This is a major stumbling block for people as it is easier to build a command and control structure than it is to build a team. 

14. Great teams have some fun.  I don't know if having fun together makes a great team or if great teams just have fun.  Fun feeds off of good teams and good teams grow through having fun.  That looks different in every team.  For me, I want to go paintballing or go-karting or playing Doom over the network.  For others, it involves some shopping or a more intiment time.  Don't try to program fun but don't stifle it either.

15. Great teams are not found in books or on websites.  What I mean by this is that there are a lot of "how-to" books and articles on how to make a great team.  Those tools and ideas often look and read great in print but when it really comes down to it, they don't also work out well in person.  No matter how compelling Peter Senge, Jim Collins, Peter Drucker or whoever's theories are, they have to be worked out in the real world and that means adjustment, compromise and sometimes tossing the book out.  One of my great frustrations in team are those who do not realize when their book is not working.  It is about real people, not chess pieces. 

16. Great teams have great logistics.  I don't care who takes care of this but if my computer can't log-in to the network, we miss a print date, or run out of coffee in the middle of the night, there is a problem.  Not only for me but for other members of the team.  Teams figure out logistics so the focus is on the real goal.  So many teams in the church are under resourced.  I know most of the ones that I have been on have been.  There is never enough money.  There is never enough space and never enough people.  This is a challenge for church leadership-resource your people and also a challenge to the teams-make due and work around the problem.   While the generals always get credit for winning the battle, without proper logistics for their armies, the battle would never have been fought.

17. Great teams look forward.  It doesn't matter if you last outreach event or service was the greatest success or the greatest failure, you have to keep looking forward.  If it sucked, get over it.  If it was amazing, enjoy it but don't rest on your laurels.  Don't fight the last fight again.  Great teams are about the future and getting the next job done

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