The regular season for American baseball has come to an end and the post season build up to the ‘World Series’ has begun. The season finished a little late this year, as despite playing over 150 games, the American League Central had to go to a tiebreaker game at Minnesota.
The tiebreaker wasn’t expected. At the beginning of September the Detroit Tigers looked a safe shoo-in having led the league for some time, and with a seven game advantage at the beginning of September. The collapse was momentous, with the Tigers becoming the first team in Major League history to fail to reach the playoffs having had a three game lead with only four games to play.
Watching the collapse has been instructive not only for baseball fans, but for anyone interested in managing performance. The Tigers don’t have a great recent history, their League win was in 1987 and it’s 25 years since they’ve won the World Series, so this was a huge opportunity for them and one which they seem to have worked hard to lose.
So what can organisations learn from the disintegration of such a high performing team? Strategists will point to the rotation of players, wearing out the most successful pitcher too early in the closing games of the season, leaving him unable to contribute at the critical moment. Commentators will point to some unnecessary showboating as some players opted for riskily aggressive plays that would showcase their skills rather than more conservative actions that protected the team. Coaches will ponder whether they were too tolerant of the down time actions of big name players who may have performed well on field but brought unwelcome attention to the team through late night partying and fracas.
All of these elements damaged the confidence and self belief of the team, and they made enough mistakes in the last month to last a whole season; an expensive collapse for the franchise holder. Freezing at key moments affects teams in far less high profile situations and the ability to trust each others’ contribution, challenge damaging behaviours and building each others confidence, is key to consistent team success.
Showing posts with label High Performing Teams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label High Performing Teams. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The Power Of Peer Group Pressure
Peer group pressure is often cited as being an important, even critica,l component of building a high performance team environment. We thought we would dig a little deeper as to what peer group pressure is and how to create the right conditions for it to flourish.
Common standards, consistently applied, are vital. Teams have to know where they stand, what expectations are being made of them (both individually and collectively) and what the consequences are for different levels of output. Next, there needs to be as much focus on the right behaviours and activities as there is on performance. How people fulfil their role is as important as what they achieve.
The team must have a clear, higher purpose, something more than simply doing the numbers, or beating target. Peer group pressure comes from wanting to excel at something, to create something special, to be rated by people whom you respect as doing something impressive. Or put in sporting context, ‘we don’t just want to win trophies, but to be remembered as a legendary team.’
An open culture of meaningful feedback, constructive criticism and effective conflict management needs to be upheld. You cannot have peer group pressure without peer group review. The amazingly consistent quality of Pixar films (Toy Story through Finding Nemo to Wall-E and now Up) is driven by extensive peer feedback created in daily reviews of each others work. This focuses on the need for trust and respect for people and their work, another critical component of the peer pressure mix.
Peer pressure cuts both ways. It holds people to account, miles from the office or team colleagues, peer pressure helps maintain the standard of output, you are doing it not only for yourself but also for the team. But also it looks to offer support. When a team member is struggling, everyone piles in to help, ‘we stand or fall together’.
There are significant benefits from Peer Group Pressure:
Common standards, consistently applied, are vital. Teams have to know where they stand, what expectations are being made of them (both individually and collectively) and what the consequences are for different levels of output. Next, there needs to be as much focus on the right behaviours and activities as there is on performance. How people fulfil their role is as important as what they achieve.
The team must have a clear, higher purpose, something more than simply doing the numbers, or beating target. Peer group pressure comes from wanting to excel at something, to create something special, to be rated by people whom you respect as doing something impressive. Or put in sporting context, ‘we don’t just want to win trophies, but to be remembered as a legendary team.’
An open culture of meaningful feedback, constructive criticism and effective conflict management needs to be upheld. You cannot have peer group pressure without peer group review. The amazingly consistent quality of Pixar films (Toy Story through Finding Nemo to Wall-E and now Up) is driven by extensive peer feedback created in daily reviews of each others work. This focuses on the need for trust and respect for people and their work, another critical component of the peer pressure mix.
Peer pressure cuts both ways. It holds people to account, miles from the office or team colleagues, peer pressure helps maintain the standard of output, you are doing it not only for yourself but also for the team. But also it looks to offer support. When a team member is struggling, everyone piles in to help, ‘we stand or fall together’.
There are significant benefits from Peer Group Pressure:
- higher morale
- performance standards are more challenging
- faster induction and resulting speed to competence
- increased peer-to-peer coaching
- steeper learning curves
- more collegiate atmosphere
- more challenging conversations
- increased creativity and innovation
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