Subscribe RSS FeedIn order to succeed as a team, in any sort of team, you have to follow this basic principle, which has been applied and maybe is accepted universally.
The principle is simple.
- Appoint a Leader
- Leader makes council with the team
- Leader makes a decision
- Team supports leader in his or her decision
Its that simple. In this way, an organization, a team, a family, or a company can move forward. Every decision that you need to make, is done in this manner. The team will work together for the best solution, but in the end the leader needs to make a decision. Once that leader makes a decision, the team needs to move forward WITH the leader.
This means, the leader doesn’t necessarily dictate, but he or she has gathered input from the team and made a decision. Then they will have to choose a solution and go with it. If the team continues to argue and fight over the decision, progress will be slow. I believe this applies in families too. There has to be a decision maker in the family, for example that is appointed for financial decisions, and then having a discussion or gathering input from the family is great, but in the end one person has to make the decision, and the family needs to be supportive, even if they don’t all agree with it. However, this applies in normal circumstances and there are caveats. There might be some cases where it would be unethical for team members to support a plan if its morally wrong or it goes against everything inside them and they feel it’s a plan headed for disaster.
It pains me that time and time again I see this happen – the leader makes a decision and the team continues to question him at every step of the way – “Why are we doing this”, “Why are we doing this”, and “why are we doing this” instead of understanding that they were appointed for this role (they might be your boss for example) and they are ultimately responsible for the decision, you need to do your job and support them. I have seen some cases where I questioned my manager because I didn’t see the wisdom in the decision he made, but in the end it turned out he was right and it was just my foresight wasn’t as far as his… So I learned my lesson, be patient, and be a team player.
As a team member, sometimes I have to swallow my feelings and say, “okay I don’t think this is the smartest decision and my idea is actually better, but I will go with you on this”.
From a developers perspective, you can think of this as requirements. Your boss gives you the requirements, you implement it. How you implement is up to you, but you won’t be able to proceed if you start arguing about the requirements. Requirements are requirements, once they are agreed upon, please continue.
So in normal circumstances, if you want to succeed, get a leader, and help him with his decisions, but in the end.. Respect the decision he makes and go with it. (He or she, that is).
The best team isn’t necessarily the one with the best players, it’s the one that plays together the best.
— okay don’t laugh