5 TRIP WIRES

IN DESIGNING
& LEADING
TEAMS
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Introduction

Trip Wire #One

Trip Wire #Two

Trip Wire #Three

Trip Wire #Four

Trip Wire #Five

How to Overcome the Trip Wires

About Mike Cardus

Contact
Teams and teamwork are what drives much of our current economy. Using teams to achieve strategic
and operational goals seems to increase while organizations get flatter, technology serves as a catalyst
or hindrance for communication, employees tasked with being more productive with smaller teams,
and the time-frame to complete the work is lessened, using cross-functional teams and other team
structures seem like the only option. However, you cannot just throw a bunch of smart people into a
room and expect them to work together.
Team building takes support from management, known goals and boundaries, accountability
plus authority of the team and team members, plus the skills to complete the goal. Having
spent time researching and supporting team progress, I have identified the following
five tripwires in designing and leading teams.

1 Call them a team but manage them as individuals

2 Fall off the authority and accountability

balance beam

3 Assemble a large group of people, tell them

in general terms what needs to be done,
and let them work out the details

4 Specify challenging team objectives,

but skimp on organizational
supports

5 Assume that team

members already have
all the competence
they need to work
well as a team MY ARGUMENT IS THAT THROUGH
UNDERSTANDING THE TRIPWIRES, YOU CAN
SENSE WHERE A TEAM MAY BE STRUGGLING
AND KNOW WHERE YOU CAN FOCUS, THEN
DEVELOP SOME INTERVENTION TO
SUPPORT THE TEAM PROGRESS.
TRIP WIRE
#ONE

CALL THE PERFORMING UNIT

A TEAM BUT MANAGE
THE MEMBERS AS
INDIVIDUALS.
There is no one right way to create and sustain a team. Two extremes of team development:

1 Assign specific tasks to specific people and align their individual

output to the same tasks of other people.

2 Assign group responsibility and authority for an entire goal and let
the members decide for themselves how to work it out.

While either option can be useful, a choice must be made. A mixed model, which takes pieces of both
options, people are told they are a team and are treated as individual performers creates confusion,
dysfunctional team politics, and manipulation. You cannot throw a bunch of smart people in a room
and expect them to become a team.
Actions must be taken to:

1 Establish boundaries

2 Define the tasks that members are collectively accountable

3 Identify the tasks that members are individually accountable for

and how those tasks align with the collective

4 Ensure team members and those needed to support the team’s

effort have the requisite authority to manage internal and external
clients and co-workers
TRIP WIRE
#TWO

FALL OFF THE AUTHORITY

AND ACCOUNTABILITY
BALANCE BEAM.
When organizing a group of people to complete a task anxiety is in the process. Both managers and
team members tend to be uncomfortable clarifying areas of authority leading to a collusion of what
they can and can’t do. When all power goes to the team and none to the manager, this can result in
anarchy or a team that takes the work in a direction that is outside the boundaries. When all authority
goes to the managers and none to the team, this can result in managers dictating in detail how all
the work gets done, losing many of the advantages that come from teamwork.

Finding where on this Authority Continuum [Manager———Team] is appropriate in which context will
help team effectiveness.
Authority Team Leaders should keep

1 Authority about direction—the end states

(large goal or objective)

2 Boundaries, outer limits of team behavior—things

the team must always or never do

3 Accountability to support the team

to achieve, move toward the goal
or objective

Authority Team Members should keep

1 The means (the how) by which the

work gets accomplished

2 Accountability to define
how the work gets
accomplished

EFFECTIVE TEAMING IS IMPOSSIBLE UNLESS

SOMEONE EXERCISES JUDGMENT
ABOUT DIRECTION.
Having clear direction helps align team efforts with the objectives of the organization, provides team
members with criteria for determining how to complete team tasks, and creates plus sustains energy
within the team. When the direction is unclear or absent, some people may result to political or
manipulative means; others may become apathetic and have little motivation.

As a manager, who is designing and leading a team, addressing where accountability sits will have an
impact on success or failure, this is a learned skill that comes from knowledge and wisdom through
behavior and cognition. Just knowing the rules for defining authority and accountability is insufficient,
practice is requisite to understand the context and apply discretion to help the team achieve objectives.

A looming challenge for managers happens in the early stages of creating a team. Managers are
tempted to give away too much authority while still be accountable for the output. Knowing the team’s
context, boundaries and having the skilled knowledge to determine where, at the moment, is best
along the Manager———Team Authority continuum will assist teams in achieving high performance.
TRIP WIRE
#THREE

ASSEMBLE A LARGE GROUP

OF PEOPLE, TELL THEM IN
GENERAL TERMS WHAT NEEDS
TO BE DONE, AND LET THEM
WORK OUT THE DETAILS.
Most team designs are constrained by structures that have been built up over the years to monitor and
control employee behavior. This legacy of team design tends to viewed as a constricting, unnecessary
bureaucracy to the team getting its work done. Some managers may attempt to empower the team
by moving all the authority and accountability to them; some try to remove all dysfunctional features by
removing any check-points or procedures that may impede the team. The hope is that by eliminating
structure, the team members will work together more creatively and efficiently.
When team structure is removed, unfortunately;

1 Team tasks get defined in vague general terms

2 Group composition is overly ambiguous

3 The limits of the team authority are kept fuzzy

The assumption is that the team will evolve or discover the structure and
support that the team needs. It does not work… the team rarely grows or
determines the required structure. Most teams will default to
manipulation, politics, bullying or apathetic behaviors.
In the absence of context for the team to operate,
people will fill the absence with what they think
is right. Unfortunately, the loudest or most
aggressive become stronger, and the
quiet or calm just leave.

THE EXPECTATION IS THAT “THE PEOPLE

ARE SMART, AND THE TEAM WILL
WORK OUT THE DETAILS.”
A structure that will enable team performance has three components:

1 A well-designed team task that engages and sustains member

motivation

2 A well-composed team; one that is as small as possible

3 Clear and explicit specification of the boundaries of the team’s

authority and accountability

The question about team

structure is not how much structure
does the team have? All teams need structural
supports. The question is what kind of structure.
Does it enable cooperative work, or does it make teamwork
more challenging and frustrating?
TRIP WIRE
#FOUR

SPECIFY CHALLENGING TEAM

OBJECTIVES, BUT SKIMP ON
ORGANIZATIONAL
SUPPORTS.
Even when the team has a clear purpose and enabling structure the team performance can still turn
dysfunctional; I have worked with teams that were high performing that fell apart when given “stretch”
objectives but they never received the organizational support to achieve them. The team enthusiasm
and manager’s perception of a great team quickly deflates into conflict, confusion, nonalignment, and
missed deadlines. For teams to achieve capacity organizational supports and systems must actively
support teamwork.
Key Supports for Teams

1 Recognition and reward system that reinforces

team (not merely individual) performance

2 Education system that provides teams whatever

training, development and technical consultation
they need to supplement member knowledge
and expertise

3 Information systems that make available

to the team data and forecasts
members need to manage
their work

4 Material Resources—equipment,
tools, space, money, staff, etc.
—what the team needs to
execute on their tasks.

FOR TEAMS TO ACHIEVE CAPACITY ORGANIZATIONAL

SUPPORTS AND SYSTEMS MUST ACTIVELY
SUPPORT TEAMWORK.
Team supports can be paradoxical in organizations that are designed to support individual work.
o  ompensation and bonus policies may have no provision for team bonuses.
C
o  uman Resources departments may be focused on individual needs and provide courses to fill
H
individual needs – but team skills may not be available at all.
o 
Performance appraisal systems, which may be state of the art for measuring individual
contributions, are probably inappropriate for looking at work done by teams.
o Information systems may provide managers data to monitor work processes, but they may not
be available or appropriate for the work done by teams.
o 
Resources required to complete the work may have been determined by the individual, and
there may be no procedure in place for a team to secure a unique configuration or resources it
needs to complete a performance strategy it has developed.
To provide organizational supports for teams’ managers must be astute and have
authority to make requests upward and laterally in the organization. Managerial
colleagues may not accept suggestions to revise the systems they have developed
and that they are comfortable or to release resources to teams – resources that
others in the organization also seek. An organizational system set to provide
teams with support is noticeably different from a system intended to support
and control individual work.

SYSTEMS-DRIVE-BEHAVIOR
A TEAM WILL LOSE ENERGY AND STORIES
THAT REINFORCE GOOD OR BAD TEAMWORK
WILL EMERGE FROM HOW AN ORGANIZATION
DESIGNS THESE SUPPORTS. WHEN A TEAM
IS EXCITED ABOUT ITS WORK AND ALL SET
TO IMPLEMENT, IT IS SHATTERING TO FAIL
BECAUSE THE ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORTS
REQUIRED CANNOT BE OBTAINED.
TRIP WIRE
#FIVE

ASSUME THAT TEAM MEMBERS

ALREADY HAVE ALL THE
COMPETENCE THEY NEED TO
WORK WELL AS A TEAM.
When a team moves from implementing to high performance, managers sometimes assume their
job is done. There are great reasons to give the team room to develop their processes and create a
strong identity: inappropriate and poorly timed management interventions impair teamwork; while a
laissez-faire managerial approach may also limit the team’s effectiveness, especially when members
lack the skilled knowledge in teamwork.

It can be helpful for managers to offer coaching and hands-on support as team members develop
the skills they need to work well in a team and as the teams learn to work together. There is no magic
answer or best practice for how to do this. I tend to feel that team managers should be themselves
and coach plus support the team in the way the team needs to be supported, no single style of
leadership is better, what works best is what helps the team to achieve their goal while still wanting
to work with each other again.
HOW TO
OVERCOME
THE TRIP WIRES
THE ROLE OF
A TEAM LEADER

CREATING FAVORABLE
PERFORMANCE
CONDITIONS

BUILDING COACHING &

& MAINTAINING SUPPORTING THE TEAM
THE TEAM IN REAL-TIME

The role of a team leader or manager includes 3 types of activities:

1. Creating favorable performance conditions for the team; through one’s authority or exercising
influence upward and cross-functionally with managerial colleagues.
2. Creating, building and sustaining the team as a performing unit.
3. Coaching and helping in real-time.
When a manager or team leader can focus on these three areas, they will have little concern for the
five trip wires described in other posts. With these 3 areas in focus, the team will be a high-performing
operational unit that perceives itself as a good team, rather than a group of
people thrown together to complete individual work.

1 It will have a clear, authoritative, purpose plus

direction for its work

2 The structure of the team—its task, make-up,

accountability and authority—will promote
good performance

3 The organizational context will provide

support and reinforcement for
excellence through policies
and systems designed to
support teamwork

4 Ample coaching will be

available to the team
at the times when
members need
and are ready
to receive it

REFERENCE:
Hackman, J. R. (2006). Leading teams: setting the stage for great
performances. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press.
ABOUT TEAM THE PROCESS
By supporting your organization through team
DEVELOPMENT development, you will learn about, experience, reflect
and practice being part of a high-performing team. Together,
BY MIKE CARDUS we create new habits, behaviors, practices and processes
that can be used immediately to increase what’s
working while decreasing what’s not.

Our programs result in increased retention of staff, better

satisfaction with work, improved collaboration and information sharing within
and between departments, greater accountability for success and failure,
increased knowledge transfer, and increased speed of project completion and
WHAT’S decision making as a team.
TO GAIN

Improved on-time, on-budget, Appreciation of diversity and

on-quality team performance strengths

Ability to identify and share Taking action on measurable

leadership goals and objectives

Role clarity between team A decision-making

members methodology
 MIKE IS YOUR PARTNER FOR PROGRESS

1-716-629-3678 | [email protected] | mikecardus.com

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