The SEVEN QUALITIES OF A TRANSFORMATION TEAM

This is the team you put together when change is needed or when change is taking place all around you. This is the team you need to energize a business that is doing okay but could do better. This is the team you need to deploy to revitalize a dormant business. In short, it  is the team you need to survive, thrive and excel in business.

Great team leaders are the first to admit that success is not possible without a good team. However, a transformation team drives corporate performance to a whole new level. The transformation team, charged with the authority to change, turnaround and revitalize the company, realizes business goals by organizing, mobilizing and facilitating the achievement of targets. These teams have seven special qualities.

Urgent Agenda

The team has an urgent agenda. Not an important agenda, but an urgent agenda. The team does not just engage its agenda during its free time, it engages the agenda all they time. The sense of urgency and immediacy is what gets people turning their heads and wondering, "What is the hurry". This kind of urgency enables miracles  because the team makes time to attend to problems that nobody thought were important.

Vision

Transformation teams do not look for short cuts and are under no illusion that what they intend to achieve will be easy. The team is happy to make progress every day because members know that the only way to change things is not instantly but continually. Team members know that if you keep it up long enough and work hard enough people begin to believe it can happen and even begin to help you make it happen.

Diversity

The team is not only disciplined but also multi-disciplinary. Members are not all doctors or drivers. The team uses insight from all fields. Diversity in teams generates greater success than uniformity. Team members are principled but not dogmatic. The team leader is more likely to be a generalist than a specialist.

Evangelical.

Team members do not keep quiet about what they are doing. They want the world to know that they are doing a good thing and they want the world to join them in doing good. The team is willing to explain in detail the principles, the process and the product of their work to anyone who will listen. Their success is not personal nor private; it belongs to the public.

Values

The team has a set of values and a code of conduct. Members are trained for the task to work as a unit or alone. No one needs supervision. Members work to the same code as a value adding team of individuals.

Network

The team uses and develops networks independent of rank, seniority or authority. The primary role of the network is to ensure the work succeeds rather than have members compete for glory. The network is used to harness support, expertise and enthusiasm for the goal at all times.

Renewal

The most powerful quality of this team is its ability to renew, regenerate and replicate itself. The team develops new leadership to invigorate and continue its success into the future. Transformation happens as other people copy the team, believe in its mission and realize the vision. Transformation is a process of replicating one good thing here, there and  everywhere. Renewal is the power that sustains the team from one generation to the next. Transformation teams are self-directing. There is no leader, everyone is a leader! So how do you assemble a transformation or transformational team? That is no easy task. It may take "prayer and fasting" to get it right.

Allan Bukusi is the author of How to Lead Corporate Transformation