The Team Charter

A Performance Focused Team consists of 2 or more people who develop and commit to a common purpose, performance goals, values and working approach and who hold themselves individually and mutually accountable for performance results.

Teams have existed for hundreds of years. Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith learned that much of the wisdom of teams lies in the disciplined pursuit of performance: a focus on collective work-products, personal growth and performance results. We will be using their framework as a theoretical background for our deliberations.

Katzenbach and Smith found that groups become teams through disciplined action. They shape a common purpose; agree on common performance goals; define a common working approach; develop high levels of complementary skills; and as a common value, hold themselves mutually accountable for results. As with any effective discipline, they never stop doing any of these things. My experience in leading team building seminars over the years, has taught me that the best approach to this disciplined action, in the initial stages, is the development of a Team Charter; one that will clearly define the team’s role, expectations and aspirations, and set the tone for both individual and mutual commitment. Once we have the Team Charter in place as a foundation, the developing team can then begin to work on some of the behavioral issues it will have to resolve in order to achieve its results. Performance Focused Teams win because they commit, practice and continuously improve. This continuous monitoring of the team members’ progress in working together to achieve performance goals is an integral part of the team building process.

In Part I of this booklet, we will begin the team building process by developing our unique Team Charter. Once the Team Charter has the commitment of each team member, we will then, in Part II, begin to work through specific questions related to how the team will work together effectively. How will we hold each other individually/mutually accountable? Do roles need to be clarified? How will conflict be managed? This two-part process requires a significant commitment of time and energy. Successful teams don’t just happen, nor does personal chemistry matter as much as we may think. I believe the Team Charter approach, which focuses on performance results as the driving force—as opposed to chemistry, togetherness, or personality traits—produces successful teams better than any other method.

Why teams? In any situation requiring a real-time combination of skills, experiences and judgments, teams invariably get better results than collectives of individuals operating within confined job roles and responsibilities. Teams are more flexible than larger organizational groupings because they can be more quickly assembled, deployed, refocused and disbanded; usually in ways that enhance rather than disrupt more permanent structures and processes. Teams are more productive than groups that have no clear performance objectives because their members are committed to deliver tangible peformance results. Teams and performance are an unbeatable combination. The synergetic results and the individual growth and development of the team members are well worth the effort.

There are several reasons to explain why teams perform well:

• they bring together complementary skills and experiences,
• they jointly develop clear goals and approaches and establish communication that supports real-time problem solving and initiative,
• they provide a unique social dimension that helps to overcome barriers that stand in the way of collective performance,
• they just have more fun; both in celebrating the successes and in being part of something larger than self.

During our deliberations, we may need to differentiate between work groups, teams and teamwork, in relation to our own performance challenge and development. A work group’s performance is a function of what its members do as individuals; the focus is on individual goals and accountability. A team’s performance includes both individual and collective results. These collective results reflect the real, joint contributions of team members. When we talk about teamwork, we are normally referring to a set of values that encourage listening, respond constructively to others, and provide support and recognition. It will be important to understand that teamwork as a value is just as important in work groups as in Performance Focused Teams. We may decide that we operate more realistically as a work group and that the real issues for us are how to embrace teamwork as a value and how to develop a charter that will provide our group with ongoing, general direction. The question is whether the sum of individual bests will suffice for the performance challenge at hand.

Teams bring many advantages, but they are not the solution to everyone’s current or future organizational needs. They will not solve every problem. Moreover, when misapplied, they can be wasteful and disruptive.

It is recognized that achieving team performance is challenging. Long standing habits of individualism, confusion about teams and teamwork, and adverse team experiences all undercut the possibilities teams offer. Yet, the fact remains that work groups and potential teams, throughout the organization, usually can perform much better than they do. It is toward this untapped potential that we address this Performance Focused Team building effort.

The best companies know without a doubt where real productivity comes from. It comes from challenged, empowered, excited, rewarded teams of people. It comes from engaging every single mind in the organization, making everyone part of the action, and allowing everyone to have a voice in the success of the enterprise. Doing so raises productivity, not incrementally, but by multiples.
– General Electric Chairman and CEO Jack Welch