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Executive Interviews: Interview with Howard M Guttman on Building High Performance Teams
May 2009
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By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary
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Can you give an illustrative
example of a ‘great’ business team?
What specific lessons can be learnt
from it?
When Catherine Burzik became
president of Applied Biosystems
(AB), the company had been stagnant
for several years, with little revenue
growth and falling stock prices.
Despite significant R&D expense,
there were few new products in the
pipeline. Both Wall Street and AB
employees had lost confidence in the
company. Burzik quickly moved to
push decisionmaking down from her
office to her EVPs. She created subteams
and gave them the authority to
deal with issues that didn’t require
the full participation of the team.
Speedy decision making and
implementation began to replace
bottlenecks and impasses. She was
able to focus on the strategic issues
facing the company. As a result,
business accelerated. AB’s stock price
nearly doubled, as did its market cap.
Revenue began to grow and the
bottom line has seen double-digit
performance. After several years of no
acquisitions, two significant ones
were successfully completed. The lessons: First, the CEO – or any
other teamleader, for thatmatter – has
got to let go. Decision-making power
needs to be distributed, not hoarded.
Second, Burzik’s predecessor had
become so entangled in the day-to-day operations of the business that he
lost sight of his strategic
responsibility. By creating a team that
could be trusted to deal with the
tactical, shewas able to refocus on the
strategic. What is their code for standout
performance? What is their DNA?
All great teams have five
characteristics embedded in their
“DNA”. They have a unique kind of
leader: one who is willing to
distribute power; puts a premium on
open, honest communication; and
insists that team members hold him
or her accountable for commitments
made. Members of high-performing
teams are unique as well: playing for
the team, not themselves; willing to
accept the power and responsibility
that have been entrusted to them;
willing to accept accountability for
their performance and their peers;
willing to give and receive honest
feedback. In addition, great teams
have rules in place for decision
making and interpersonal behavior;
they are continually raising the
performance bar; and they have in
place a performance system that
rewards not just what they
accomplish, but how they achieve it. You have outlined five
requirements for successfully creating
great teams on every level. For the
benefit of our readers, can you please
elaborate on these?
First requirement: keep it simple.
What drives this model is the way in
which people interact with one
another. By creating an atmosphere of
mutual trust and respect,
transparency, accountability, and
agreed-upon rules of engagement,
you automatically eliminate many of
the barriers to efficient teamwork.
Second, remember that moving to
this model isn’t a step-by-step process
from which you can’t deviate. There
is no single “right way” to do it.
When it comes to cascading the
model down through the organization, we tell our clients, “Do
what works for you.” Third, you also need commitment
from the organization’s leaders –
starting at the very top. They need to
provide the vision and the passion to
make it a reality. Fourth, leadership
also needs to communicate clearly, to
every level, what they are trying to do
and how they are going to go about it.
Transparency is key to obtaining buyin. Lastly, create a high-performing
culture. Begin by asking: How can we
reinforce the existing positive cultural
values, such as a focus on results; a
horizontal orientation; the
willingness to be held accountable, to
confront, and to be transparent; and
other attributes of high-performance
teams and players? Next, ask: What
implicitly held values need to be
brought to the surface, examined,
and, if need be,modified or put aside.
Some common inhibitors: niceness
that gets in the way of candor; the
tendency to overanalyze, a focus on
consensus decision making, risk
aversion, and the like. Build on the
positive and eliminate the negative
aspects of your existing culture in
order to create a robust culture of high
performance throughout your
organization.
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