Three-Dimensional Team Building

Building Teams to Succeed in Every Aspect of the Game

Robert Payne

• Publisher: House of Payne Enterprises
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780578602783
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

“ Three-Dimensional Team Building: Building Teams to Succeed in Every Aspect of the Game is culmination of a series of "Three-Dimensional" books by Robert Payne Jr following his insights on Leadership and Followership and further builds on his experience building and working in teams after 24 years of military service and 20 years of ordained ministry. As the importance of people working together increases, organizers must focus not only the outcomes of those teams but the intricacies of putting those teams together. Three-Dimensional Team Building addresses the details of putting teams together that are able to complete the assigned task, provide a positive working environment for the team and provide development and growth opportunities for the individual members of those team. This balanced approach will assure team builders successfully handle the challenges inherent to bringing disparate individuals together to accomplish a singular task and ultimately benefit the organization and the members of the team.

Chapter 1: This is a Team Game

Growing up, the Payne household was centered around sports. I didn’t identify the seasons as “Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring”, but as “Football, Basketball, and Baseball.” We talked about sports, read about sports, played sports and watched sports. If there was a ball involved, we were into it. Actually, I need to make an adjustment to those statements. We were into TEAM sports. I knew people who played golf and tennis but those weren’t “real” sports to me because they were played by individuals. Upon further review, I see the faultiness of my logic in regards to the definition of a “sport,” but I can also clearly see why football, baseball and basketball were so attractive to me. Those games were not just about winning. They were about winning TOGETHER. To be successful, disparate individuals had to function as an integrated unit. Yes, each team had big stars but those stars were surrounded by role players and whether they were all-stars or no-stars, they shared a common uniform and a common goal that required each of them to play their part so the ultimate goal could be achieved. Obviously, the impact of teams when it comes to being successful goes way beyond the basketball court, football field or baseball diamond. Maybe it’s just my skewed perspective but the creation of teams and the constant call for collaboration seems to have expanded into every aspect of society, from the classroom to the board room and beyond. And quite frankly, as budgets get smaller within and between organizations, the necessity of putting groups together to accomplish larger goals is only going to grow. Therefore, the question isn’t whether or not we will have and be a part of teams, but how do we build teams that are designed for success.

The truth is we’ve been exposed to the concept of teams since our earliest days of elementary school. I know you remember standing on the basketball court just hoping to be picked by someone to be a part of the team. Or how about the agony of the teacher not only assigning a group project, but choosing those you would work with as well? Then again, maybe it was worse when the teacher let us pick our own partner for the project. Regardless of the environment, teams were a part of our formative years. And while these experiences probably didn’t impact the state of world politics for decades to come, I believe those opportunities deeply affected how we form, join, and work within teams today. In fact, some of us don’t consider ourselves team-players as we are haunted by memories of partners who didn’t do any work on that project in 8th grade science. Because we didn’t have positive experiences with teams in the past, we do everything we can to avoid being joined to a team in our current affairs. Unfortunately, with the rise of teaming agreements and cooperative efforts, this “anti-team” philosophy will ultimately be detrimental to our personal success and ironically, to the success of the teams forming around us.

Similar to my desire to write a book on followership, a book on team-building seemed appropriate because even though we’ve been building, joining, and operating in teams all our lives, I’m not sure too many of us have actually considered how we go about putting teams together and signing up to join those teams to ensure success on all fronts. We do what we’ve always done and then sadly, we get what we’ve always gotten. Our teams tend to be good at one thing and not-so-good at others. That’s why the subtitle of the book is “Building Teams to Succeed in Every Aspect of the Game.” Just like Three-Dimensional Leadership and Three-Dimensional Followership, the aspects of this game involve the task, the team and the individuals involved. Maybe it’s just me, but until I started working on this book, I never considered all three of these areas when I was making and participating in teams. Some teams are built for specific tasks and must accomplish that task to be successful. Therefore, anyone building or joining a team must do so with the END in mind. However, when a team is able to accomplish the END of a task but the members that make up that team don’t work well together, the team is ultimately going to suffer. I mean, how many amazing collections of athletes have we seen win a lot of games, and maybe even championships, but the individual players were labelled as being bad teammates? There was a responsibility expected of the players beyond making shots and winning games. Each member of the team was expected to be beneficial to the other members of that team. When they weren’t, the team suffered and never achieved their full potential. Therefore, a major consideration for the team is the BLEND of the team. How do the individual team members impact the overall structure and effectiveness of the team? Finally, a well-built team will not only take care of the task and work well together, but will have processes and procedures in place to take care of the individual team members. While asking the “what’s in it for me?” question is often frowned upon, it is a very important question because we need to know if being a part of this team will help us move forward in life. On the other side, when we build teams, because there are so many out there, those of us responsible for making decisions must determine why someone should join our team. What distinguishes our team from the myriad of other teams out there? Both those forming teams and those joining teams need to consider the TEND of the team. How does the team take care of the team members? A team that treats people like commodities to be used and thrown away at a moment’s notice will never achieve true success.

Before I continue, I should probably clarify what I mean by “team.” The second definition of “team” from Dictionary.com defines a team as “a number of persons associated in some joint action.”^[1] I feel that definition is necessary because too often people think of teams as only those who participate in an athletic event. However, for the purpose of this book, “team” will take on a broader meaning of a group of two or more individuals organized to work together. Throughout the book I will use other words for “team” such as “organization,” “partnership,” and “group” to help us see the reach of the “team” definition.

Team-building is the natural culmination point of this series of Three-Dimensional books. After all, the terms “leader” and “follower” imply the forming a team, being part of a team or joining a team. Therefore, when you are a leader and you are tasked to put together a team, how do you do that? When you are a follower, and you have a choice to join a team, how do you decide if that team is right for you? My desire is that this book will tie together the other two books as we move forward to not only being successful as individuals but also successful within environments that require partnership and team play. Life is a team game and the better we play, the better everyone else will be.

Taking a 3-D Look at Your Team

1. Are you a team player?

1. How do you define a team?

1. What were the traits of the best team you were ever part of?

1. What were the traits of the worst team you were ever part of?

1. For the worst team you were ever apart of, would it have been possible to bring that team together?

Chapter 2: Build the Team for the END of the Task

Begin with the end in mind.

—Stephen Covey

On those rare weekends when there is nothing formal on the schedule for the Payne family, my wife and I will plan to just get in the car and go. Maybe we’ll have breakfast or visit an estate sale or go give platelets. The bottom line to those days is we are going to do things we consider fun, and do them together. However, because I’m a planner, this kind of spontaneity messes with my inner sensibilities so I have to have some sort of plan. So while Linda is just ready to jump in the car, I am walking around asking one basic question, “What’s the END of the day?” You see, before I start something, I want to know where we are going. Knowing where we are going will help me make the necessary decisions about which way to go, what must be done and what can wait, and how long do we plan on being at each location. I will accept deviations from the plan but I will not accept not starting with a plan. Now this may sound obvious to a lot of people but I’m not wholly convinced we consider the END when we are putting teams together.

Remember the definition of “team” we identified in the previous chapter mentioned a group associated for “joint action.” And the action is certainly important but what is the END of the action. If we’re working on a class project, are we looking for an “A” or do we just want to pass? On the football field, is the team focused on having a winning season, making the playoffs or winning the championship? I’ve told anyone who will listen that if we are keeping score, winning matte...