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Ready-Aim-Fire — Balancing the team for quality results

by Geof Cox Published in Management Scotland magazine, Issue 1, January 1994.

Each of us takes on two roles when we work in a team. There the task role-what we do in a team, and a team role-how we do it. Research on what makes teams effective* identify a number of different roles, ranging from the person who generates ideas to the person who finishes the job. We each prefer a particular role, and will tend to follow that role in any team that we work in, whether or not it is appropriate for the success of that team.

Each of the individual team roles is vital to the successful working of the team. The absence of any one role will weaken the team. Equally, the presence of two people in one role or a very strong person in one role may produce imbalances that make the team less successful. The ideal team has one person strongly representing each of the team roles and every person understanding and valuing the role of each other person.

Some of the roles are creative (both on task and relationships), some evaluative (stopping the team making wrong decisions) and some action oriented (wanting to get on with the task).

Research in real work situations has proved over and over again that a team with a balance between roles. will out-perform any other team.

In a simple problem solving process, you want to gather as much information on the problem as possible, apply critical evaluation to choose the best option, and then implement your solution. Ready, Aim, Fire! That's why the balanced team always works best - it can follow this process.

Despite the changes being wrought in management style and culture over recent years, most organisations are still dominated by action-oriented managers who continue to recruit and promote in their own image. The demand is for action, often without thought-Fire, Fire, Fire.

Some writers, such as Tom Peters, have extolled high-speed innovation using Ready, Fire, Aim-doing something and then making the adjustments. Whilst this is great for innovation and piloting, it has become a way of life for some organisations-with some disastrous results. The danger is that teams skimp on the aiming step because of group pressure to get Ready to Fire again.

Some organisations have such a focus on Ready, Fire that their fortunes fluctuate enormously. Just look at the history of Sir Clive Sinclair (of laptop computer, pocket calculator and C5 fame.)

Other organisations never get started. They spend their time looking for the perfect, no-risk solution: Aim, Aim, Aim.

What is true for organisations is also true for departments, functions, factories, units and teams in an organisation. Often they are clones of the whole, other times they have their own unique bias.

What are the styles of the teams that you belong to?

Teams can learn to balance their roles by using the flexibility of team members who have close secondary preferences. Or the team can import the missing role from another part of the organisation when it is needed. Or the team can use a technique to make up for the lack of a particular role- for instance, using brain-storming when they lack creativity. What is important is to recognise the role that is missing. Awareness is 90% of the solution.

If we are team leaders, we need to be particularly aware of our own team role, and its impact on the team. We may promote our own preference to the detriment of good team balance, and we can overplay our strengths-turning them into weaknesses. Self-managed teams can rotate the leadership of the team relative to the function the team is performing.

Each of us can learn from our role. We can learn to contribute effectively to the problem-solving process. We can learn to make effective alliances with other roles rather than do battle with them. We can learn to value each other's different contributions to an effective team effort. In short, we can start to knock spots off the competition rather than knocking each other.

* Team Roles at Work, M. Belbin, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1993

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