Chapter 19. Unleashing the Team

NOTHING—LET ME REPEAT THAT, NOTHING—IS A better indicator of the success or failure of an organization than the ability of the team members to perform. In addition, they have to have the will to succeed. Talent without the will to succeed will be wasted. All of my preaching about velocity is not intended to tell you to just go faster. The goal is to build an organization that can move at the same velocity as the market, or maybe even a bit faster. The speed of industries varies; some organizations must move faster than others. Schools and governments generally do not need to move as fast as technology companies do, so there are different expectations for the pace of progress. But remember that the pace of an industry may speed up or slow down depending on the unique factors in it. Although schools generally move at a slower pace than a tech company moves, circumstances may dictate that educational institutions dramatically speed up their rate of change if they want to stay relevant.

This chapter is about unleashing your team, and when I say that, I am talking about instilling a culture that allows—and promotes—the employees’ ability to deliver the maximum of their potential to the organization. In my experience, the only two reasons why employees were not giving their best was that they either made a semiconscious choice not to or they felt restricted or distracted in some way by the entity they worked for. In order to move with velocity, you need every member of your team to move in a frictionless way toward completing tasks. To the extent they are held back by lack of understanding of the mission, angst about their manager, lack of incentive, or a generally unhealthy culture, the overall organization suffers. A team member who feels thwarted in bringing his or her best will be personally and professionally unhappy in any position. I guess that is why so many people right now are saying they would love to change jobs! As a leader, you must take the responsibility of unleashing your team members’ potential—for their good, and for yours.