The Rocket Model: Team Power
Team power can be defined as the quantity and quality of resources available to a team. Resources include facilities, office space, computers, telecommunication systems, specialized equipment, software systems, budgets, and the level of authority granted to teams. Executive leadership teams often have many resources and wide discretion in decision-making—for example, the authority to spend billions to acquire other companies. In contrast, task forces such as the 9/11 Commission or the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reformcan only make recommendations and have little authority to make final decisions.
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Movie Quote of the Month
The Rocket Model: Three Ways to Improve Buy-In
The current thinking about employee engagement is somewhat misguided since leaders tend to get all of the blame for having disengaged employees. Missing from this perspective is the fact that team members also bear some responsibility for where they fall on the disengagement-engagement continuum. All leaders can do is create an environment conducive to team member Buy-In; after that, it is up to each team member to decide to become fully engaged and committed to team success. There are three things that leaders can do to foster Buy-in: 1) establish credibility, 2) paint a compelling picture of the future, and 3) empower team members.
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The Rocket Model: Commitment and Engagement
One important component of the Rocket Model© is Buy-In, which concerns the degree to which leaders and members are committed to and engaged in team goals, roles, norms, and success. There is an important difference between member commitment and engagement. A United States Marine corporal may be very committed to The Corps and protecting the United States, yet he may not be particularly engaged while walking guard duty at Camp Pendleton. In this scenario, the corporal will do the minimum and nothing more. Likewise, team members may be committed to the team and its goals yet not engage in the tasks needed to succeed. The Holy Grail for leaders is to create teams whose members are both committed to and fully engaged in the tasks needed to succeed.
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The Rocket Model: Four Critical Team Norms
Teams have many norms, some of which might involve safety, expected work hours, e-mail inquiry response times, or meeting attendance. Research shows that some norms are more important than others; the rules governing a team’s operating rhythm, communication, decision-making, and accountability norms have the biggest impact on team cohesiveness and performance.
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A (very) short story about altruism and customer service
Mornings aren’t my favorite thing, and the morning these events transpired was particularly early and particularly hot, which meant that I was in a particularly crappy mood.
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The Rocket Model: The Pervasive Nature of Team Norms
Norms are unwritten rules that guide human behavior. Examples include elevator and airport security line etiquette. Most people “know” what to do when entering an elevator full of strangers: enter the elevator, face the door, don’t make eye contact or engage in conversation, and leave quickly when reaching the desired floor. In airport security lines: take a bin; quickly fill it with shoes, jackets, laptops, liquids, etc.; put the bin and any luggage on the conveyor belt; walk through the body scanner; and then like Lucille Ball in the candy factory, reassemble everything as quickly as possible. Like all norms, those governing elevator and security line behavior are not written down but everyone is expected to abide by them. Those who don’t observe the norms are considered aberrant.
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