Executive Interviews: Interview with Bill Fischer on Building High Performance Teams
May 2009 - By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary

Bill Fischer
Professor of Technology, IMD

• You have observed that, “virtuoso teams play by a different set of rules than other teams.” Can you please highlight the differences between virtuoso teams and traditional teams?
  One way of considering VTs is to compare them with what are normally referred to as highperforming teams. We’ve done this in a tabular format in the Exhibit.

  Exhibit High Performing Teams Vs Virtuoso Teams
  High Performing Teams	Virtuoso Teams
  • Shared leadership roles	• Fluid directorship roles – but always under the tutelage of a strong central leader
  • Individual and mutual accountability	• Individual responsibility within team of mutual expertise
  • Specific team purpose that the team itself delivers – typically short-term project goals	• License to change the world
  • Collective work-products	• Individual accomplishment within a team context
  • Encourages open-ended discussion and active problem-solving meetings	• Direct dialog: Wide-open and contentious plus a central decision maker
  • Measures performance directly by assessing collective work-products	• Peer-based approval for individual performance; Explicit opportunity for individual recognition
  • Discusses, decides, and delegates, does real work together	• Individuals working as individuals within a team context

• To realize the full potential of virtuoso teams in the way your research companies have worked, there must be a definite set of rules that decide the success of these teams. What are the critical success factors for virtuoso teams really pulling it off?
  The secret to successful VTs, we believe, lies in the leaders; their selfconfidence; their ambitiousness; and the way that they play their role. Almost always, the leader either has the original vision, or is given real ownership over it. Self-confidence is critical; therefore, as they have to ultimately assemble a team to deliver on the dream, and in doing that, with the quality of the talent that is typically involved, they have to share the authorship of the dream. In fact, what they so often did was to share the dream without compromising it! To be strong, ambitious, enthusiastic, opinionated and still willing to share your dream; this is not easy!

• What kind of organizational structure, organizational culture and leadership are required to achieve the desired results from virtuoso teams?
  We believe that leadership is the key, and in fact it has been suggested that what we actually looked at were Virtuoso Leaders. Our belief is that when you look at the leaders of the teams that we described, there were several attributes that they all had in common. Virtuoso Leaders are characterized by:

1. Listening rather then telling
   these leaders are world-class listeners, and they often describe their jobs in such terms.When you’re surrounded by experts who know more than you do, this is a good way to begin!
2. Focusing on collaboration and an exchange of ideas (not idea hoarding)
   VTs prosper by putting ideas into play, rather than by protecting them. One very important job of the Virtuoso Team leader is to ensure that this actually happens – that everyone contributes and that everyone is involved.
3. Building a learning culture
   Prototyping is at the heart of the VT learning culture, and this means that the leader is reallymore of a facilitator than an authoritarian leader. The idea is to engage the power of the whole group, rather than appearing to be an expert in your own right. In fact, most of the VT leaders are/were experts in their own right, but what made them exceptional was their recognition that by combining with other experts they could be even better. It was Miles Davis, in fact, who said that he “tried to play one new idea every night!” What a great vision for us all!
4. Challenge ideas not the ‘person’
   Not being “polite” and having the “capacity to challenge” might appear to be a formula for destructive interpersonal relations, but it is part of the VT leader’s facilitation role to ensure that these fast and “constructive” conversations are always about “our performance,” and never about anyone’s unsuitability as a team member. It is the ideas that we’re trying to attack, not the individual’s self–worth. Directness and forthrightness do not have to be diminishing. One familiar characteristic of these leaders is the affection with which the team members look back on the experience.
5. Creating an environment where conversations occur regularly
   Conversational environments are critical to facilitating great idea movement.We were struck by the VT Leaders’ reliance on physical spaces that increased the likelihood of great conversations; spaces where physical limitations encouraged idea intimacy; the arrangement of agendas to emphasize urgency; and the insistence on every voice being heard.
6. Allowing individuals to remain individuals
   This, of course, is key! Attracting great people, and then allowing them to be as great as their individual promise, within a team context!
7. Being a talent scout
   We were surprised and impressed with how much time VT leaders spent searching for talent, rather than petitioning HR for “more new bodies”. VT leaders typically selected their team members personally, by name, and gave-up doing other things in order to search for talent.