Teamership - The trail of the Bulldozer
The most common response to an enquiry of how a leader or team member is feeling is a version of “busy”.
This is not a surprise. Never before have our organisations needed so much from us as individuals and teams in response to rapid changes in technology, society and ways of working. It leads to heightened expectations on our teams - both within and beyond our organisation. Often with limited resources.
It is this busyness and these expectations that most often drive a particular brand of Teamership behaviours - Bulldozers.
When we are bringing our best work to the team, but preventing others from doing the same, we are Bulldozers. We manage to achieve the task at hand...and also leave a trail in our wake. In literal terms, a bulldozer can achieve its objective at the same time as leaving a path for others to clean up, workaround or need to repair. Same deal as a team member, we can - often unintentionally - create collateral damage when we focus too narrowly on the immediate task at hand.
Here’s an example from one of my clients. It involves real bulldozers.
They are a civil contracting company that specialise in demolition of industrial and commercial buildings. That means that they work on big projects, with lots of interdependencies. They need a lot of specialised (and very expensive) equipment to get their work done (including bulldozers). Given that there is limited equipment, they need to coordinate which project uses each piece at any given time. Most of the time, because they are good at their work, they are able to schedule it so that each site can use the equipment sequentially. Occasionally, there are times when one piece of equipment is needed by two sites (delays caused by weather or other contractors are common reasons).
Knowing that resources are limited, it is easy for people to covet and protect them in order for their responsibilities to be met. Those instances have the potential to cause friction between projects, to delay one or both project and ultimately limit the company’s ability to deliver and win work.
It happens in most organisations. There are limited resources (budget, equipment or even meeting rooms) and there are rational reasons for guarding them rather than sharing them. The fact that it is so frequent and rational to think about our own needs is the very reason why the ability of individuals to balance competing pressures well is a competitive advantage.
In my client’s case, what is increasingly happening is that when these schedule conflicts arise, project leaders are now speaking to each other and negotiating directly. Increasingly, they are coming to acceptable and less frustrating solutions.
This has brought about a number of benefits:
• The project leaders are working together across sites more as a collective team and starting to identify themselves as a part of that team as well as their project team.
• This has increased awareness of other projects so that people know what is happening on those sites and can plan more proactively.
• Over time, all of the projects have benefited from other projects being flexible with resources and are hence more likely to make a similar sacrifice themselves.
Building connections and seeing our actions as part of the bigger picture allows us to better avoid this trap. Some questions for you to reflect on this week:
When do you find yourself leaving a trail in your wake?
How can you better help see the broader impacts of your actions?
What will help you and others create better connections?