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"Great leaders focus on only one thing: creating and communicating a compelling, inspiring vision." - Michael Masterson in Power and Persuasion

The Awful Truth About Teamwork

In Dick Lyles' book "Winning Ways", a parable on success, Albert is hampered in business by his inability to work as a team member. His supervisor tells him to visit a local college-football coach for advice. What he gets are four rules:

1. Make people feel stronger rather than weaker.

2. Team-built projects are better than those built by individuals.

3. Avoid right/wrong absolutist thinking.

4. Focus on building toward the future, not complaining about the past.

Like most self-help stuff on the market these days, "Winning Ways" has a dash of insight, a cup of common sense, and a gallon of lukewarm water.

Lyles and many other business writers view business as a kind of egalitarian sporting event where all contributions to the team are equally valued and equally rewarded. In such a world, it makes good sense to treat all suggestions as good, all ideas as sound, and all efforts as valuable. To run a team in that sort of world, Lyles' leader would give everybody, every suggestion, and every interest all the support possible. He would make every team member feel good and make every team effort a pleasant one.

In the real world, this is exactly what you don't want to do.

In the competitive world of private enterprise, businesses strive to grow and prosper -- not by treating all their workers the same but by recognizing that they are almost all different. Some will contribute more than others, some will work harder than others, some will come up with lots of good ideas, and others will hardly ever think of anything but the next coffee break.

Successful business leaders -- and successful coaches, too -- treat all their team members with equal respect but have different expectations for each one. The expectations (and the responsibilities that derive from them) are based on individual performance, not on ideological beliefs.

A basketball coach, for example, will ask the guy who has an 88% free-throw average to shoot penalty shots -- not the guy who drops only half the balls in the bucket.

Great business leaders search out among their employees those who can do more, think better, work harder, and care more deeply -- and assign those individuals different and more significant levels of responsibility.

In other words, making a team -- or a business -- work is not about believing blindly in equality. It's about recognizing and taking advantage of inequality.

The basic business organization is hierarchical. One man on top, several men under him, several men under each of those, and so on.

There is a reason for this. Businesses are complicated affairs. You need lots of experience to run one properly. You also need experience to develop a profit instinct -- and a profit instinct is absolutely critical to the success of any business. The hierarchical organization puts a priority on experience and gives to those who have proven themselves the greater power.

The hierarchical structure is not primarily interested in reaching a consensus. Its main goal is to achieve an objective. It does so by placing authority where it belongs.

Great business leaders run their companies mostly through a chain of command. When they lead teams, they run them the way good coaches run their teams -- by treating everyone with an equal amount of respect and by pushing everyone to contribute as much as he is capable of contributing to the cause.

Having a group of employees work together as a team is very effective when you need to get something specific done by a particular time and you need the cooperation of a group of people to do so. But even then, you will do better if the team has a strong leader who is the undisputed top dog -- the man who has ultimate power and whose experience, judgment, and motivations must be trusted.

As far as Dick Lyles' four rules about teamwork are concerned, I'd revise them as follows.

1. Make weaker people stronger and stronger people weaker when and as it suits the general good of the business.

2. Let your team know that good products/projects require the input of many people but that only one person with one vision should have the final say.

3. Consider all sides of any important question -- but when you come to a decision about what to do, make it definitive. Black-and-white is easy for everyone to understand. Gray is not.

4. Analyze mistakes carefully -- and publicly -- to understand and communicate what went wrong. Try not to embarrass the mistake makers, but don't make the avoidance of embarrassment your top priority.

"A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable."

- Judith Martin ("Miss Manners")

Cellphone Rudeness
By Michael Masterson

I was waiting in line at my neighborhood bookstore when I became aware of a struggle going on behind me.

"I thought I told you to turn that thing off," snapped a woman in gray slacks. She was scolding her son, whose cellphone was ringing. I hadn't even noticed the sound - a sad testament to how cellphones have become woven into the tapestry of everyday life.

The kid - high school age, scuffed sneakers and baggy jeans - started fumbling around in his backpack, trying to find the offending item.

"Out!" his mother commanded. "Go wait in the car." She practically threw her keys at the boy, who slunk out the door.

To my surprise, the woman turned to me and apologized. "I don't mean to yell. I'm just so fed up with cellphones!"

The woman - who introduced herself as Beth - explained that she teaches math at a local community college. And, she told me, she is constantly reprimanding her students for paying more attention to their cellphones than to their work. "This morning," she said, "one student actually answered her phone to tell the caller that she was in the middle of her calculus test! And even if they turn off the ringers, they still text-message one another."

The blatant use of cellphones, anywhere and any time, has become commonly accepted behavior. Perhaps that's why Beth's students seem to be unaware of what they are doing. And while I've never personally experienced such an egregious display of rudeness, I have noticed that most people have few to no manners when it comes to their mobile phones.

It's the damnedest thing. You are having a conversation with someone, their cellphone starts ringing, and - without even excusing themselves - they open it up and start talking to someone else. You stand there, feeling like a fool ... and wait.

Cellphone calls routinely disrupt personal conversations, business conversations, meetings, speeches, ceremonies, and even religious services. The only attempts made to curtail this modern menace are in theaters and concert halls - as if entertainment were the only thing more important than instant communication.

In the old days, we followed an informal set of rules. The first rule was universal: Except in dire emergencies, ongoing conversations should not be interrupted. If you wanted to say something, you would wait your turn. There was also a rule that related to the intensity of the conversation: The more serious it was, the stricter the prohibitions against butting in. And, finally, there was an acknowledged hierarchy: Children deferred to adults, students to teachers, employees to their bosses, and so on.

Call it respect ... call it courtesy ... all that is out the window. Any conversation, regardless of how important, intimate, or urgent, is now brought to a screeching halt the moment someone's phone goes off.

Of course, I am something of a hypocrite when it comes to most causes I advocate - and this one is no exception. Although I feel mistreated when someone I'm speaking with answers his cellphone, I have the strongest urge to answer mine whenever and wherever it rings.

Most of the time, I'm happy to say, I resist the temptation. My phone is set to vibrate silently before it starts ringing. So if it starts vibrating during a conversation, I reach into my pocket and cancel the call ... without my conversation partner even knowing that I got it. (On most cellphones, you can do this simply by pressing an external button.)

But few people have any sense of manners when it comes to their cellphones. Which is why I'd like to offer you six rules for polite cellphone use":

1. If you must be available to callers, put your phone on vibrate. Leave the room immediately if a call comes in.

2. Never talk on the phone while conducting business face to face with someone else.

3. If the lights are out, turn off your phone. Audiences in playhouses, theaters, cinemas, and observatories want to concentrate on what they're watching/listening to.

4. Keep your voice down. No need for everyone in the room to hear what you're saying.

5. Do not discuss private business or personal matters in the presence of other people. Put the caller on hold and move to an isolated area. Or reschedule the conversation.

6. Don't bring your cellphone to job interviews, weddings, funerals, church, business meetings, presentations, court, museums, or the library.

Follow these suggestions and your friends and colleagues will appreciate your full attention. Your fellow theater-goers will appreciate your silence. And you and your dinner companion will enjoy an uninterrupted meal.