Teams in family businesses can learn a lot from great sports teams. A consultant who has worked with both explains how families can apply techniques that some sports teams - the most strategic and successful - use to improve their effectiveness. Families have four main tasks: establishing core values, making a mission statement, designing a strategic plan, and creating special teams to address pending or urgent issues.
Introduction
There is a certain emotional energy, an intensity that characterizes the most successful sports teams. Emotional energy also exists at the heart of Family Businesses. In the loyalty, devotion and commitment that family members share, lies the cause of the success of Many Family Businesses. They have core values that influence their decision-making, focus, and customer friendliness and integrity. And sometimes their employees say they "feel like part of the family", part of the team.
The analogy also works in reverse. Sports teams that are compared to a family are often the ones that become champions. Team members who demonstrate a high degree of social cohesion tend to achieve consistent levels of success in the long run. The brightest example of the dynamics described is the US women's soccer team, winner of the 1999 Women's Soccer World Championship. In numerous interviews before and after winning the title against China, team members repeatedly insisted on attributing great part of the victory to feel like part of a big family. The players regularly ate together, went shopping, partied and even appeared in photo shoots together.with which they downplayed individual stardom promoting a greater impact of the team as a whole.
Given the parallels with great sports teams, it doesn't seem strange that business families can learn from their fellow athletes. According to consultants who have worked so hard with both groups, the main lesson lies in how to improve team performance, whether the family team is in the formation phase or they have been working together (perhaps not too smoothly) for some time.
Muchos atletas y entrenadores profesionales y olímpicos han utilizado a psicólogos para ayudarles a mejorar su rendimiento. Muchas universidades han dedicado grandes cantidades de tiempo y recursos para incrementar sus conocimientos sobre la mejora del rendimiento en los entrenamientos. El concepto mismo de mejora del rendimiento deriva de las teorías de la motivación y el logro de la psicología tradicional. A medida que la presión de la competencia en el mundo de los negocios va aumentando con creciente regularidad, la mejora del rendimiento de los empleados y la importancia del desarrollo de buenos equipos, se han convertido en la principal estrategia de supervivencia en el mundo de las grandes empresas multinacionales. Las grandes empresas destinan cada vez mayores recursos a la formación de sus líderes y empleados en los campos de la comunicación, el liderazgo y la capacidad de trabajo en equipo. A ello se suma una creciente “conciencia estratégica”.
The point that sports teams and Family Businesses have in common when it comes to improving team performance is the desire to win. In business, winning means achieving or exceeding certain voluntarily chosen parameters, such as increased profits or market share. But in Family Businesses there is still a higher goal: to improve family cohesion so that the company can continue to be there for generations to come.
Where to begin.
The first requirement for a family wanting to improve the performance of their team is good communication. A family must take into consideration the communication habits existing in their company. Many families have closed systems. Family members keep financial and strategic information to themselves. They consider that everything related to information is very sensitive, and that it can only be shared with a select few, such as the accountant of all life, the lawyer, or a trusted member of the Board of Directors (if one exists).
Families wishing to improve the performance of their team must share the information, and consequently must determine how comfortable they feel doing so. For family members, as well as key employees, to function as effective members of a team, they must have access to information and they must be willing to share it. If family members are reluctant to accept this fact, they would do well to abandon any attempt to strengthen and promote their team.
If family members are able to agree on what kind of information they are willing to share, then they can move on with the process. All family members who are owners or develop some type of managerial work should be involved in the effort to strengthen and promote the team.
Once everyone is prepared, there are four steps that can be taken to lay the foundation for good team performance:
- Review or (re) establish the family's core values Make a mission statement Design a strategic plan that includes the overall objectives of the company as well as those of departments and individuals. For this process, the ESC © methodology and especially the Top 5 Clienting-Profit-Strategy is quick and effective to implement. Create special teams to resolve conflicts or “bottlenecks” in the company.
Establish core values.
It is very easy to forget why we do what we do. Members of a Family Business who take the time to explore why they are in the company together have the ability to recreate the essence and meaning not only of the purpose of their work, but also of the relationships they share. This is the heart of any team.
The fundamental values of a Family Business guide its strategy, its tactics, its marketing (… better yet “clienting”) and its operations. Sticking to them consistently helps to see things clearly and to make decisions. Without agreed core values, the chances of conflict and inconsistent decisions increase. For example, a media company relied on its core value of "integrity" to undo a decision that would have caused problems with its customers. Some of the family managers had had the idea of reducing the price of certain services for new clients, keeping it for existing ones. The company management was a bit confused about this policy, but decided to give it the green light. But then the family members backed off saying, "You know what?That this goes against our core value of integrity. " They lowered the price for everyone and in the end they sold more than if they had kept the double pricing strategy.
Families could take eight steps to define their core values:
1. Get all members of the family active in the company to participate in the process of defining the fundamental values.
2. Consider the participation of non-family managers.
3. Set aside time to meet weekly. It will probably take three or four two-hour meetings. Make sure meetings run smoothly.
4. Use both problem solving and brainstorming techniques to get an open discussion about core values.
5. When everyone is ready, start narrowing down the list of possible values
up to the four or five most important to the participants.
6. Establish for each value a principle that encompasses it. Write a statement for each security that defines, for example: "Integrity: Our commitment to be consistent and fair in all our business decisions."
7. Consider holding meetings with small groups of employees to discuss the validity of the values from a daily work point of view.
8. Try to integrate the values in the day to day. Ask the participants how the company should go about discussing the values with the employees. Some families establish an open forum in which the leaders propose the values and explain how they were reached. Others put a memory in circulation and hang it at the entrance of the company; others even print them on coffee mugs.
The most important thing is that the fundamental principles are alive in the daily operations of the company. A successful core value setting process ends when family members and employees alike feel secure thanks to a clear and strong company philosophy.
It is worth noting that the exercise of defining core values has the potential to unite family members and non-family employees. Core values explicitly state what is implicitly felt and done in the company. Likewise, it allows family members and employees to recognize when they are treading on unsafe ground. The very task of establishing the core values will enhance the feeling of unity in the team, and therefore its performance.
Make a mission statement.
The process of writing a draft mission statement is similar to that for core values. The participants are usually the same and the time requirements are similar. What's interesting about this exercise is that it gives employees a chance to identify what the company should focus on. Many Family Businesses succeed because they have been able to find a space where their talents and services are highly valued and trustworthy, rather than pursuing random opportunities or short-term goals. We call that singularity. Baseball teams that win the World Series are not focused on just winning next week's game. They also try not to get distracted by team comparisons or even fighting for minor titles.Their mission is to try to play well regularly and stay focused on what they do best. But… for a well-defined target group: its unconditional audience, who become the “Ideal Clients” of the Family Business.
Many companies stumble by wanting to be too many things for too many people. At ESC © we call that scattering or “wallpapering”. Creating a mission statement that can be applied at work allows the Family Business to focus on what it does well and why. It also allows unfamiliar employees to clearly understand the mission of the company they work for.
Design a strategic plan.
The shelves of many family businesses are adorned with the remnants of incomplete or unimplemented strategic plans. Even though they cost a lot of time and money to create, these masterpieces are like doctoral theses, only read by their authors. Ideally, a strategic plan is an active working document, moreover, a work map for the Family Business. To improve team performance there are two areas of strategic planning that must be taken into account: cohesion at work and social cohesion.
In the world of sports, it has been well demonstrated that for a team to continue to be successful over time, there are two attributes that must be present: cohesion at work and social cohesion. Cohesion at work means developing specific goals and strategies that all participants agree on and that all adhere to. Social cohesion has to do with the process or atmosphere in which these work objectives must be carried out.
A good example of this is provided by the Boston University men's ice hockey team of the year 95. At the beginning of the season players and coaches met and agreed that their main task was to win the NCAA championship. Throughout the season, a lost game or a player injury never stopped them from concentrating on that bigger goal.
Although the team had done very well the previous year, a series of new processes were incorporated to modify the environment in an attempt to improve social cohesion. The team met often, not just to skate the ice but to chat about how to better work together. Likewise, each player promised to give still a little more of himself in each training session and in the games. These group activities and personal commitments created greater social cohesion. As the season progressed, the older players who had been on the previous year's team agreed that they "felt closer to this group of guys." In the end, the team won the championship.
A Family Business may have, for example, the brightest and most talented computer programmers in their industry, but if they don't get along or work well together due to competitiveness or big egos, they may end up putting their personal interests first. about those of the company. In a short time, individuals exert such influence over the company that something has to change. The environment becomes toxic and the employees leave. The least that can happen if work and social cohesion are not taken into account is that workers feel confused by a certain ambivalence in the workplace. They will come to work only for the salary, and their contribution will be completely mediocre.
In business, cohesion at work comes down to setting financial and technical goals. These are most effective if they are woven together with the overall strategy of the company.
In order to achieve methodological cohesion at work and socially, ESC © makes various tools available to Family Businesses, which are materialized in the form of consultancies, workshops, interventions with large groups or coaching.
The following six steps, carried out by family and non-family employees, can help:
1. Establish training meetings for all employees so that they can assimilate and understand what the financial and technical goals mean to them.
2. Encourage managers to organize strategic planning meetings with members of their department to set departmental goals, which in turn, reinforce overall goals.
3. Have managers establish performance review programs for their departments so that employees can individually establish their personal goals, thus reinforcing those of the department and the overall goals of the company.
4. Conduct monthly strategic planning follow-up sessions to determine where what is planned works and where it falls short.
5. That the managers report monthly to the employees of their department on issues related to their performance.
6. In the event that the expected progress does not occur, it is advisable to seek advice from an ESC © specialist.
Create special teams to address pending or urgent issues.
A Family business is a complex system. Most of the working day is spent dealing with business problems, customer orders or complaints, or workplace-related issues such as employee needs, productivity, or vacations. However, there are many subjects that are never touched because it seems that there is never time. Employee morale, technical problem solving, and communication are typical examples of issues that go up to the bedroom to be dealt with "later." Special teams to address pending or urgent issues are a great way to find time and resources to resolve those types of issues that, left aside, can undermine social cohesion, a company's mission and even its core values.
A team to address pending or urgent issues is created for a limited period of time and to resolve a specific issue.
This is a small guide to create a team to tackle pending or urgent issues:
1. Limit the team to five or six people who are experts in the field. Include a family member if you think it is appropriate given the issue at hand.
2. Bring together individuals from different areas who are able to understand the issue from different points of view.
3. Limit meetings to one hour.
4. Reach an agreement on the number of meetings that would have been necessary to develop a plan or proposal for management.
5. Control time and keep track of the steps to take, including deadlines and names of those responsible.
6. Name a spokesperson for whose mission it is to keep company management informed about the team's evolution and progress.
7. Encourage the team to discuss the process of participating in the team to resolve pending or urgent issues, as well as the feelings and responsibilities that being part of it entails.
8. Make sure all employees are aware of the team and its meetings, as well as whom to contact with ideas, suggestions or comments.
9. Encourage management to show appreciation and support for the team's efforts, both during the process and after your goal is achieved.
10. Encourage management to consider and implement the team's suggestions and conclusions.
Urgent or pending issue resolution teams are a great way to engage many capable and conscientious employees in solving business problems and challenges. They can bring great moral strength and lead to successful business actions.
Establishing a team-oriented organization can benefit a Family Business in many ways. Core values, mission statement, strategic plan, and task forces for resolving pending or urgent issues can help create an atmosphere of collaboration, mutual admiration, and common goals. Any organization capable of putting these valuable tools into practice is on the path to increasing performance.
