Have you ever wondered how a “team turnaround” actually happens? I did too … until I enabled my first one.
In this blog I explore how I learned lessons that I have been able to apply to teams throughout my career as a change agent.
Starting at the beginning …
So how do team turnarounds happen? Here’s how I started. I was new in a leadership role, with a range of services to run, and the key one was … well … a bit “meh”, to be honest. It was performing adequately, but only adequately. I had inherited a management team who had worked for the same gent for years. The service had become too settled, too set in its ways. It also focused too much on its own standards, and not those of its customers. It was a team turnaround waiting to happen … but I didn’t know that yet.
When I came into the office on that first day, I sat at a spare desk. “But there’s an office over here in the corner we cleared for you. It’s where [previous manager] used to sit”, the team said. They assumed … wanted, perhaps, that things would go on as they had. I explained that I was used to sitting in an open plan office and I would prefer to continue to do so.
Of course, by sitting among the team I could find out much more about the team and the service. I was open about this. And I was not snooping, eavesdropping or secretly judging. I explained to the team that I needed to learn about their service, so I needed to hear it all. The good, the bad, the jokes and the moans (including that I was too noisy in the office). And so I listened. For a month, I listened.
In that month I learned so much. I learned how the service ticked, what made it tick, who made it tick … and who didn’t. I also learned how little they measured, or at least how little attention they paid to the things they did measure. They measured performance statistics which did not resonate with the leadership team and the staff, but which they had to report to industry leaders elsewhere in the country. No one felt they had a stake in improvement. That meant no one felt they needed to improve. No one, except “Peter”.
“Peter” had looked at me sideways when I joined. He sized me up. He answered my questions, and then asked me questions of his own. And he listened, and watched me listen. Then one day, “Peter” came to talk to me. He told me he was frustrated with the lack of modernisation in the service, and the lack of focus on the industry targets was driving him mad.
As I spent a bit more time with the team, it was clear there was one person who had effectively been in charge, said he didn’t want to be in charge, but who took every opportunity to oppose progress. Let’s call him “Tony”. At the other end of the spectrum of opinion was “Peter”, who became increasingly passionate and heated in team meetings about how average the service was, and how great it could be. I could see that the team was polarising, and that my listening and watching had to turn into action.
I had drafted a routemap and it pulled on “Peter’s” ideas. It was clearly not something for me to impose. So I introduced it to the team, setting out the ideas I felt could work. After I finished speaking, I asked them what I had missed.
In that one meeting, the service moved onto its new track. Team members shared opinions and ambitions which they had not felt able to express before. It soon became clear that there was a continuum, with all of the team together at one end, and then there was “Tony”, alone in his stance at the other.
A tough conversation had to be had, so I booked the meeting room and had The Chat with “Tony”. He was actually really unhappy, and wanted to move on, so we negotiated a helpful exit package, and he left. We held open recruitment for a lead for the team to work with me – and we selected “Peter” unanimously.
The team turnaround starts to happen
The new roadmap meeting had enabled me to show the team that they did not exist to keep the service going, but that they existed to keep the service growing for its customers. By revisiting and re-affirming the service’s purpose, the team then built a shared vision for the first time. No one had involved the team in setting the strategic direction up until that time. We soon changed that, and they began to grow into their new leadership roles, relishing new challenges and new opportunities as they re-aligned staff and teams at the front line, to better serve the customers.
That meeting also achieved an important development – engaging the team in measuring the performance indicators, because they mattered to the team, because the results mattered to their customers.
How the team turned around
After that, our progress was a shared rise to being a high performing team. I supported and reminded, and occasionally reaffirmed a few boundaries, and the team did all the rest. Each leader had their own performance targets – ones they had devised and agreed. I encouraged each leader to work with their own teams to own and meet the targets. The whole service came together, the team leaders presented their agreed aims and progress, and I was able to support them as their facilitator.
For the first time, the whole service was operating as one, agreeing their direction, acknowledging their successes and challenges as one. They were – WE were – all a high-performing team. A team turnaround completed as a shared endeavour.
How did we know that we had a team turnaround on our hands?
Two simple measures:
- Customer feedback via regular surveys improved hugely, reflecting the modernisation of the front-line spaces, which the teams organised around customer requirements in ways that “Peter” had set out only a few months previously.
- And remember those industry performance measures? “Peter” came to my desk one day with a copy of the latest performance statistics document. We had, together, moved the service from an average performance to one of the best performing services in the industry.
Through the hard work by “Peter”, his team and whole service, they remain one of the top performers in the UK, with other services coming to visit them to see how they do what they do so well.
I hope this case study helps you understand how a team turnaround happens, without too much angst and actually with a huge amount of team buy-in and ownership. There is no secret sauce. It is perfectly possible, and actually pretty straightforward, if you have three key ingredients: the right people; the shared vision; and the appetite to put in the hard work to make it happen. As a leader, it is my view that it is your responsibility to nurture all three ingredients. Do that, and you will be on your way.
I now coach leaders to achieve results, and I work with teams to help them improve from within. If you are facing challenges in your team, and want to discuss how I could help, please get in touch, and let’s have a conversation
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