Think Jerry Maguire: Recruiting and building your ultimate dream team

                                                                                         

Alas, it has occurred to me that having a college degree does not necessarily make you “smarter than the average bear”, so to speak. In theory, it should. Yet, a recent experience forced me to re-evaluate myself, particularly my leadership skills and abilities, and hence I found myself back in the classroom listening to a lecture on business management and organizational behavior.
To date, my college years have been the best years of my life. It has been two years since I had to cram for a final or write a prolific term paper that would be the determining factor of whether or not I would survive that semester and be able to proceed on to the next. Since graduating from college, with a degree in public relations and business management leadership, I have been juggling my time between working full-time, starting up an online sun protective clothing business, running an award-winning not-for-profit charitable organization, and doing freelance consulting work for women business owners. According to my resume, and the college degree, I possess a fairly sound knowledge base for what it takes to recruit, build and maintain an effective team. I may even have a few pearls of wisdom to share about building teams, coaching, and leadership development. And up until recently, I thought this to be true; however, I realize that I still have much to learn and relearn. In fact, personal and professional growth is an ongoing process of refining, reflecting, even revising. It is a process. The word development itself suggest this, so why would leadership development be any different.
When four members of my board of directors at the aforementioned non-profit organization told me they wanted to take time off and go back to school, I wasn’t even fazed. That is, until months down the road, our organization garnered two prestigious awards, coupled with national recognition, thus resulting in a seemingly endless “To Do” List. I managed to answer the hundreds of emails, return the dozens of voice mails, write thank you notes, organize and give presentations, fairly well, especially considering I was still managing several other projects with a fast approaching deadline attached to them. Then, one night when on the phone with an old friend, I attempted to politely end the conversation and return to working, I was approached with the following: “I understand that you have lost four of your key players who have been helping you with the day-to-day maintenance of the organization, recently, but why on earth have you not utilized the other team members? There are other members who volunteer time, right? So why not delegate a few projects to them and give them an opportunity to contribute more to the organization. They would probably appreciate having more responsibility and having an opportunity to volunteer their time in a meaningful way. Besides, you can then attend to the projects that you have committed to previously, but have been neglecting due to being over-extended.” Unfortunately, when I (finally) heeded this advice and approached the other volunteers, I learned that many of them had been feeling detached from the organization. Not the cause, but the organization. For many months, I had neglected to delegate and thus leaving them to feel unappreciated, under utilized, and even unnecessary. Suddenly, I was left an increasing workload but without any manpower. I had lost my team.
So, it was back to the drawing board. I was sitting in front of my computer screen answered week old emails and racking my brain for some brilliant method of re-building my dream team, when flashbacks from the movie Jerry Maguire (coupled with the faint, monotonous ramblings of an old business professor in the background) forced me to have an epifany. There is no “I” in team.
Although trite, (not to mention obvious), the simple fact is that there is a lesson to be learned in recognizing that the key to building teams is accepting and appreciating the fact that we other people. We cannot achieve our goals and objectives, professionally or personally, without the assistance of others. We need manpower to accomplish tasks within an organization, but moreover we need to recruit the myriad talents, skills, ideas, energy, insights, and personalities of a variety of individuals. Recruiting people is one thing, yet utilizing them well so as to successfully carryout the mission and vision of the organization is another. Albeit, that unlocking the unlimited potential each team member brings to the table not be overlooked or underestimated. After all, it is best leaders—the ones worth following—that understand this concept and thus are skilled enough to put into practice. Bringing this back to the example illustrated in Jerry Maguire. Jerry (Tom Cruise) is in his apartment talking to his business partner Dorothy Boyd (Renee Zellweger) about the future of their fledgling sports marketing firm. In response to Jerry’s concerns over surmounting difficulties experienced by most start-up business, Dorothy says “I care about the job, but mostly I just want to be inspired.” Earlier in the movie, Jerry issues an epistle; a vision plan about ways to improve performance in their industry and hence the multi-million dollar public relations firm both he and Dorothy were working for, that is, until he is fired on account for his idealism. Dorothy, a single mother, follows Jerry when he suggests starting from scratch; by starting a his own firm through building teams of sports agents that are based on the fundamental values of integrity, customer service, passion, and sound business acumen. In response to Dorothy’s encouragement, Jerry shouts in exacerbation and is ready to claim defeat. Yet, Dorothy pulls out Jerry’s action plan; the vision he presented to their previous employer. “It was just a mission statement,” he says. “It inspired me,” she says. The two then begin to achieve success, together, as a team, in seeing their one client to a championship football game that yields the interest of other professional athletes in the field.
Truly there is merit to Dorothy Boyd’s comment. We tend to follow those we admire, respect, revere, value, and trust. Yet, team building requires reciprocity. The leader ought to invest that same trust and respect in to their team, and exemplify a similar such appreciation and value for them in order to ensure the vitality of their “dream team”.
Sorry to say, however, that team building is not that simple. Additional factors come into play and ought to be considered.
“People in every workplace talk about building the team [and] working as a team, but few understand how to create the experience of team work or how to develop an effective team. Belonging to a team, in the broadest sense, is a result of feeling part of something larger than you. It has a lot to do with your understanding of the mission and objectives of your organization,” says Susan Hutchings. Hutchings is a former human resources manager and frequent columnist for a variety of business magazines.
“In a team-oriented environment, you contribute to the overall success of the organization. You work with fellow members of the organization to produce these results. Even though you have a specific job function and you belong to a specific department, you are unified with other organization members to accomplish the overall objectives. The bigger picture drives your actions; your function exists to serve the bigger picture,” she says. According to Hutchings, an effective leader needs to “differentiate this overall sense of teamwork from the task of developing an effective intact team that is formed to accomplish a specific goal […]. This is why so many team building seminars, meetings, and activities are deemed failures by their participants. Leaders failed to define the team they wanted to build. Developing an overall sense of team work is different from building an effective, focused work team when you consider team building approaches.”
In sum, merely seeking to find manpower to run the business efficiently is akin to shooting yourself in the foot. You may have the manpower, but you will fall short on building teams—your dream team. Do not find yourself in a similar situation I did, with a growing and nationally award-winning organization, and no team members to help build it and take it into the future. While, in my case, it was a non-profit organization, the principle applies to large corporations. Business owners and other leaders can experience a margin of success, individually. After all, there are sole proprietorships; however, even in small businesses run in the basement of your home rely, to an extent, on the contributions, talents, skills, and knowledge of others. Besides, the point of starting an organization, whether it be for-profit or not, is to ensure its longevity and sustainability. And the successful execution of that objective requires people to transform that mission into action. In other words, have that Jerry Maguire mentality. Live the dream through the development of your own dream team. Be inspired, and be inspirational.

About the author:
Bio: Danielle White is a client account specialist for 10x Marketing and the Center for Management and Organization Effectiveness (CMOE), an international leader in corporate consulting, executive team coaching, team building, and business planning. For more information, check out www.cmoe.com
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