Part 2. A Path to Our Greatest Potential. Unlocking Individual, Team, and Organizational Excellence
A multi-part series on the holistic view of a high performing growth enabling culture and organization
We want the lead well and have a thriving organization that grows.
We want to have great teams that are proud of their work.
Easy to say. Hard to do.
And by hard to do, I mean these are outcomes that do not occur without intention. Most likely, this is something you want, but can’t quite put your finger on how to produce.
Let’s talk about the building blocks that create a thriving organization with great teams.
In part 1 of the path to potential, we covered the nine progressive steps of the individual contributor becoming team-centered and then leading teams across the organization.
The purpose was to create context of how a leader progresses from me to we to all of us.
Let’s look closer at the nine steps in the image above.
Step 1 – Personal Skill and Capability. The foundation of individual talent and self-expression through work.
Step 2 – Self-Assured. Confidence based on past success and a growth mindset.
Step 3 – Team Integration. Moving from individual work to working collaboratively in a team.
Step 4 – Team-Assured. Trust in the team’s collective ability to problem solve rather than yourself alone.
Step 5 - Committed and Respectful Team. Success is an outflow of the team not the individuals. The team has a bias to act with all members of the team valuing each others contribution without toxic behavior.
Step 6 – Accountability and Healthy Debate. Acting as an owner and taking responsibility for actions without blaming others, relying on trustworthy behavior to debate and have no pride of authorship as the team seeks the optimal solution with a focus on getting stuff done without stalling out.
Step 7 – Complete and Unified Team. A high-performing, trust-based, adaptable team with each member being accountable to the team and the shared vision that is aligned and focused on outcomes.
Step 8 – Scaling Unified Teams. Recognizing core principles and systems that support healthy high performing teams being replicated to increase the number of accountable, aligned, and vision-focused and results oriented teams. Through this taking on larger opportunities and challenges to create value for the organization.
Step 9 – Empowerment by Organization. Operating from an organizational culture focused on empowerment, value-creation, shared purpose, ownership and collective effort with high-performing unified teams. Recognizing the clarity of vision can be translated into clear execution by committed healthy teams.
Essential Ideas:
Individuals create exponential value in unified teams.
Leadership is evolutionary in that we must see where we are in the journey to encourage progress from “me-focused” to “team-focused” to “organization empowering focused”. This is the work of leaders.
Integrated and connected individuals thrive through teams and throughout the organization when there are no silos and they have clarity and bias to act on shared vision.
Multiplying high-performing teams means exponential growth compared to the same individuals acting alone. Appreciating that the group (we) are more adaptable and better that any one person (me).
Vision acceleration is a natural outcome through productively doing the right work with the focus on unified teams. Which means you can realize more value in a year than most organizations can do in two or three years.
Now that we have expanded on the nine steps an individual goes through from focusing on themselves to leading teams to shaping an entire organization. We called this the journey from "me" to "we" to "all of us".
There are 3 key levels in this progression:
Personal Mastery: Developing individual skills and mindsets to thrive in teams.
Team Mastery: Enabling high-performing teams through psychological safety, accountability, and shared vision.
Organizational Mastery: Creating a culture of empowerment, alignment, and value creation through great teams.
With these 3 levels in mind, leaders should focus on:
Painting a bold vision that clarifies strategy, objectives, goals and alignment at all levels.
Adopting agile methods to deliver value fast while constantly improving.
Driving open collaboration, transparency, and knowledge sharing to accelerate impact.
Implementing systems to support team productivity, collaboration and health.
Viewing problems as opportunities to learn, grow, and move forward.
Tracking metrics tied directly to vision and your key definitions of success.
We do this because this is how you enable the progress up the nine steps.
Why go through this work?
Because at its core, business is about getting and keeping happy customers. That requires consistent value delivery from a healthy organization of aligned individuals unified in teams.
When modern leaders develop modern workers engaged in modern business, they gain exponential growth and impact through empowered teams fully committed to the shared vision.
The key is supporting individuals so they can multiply success through unified teams. With clarity of purpose, high-performing teams translate vision into reality.
Aligning Three Key Pillars
When we move in this direction, we are able to solidify our three aligning forces; Modern Business, Modern Leadership, and Modern Workers.
Looking through this lens enables us to embrace our situation and business landscape which is is defined by constant change locally and globally.
Let’s look at the basic elements of these three pillars.
Modern Business
Agile - Nimble, constantly adapting strategy based on market shifts, challenges, and continuous learning and improvement.
Data-Driven - Leveraging analytics and insights to make decisions.
Customer-centric - Prioritizing customer value, expansion, and growth.
Connected - No boundaries, global-first mindset even if geographically constrained and widely connected digitally.
Higher Purpose – Sustainable, ethical, purposeful and responsible to employees, stakeholders, and customers.
Modern Leadership
Transformational - Focus on building a vision and inspiring the team rather than mere command and control.
Distributed - Flat structures with shared ownership with empowered teams and individuals.
Emotionally Intelligent - Focus on culture and developing people to do their best work.
Tech-Enabled - Leveraging tools to drive productivity across all aspects of the organization.
Lifelong Learners – Continuous improvement and upskilling to face rapid change.
Modern Workers
Multi-Disciplinary - No longer confined to single skill sets, modern workers are often "T-shaped" with deep expertise in one area and a broad understanding of many others.
Flexible - Open to remote work and adjustable hours and creating value through knowledge work.
Purpose-Led - Seek meaning and impact beyond just a paycheck.
Collaborative - More team-oriented often with cross-functional teams to accelerate value creation.
Tech-Savvy - Innate ability to utilize digital tools and systems with high comfort in adopting new technology and considering automations and digital solutions to solve problems and gain velocity.
How it all comes together:
Alignment - The needs and methods of modern businesses, leaders, and workers increasingly align, leading to a more cohesive and efficient work environment. But require understanding across all elements.
Interdependent - Each group (businesses, leaders, workers) enhanced by access to information, partners, and the market all influence the evolution of strategies, teams, and value creation.
Enabled by Tech - Across all three categories, technology plays the role of an enabler, making it easier for them to adapt, problem solve and thrive.
Progressive - All three are constantly evolving and creating new insights and feedback which drives synergy rather than reinforcing silos and hoarding.
Sustained Success - When modern businesses, leaders, and workers align, they create a virtuous cycle that promotes long-term success, not just short-term gains.
From here we can capitalize on change, take risks, and realize exponential returns through empowered teams committed to a shared vision.
This is the GSD way. The key is to understand we are all at various levels of maturity across all these elements. This single insight can create tremendous progress when we picture the map it creates and where we are on that map in relations to the desired finish line we envision.
Questions to consider:
How might I take one thing from this and implement it in my context?
Where should I lean in (personally or at the team level or organizational level) to make progress?
What are my biggest challenges or concerns around my journey as a leader to take the next step on the path to potential?
#GSD
I appreciate you,
Justin