Business Case Studies, Executive Interviews, Howard M Guttman on Building High Performance Teams

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Executive Interviews: Interview with Howard M Guttman on Building High Performance Teams
May 2009 - By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary


Howard M Guttman
principal of Guttman Development Strategies, Inc


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  • Congratulations on your latest book, Great Business Teams: Cracking the Code for Standout Performance. In it, you have examined the inner workings of over 30 business teams, at topmanagement, business-unit, and functional levels, to offer a radically new vision of the emerging horizontal organization and of the highperforming teams that are the cornerstone of its success. What are the insights from this book on great business teams?
    I think readers will be struck by how deeply people change when they are exposed to this model. There is a fundamental difference in the way they view themselves vis-à-vis the other players on their team, their leader, and, ultimately, the organization. Functional and selfinterest take a back seat to “winning for the business”; responsibility and accountability are no longer avoided, but embraced; and every team member behaves as though he or she were an owner of the business.

    There has been a lot of talk about how to improve performance at both the team and the organization levels, but you rarely hear first-hand stories from companies who’ve done it. Great Business Teams provide lots of them – along with proven ways to overcome the challenges that inevitably arise.

  • Can you take us through the background research for this book? What was the trigger point for this book? What was the tipping point of this book?
    After almost 30 years of consulting with senior executive teams throughout the world, we realized that there is a code for standout performance: one that applies to every organization, regardless of size, type, or industry affiliation. We wanted to share this code with organizations that were trying to change their game. Cracking the code will help them acquire a sustained competitive advantage and the ability to excel in a very difficult marketplace.

  • What according to you are great business teams?What is ‘great’?What are the differences between ordinary business teams and great business teams?What are the classic behaviors exhibited by non-high-performing teams?
    A great team is one in which every player is a leader. What makes such a team ‘great’ is that it is riveted on business results – not just on achieving the goals it has been given, but on continually raising the bar. A great team is anti-status quo.

    Underperforming teams, on the other hand, are teams made up of followers. They generally defer to the leader, whom they see as the one primarily responsible for results. They view themselves first and foremost as functional ambassadors to the team. Their behavior is characterized by inter-functional rivalry and competition for resources. They are often wary of one another, and conflict may be expressed either overtly – in unproductive confrontations – or covertly – as subterfuge and underground behavior.

  • In the book, you talk a lot about “aligning” teams? What is this process and what does it accomplish?
    When an organization is properly aligned, its parts move in sync to achieve results. There is a straight line of sight that goes from the organization’s strategy to its customers. Scarce human, financial, and capital resources are deployed along that line of sight, so value gets created and added quickly, consistently, and cost effectively. This makes the aligned organization fiercely competitive and an ultimate high-performance entity. And you can’t have an aligned organization without aligned teams. The first step in moving a team to higher performance is “aligning” it, or making sure that all its members reach agreement, in five key areas: business strategy; business deliverables coming fromthe strategy; roles and responsibilities; protocols, or ground rules, for decision making and conflict resolution; business/ interpersonal relationships. The resulting clarity and congruity eliminate a large part of the conflict that keeps teams from resolving issues and achieving results.

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