TEAM BONDING

I'd like to go back to the subject of the team. When a church leader looks at the church staff as a team, instead of as employees, it does something. First of all, it fosters camaraderie. In a team, there is a sense of interdependency. We are all counting on one another for the good of the whole. Second, it casts the role of the leader in a different light. Instead of being the “boss” he or she takes on the role of a coach, an encourager and a mentor.

The coaching paradigm has become popular in recent leadership writing and I think it is applicable from a Christological perspective. Jesus built a team, He coached them and then He put them in the game.

Having participated in both team and individual sports in high school and college, I’ve found that there is a distinct dynamic involved with team sports that is not there in individual sports. In individual sports, such as wrestling, I had a coach but my success as a wrestler had very little to do with how the other members of the wrestling team did. In fact, I recall one meet where I was the only one on the team who won a match. While I felt bad for them, it did nothing to diminish my personal success. I was the only one on my wrestling team to qualify for the state tournament and I finished second. I would have liked for the others have gone with me, but their absence did not prevent my success.

A team is different. In a team there is a symbiotic and even a synergistic relationship between the team members. The whole team is greater than the sum of the parts. In football I was a running back and I depended on the line, the quarterback and even the other backs to do their part. When they did well, I did well and thus, we did well.

One of the things I have observed in watching teams from various sports is that teams that have cohesiveness and esprit de corps are much more likely to have success than those who don’t. Teams who are fragmented and fighting are ineffective and will become more of a detriment than an asset.

So how do we get a team to bond? We can choose the people with which to build the team, but unless they bond, unless there is a cohesiveness to the team, then it is a mere exercise in futility. The website “teamtechnology” gives three stages in team building, which I would see as essential to team bonding: 1) clarify the team goals, 2) identify the issues which inhibit the team from reaching those goals, and 3) address those issues, remove the inhibitors and enable the goals to be achieved. Simple, right?

I think these three points speak to the heart of the issue of leadership. The coach of the team helps to clarify for the team what the objective is and establishes that it is in the best interest of everyone on the team to achieve that goal. The cohesiveness of the team will determine the extent to which individuals will be able to lay aside personal agendas and work for the good of the team.

The word “clarify” is important here. A team may have a vague idea of what the goal is, but lack of clarity (vision) creates unnecessary confusion with respect to direction. It is the role of the leader to clarify the goal. It isn’t enough to tell a team we need to increase productivity. The team may need to be told that the third shift of the organization is bringing down overall production ratios and we want this team to work specifically on identifying some of the reasons why this is so, and make suggestions as to how these reasons can be addressed so as to bring production ratios up on the third shift.

Something that frustrates a team is to be given goals and then to find that achieving those goals is inhibited by institutional factors. Going back to the illustration of the third shift, the team will be inhibited if it cannot observe third shift employees at work, or talk with them anonymously to gain their perspectives on why production is lower on third shift. If there is an institutional barrier, such as only allowing a certain amount of coffee breaks per shift--when third shift would be more productive with an extra break (which seems counterintuitive)--then being told that no changes will be made on this issue will only frustrate the team and inhibit them from reaching the stated goal.

So the third element must be employed as well, that is, “remove inhibitors and enable goals to be achieved.” A team that is given the freedom to be creative and innovative is more likely to work together cohesively than a team that is given rigid structures and is not given the liberty to initiate new options to old problems. Jim Collins says that good to great companies learned to give teams “freedom within framework.” They were given the freedom to pursue goals as long as they did not compromise the core values or primary purpose of the organization. These core values and purpose were clearly defined and understood going into the project.

In Scripture Jesus gave His disciples a clear vision, “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19-20). For the Jews there was an institutional barrier, that being, that the Jews had nothing to do (or as little as possible) with non-Jewish people. Peter was going to be sent to the house of Cornelius to preach the gospel to them, but Peter could not envision such a thing in light of the restrictions of his culture and former religion. So God prepared Peter for this task by speaking to Peter in a dream. In this dream Peter was told to eat certain animals that were not considered kosher. Peter refused to eat these animals because in the law and in his culture these animals were considered “common” or ritually unclean. A voice in the dream told Peter, “What God has cleansed, don’t you call common” Acts 10:15). The metaphor was clear and an institutional barrier was removed so that Peter and the team Jesus had built were released to pursue the goal. Cornelius and his entire household were led to faith in Christ, and the leadership of the church embraced the commission to go to all people with the gospel.

In many local churches there are local institutional barriers that inhibit the team from pursuing the vision. Often these barriers are identified by words such as: ”We’ve never done that here before.” Or, “We’ve always done it this way.” When these barriers are constantly lifted up every time a team has an innovative and creative approach to reach the vision, it is only a matter of time until the team becomes frustrated and fragmented.

There is nothing more powerful for bringing a team together than a clearly defined vision that challenges the team to greater heights. But this is only true when they are coached in the area where they are expected to excel, and are empowered to pursue the goal. After two years of mentoring and training His disciples, and before He ascended, Jesus told His team, “You shall receive power” (Acts 1:8). They were trained, given clear a clarified goal, and empowered to reach that goal. There’s a lesson here for every leader.