In our previous post, we introduced what we find to be an extremely effective team building model – Tuckman’s Model. It involves four phases, forming, storming, norming, and performing. Each of these phases is necessary for the team to grow, overcome challenges, and deliver results. To read this in detail, check out part-one of our series on Building and Leading Cross Functional Teams.
Today we are going to discuss Adair’s Model to illustrate leadership processes, and a Cross Functional Team Integration concept.
Action Centered Leadership, Adair’s Model
At Recruit Training Command (RTC), everything is biased toward action. John Adair’s Action-Centered Leadership™ illustrate how tasks are achieved and how the teams and individuals are managed. According to Adair, the task, team, and individuals have six core functions:
- Planning
- Initiating
- Controlling
- Supporting
- Informing
- Evaluating,
All of these are vital to achieve the common goal. How did we use Adair’s model for RTC team leaders?
The Task Circle
John Adair identifies the responsibilities for “task” as the vision, mission, and purpose for the group. At RTC, training is the purpose, graduation is mission or the common goal, and excellence is the vision. Achieving the task, or series of tasks, is different for each team and individual, and is necessary to complete the task circle. The three teams, Recruit, RDC, and support, each have their own tasks with purpose, resources, and processes to follow. A recruit’s task is to learn, including learning to rely on each other, and complete every requirement to graduate. RDC’s task is to ensure strict discipline and present a pristine example of leadership, while facilitating completion of all requirements. The support team’s task is to help execute the schedule, fill in gaps as needed, and demonstrate exemplary standards. As the training timeline progresses, the task circle is completed.
The Individual Circle
It is important for each leader to understand the team members as individuals. The responsibilities for the individuals are to visualize the goal, maintain perspective, be supportive, perform in key roles, earn rewards, complete training, and develop as individuals and as team members. For the Recruits, it is imperative they remain aware of why they volunteered for RTC. The RDCs find creative ways to motivate, train, and develop recruits. Support staff focus on recruits, RDCs, and themselves.
The Team Circle
Dynamics at RTC are similar for each team, with differing perspectives. The recruit team, RDC team, and support teams are defined by their culture, roles, communication, performance, cooperation, and capabilities. By design, recruits experience challenges such as swim qualification, physical fitness tests, weapons familiarization, academic tests, firefighting and shipboard casualty training events which culminate in a 12-hour overnight capstone event called Battle Stations. RDCs face unique and often repetitive situations in their teams, such as recruit health and family issues, scheduling changes due to weather, and division performance. The support team evolves slowly as team members are added and removed over time, and whose culture is primarily established through the training command’s directives and influence. Through adversity and resolution, each team assumes an identity, standards, and style which forms the team circle.
As noted by Adair and observed to be true at RTC, achieving the Task, Developing the Team, and Developing Individuals are mutually dependent, as well as essential to the overall leadership role. So how did the three teams work as cross functioning teams?
Cross Functioning Team Integration
Cross functioning teams are defined as a group of people with different functional expertise working toward a common goal. RDCs, recruits, and support staff teams are comprised of a leader and key people in contributing roles. The cross functional model below displays how we worked as cross functional teams.
Recruit Teams
The recruit teams are a division of up to 88 individuals, ages 17-34, from the United States and overseas, with unique skills, abilities, and motivations. From the first day, recruits are assigned real and functional leadership positions complementing their skills and abilities; the roles were leader, assistant and specialists; responsible tasks included laundry, mail, medical and more. These assignments help introduce rank, structure, and instill leadership qualities that last a lifetime. After eight weeks of training, recruits are tested in the final evolution problem, called Battle Stations. Those who succeed earn the title of United States Sailor and go on to the next phase in their career.
RDC Teams
There are typically three RDCs per division. One is established as the lead. Each has nearly half a career’s worth of fleet experience in addition to their own personal skills, RTC experience, and occupational expertise. All are trained to be interchangeable and can operate with any division of recruits as necessary. Some RDCs will perform inspections as practice for other divisions, as well as give advice or training to recruits and RDCs from other divisions. They rely on each other to meet daily requirements. Family time, personal life, and extracurricular activities are often sacrificed for team responsibilities and the common goal. This sacrifice doesn’t come without reward, however. The recruit training and leadership development experience results in the highest promotion rates, nearly double, of any enlisted occupation in the Navy.
Support Teams
Underneath the overarching command structure at RTC, the layer of support leadership is vital to success. In short, they are a finely tuned hierarchy of leaders who are specially trained to help in any given situation. By design these leaders occupy the “hold” positions. They are experienced RDCs who are strategically positioned with the massive number of employees to ensure smooth daily operations at RTC. This cadre of leaders are experienced and possess a keen understanding of even the most unique problems.
Cross Functioning Team Interaction
From recruits leading other recruits, to RDCs facilitating daily routines, to leadership support teams providing solutions, the Navy’s Recruit Training Command has been at the forefront of modern leadership practices, refining and redefining the basics of leadership and management for Sailors. Each team is trained and designated to communicate and interact within their teams and across other teams for the good of the Navy. The teams together operate like a machine toward a common goal.
The Team Interaction model shows how independent, cross-functioning, teams connect and influence each other directly and indirectly. Each team’s connection is dynamic, which means multiple points of connection between teams. While their responsibilities may differ, they are part of the same organization and contribute to its mission in ways that correlate to each other. For example, recruit divisions interact with RDC teams and support teams. Support teams interact with RDCs and organization management teams. The curriculum development team may never interact directly with the recruit division but has a certain effect on their mission and performance. Meanwhile, all the teams within an organization move forward at varying paces toward a common vision, mission, and purpose.
Three Tips to Successfully Manage Cross Functioning Teams
Here are a few tips to build and manage successful cross functioning and interactive teams, along with three important ingredients (Communication, Common Goal, and Rewards).
Tip 1: Communication is essential to all members and teams for the duration of the task. Make the organization’s vision, mission, and purpose ubiquitous. Encourage familiarity within the organization to facilitate engagement between team members, and teams. You can do this by scheduling team activities, sharing the history of the organization, creating events focused on the purpose of the organization, and by structuring teams in a way that promotes reliance on another team for success.
Tip 2: Teams must be focused on a never-changing common goal, and even small goals leading up to it. Scheduling is key to accomplishing this, but even more important is to never “move the goal posts”. Ensure your goals are solid and cannot be easily moved or changed. Make smaller goals, which can be adjusted within reason, part of the larger goal.
Tip 3: Having a rewards system in place from the beginning, to avoid extra work at the end, is a great way to create additional incentive and foster motivation. Aside from monetary, time, and personal rewards, you may wish to offer a certification, or a title upon completion. A hand-written letter or note for meaningful and important work is also valuable. Small rewards for completing small goals are also highly encouraged. Sometimes a verbal “thank you” is just enough to demonstrate gratitude and appreciation from the team or organization.
What teams do you have in your organization? Have you assembled the right team? Is the team focused on a common goal? Does your communication system allow you to interact with other teams effectively and efficiently? Is there a reward system in place? Does your organization have a higher purpose?
Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.
Written by Curt Kline, CHCI employee