Three Important Factors of Team Success

My 15U baseball team had a tournament last week in which we played pretty well through the first three games – we were 2-1, but really should’ve won the other one too. The temperatures in Nashville those days were 105 and 107 degrees! By the third day – the 109 degree day – we started to show some signs of wilting.

We had a manpower problem though – only nine of our 12 players were available for the tournament. And while that would normally be a challenge in a tournament anyway, it was especially challenging with those temperatures because we had no way of providing anyone downtime during the games.

Another problem that arises when you’re shorthanded is that you can’t always put your best people in their best positions – you have to do the best you can with the numbers you have. If you’re only playing a game or two, you can get by with a skeleton crew, but when your task is large, you need all hands on deck.

Needless to say, the combination of being shorthanded, ridiculous temperatures, and playing guys out of position was our undoing: We made it into tournament play, but then lost our first game. I think those things ultimately had an impact on our guys psyche too – when mistakes break your spirit early, it’s hard to recover.

It got me thinking about organizational teams and the importance of those three conditions in business:

• ·    Manpower: Proper staffing levels are critical. When people have more on their plates than they can handle, they tend to achieve acceptable, not excellent.
• ·    Good working conditions: This applies not only to workplace comfort and tools, but not having hostile working conditions either. As with team sports, encouragement oftentimes goes a lot farther that criticism, and having the necessary tools and conditions to perform is imperative.
• ·    Maximize talent: Let people do what they do best. I believe in a well-rounded player/worker who knows how the pieces work together to produce the whole. But I also believe everyone should play to their strengths – it benefits the team and the organization as a whole when well-rounded teams have experts doing what they do best.

These components are essential to success whether on the playing field or in the office. Teams and organizations can flourish or flounder in much the same way.

When you have a well-rounded, fully-staffed team, you get better input and therefore better output. You have the ability to give and get specialized thinking, unique perspectives, and hopefully more spirited discussion and better all-around group thinking.

More participation. More diversity. Better end results.