How Effective Teams Deal With Challenge

Recently, we worked with a church ministry to create a mentorship program for fatherless homes. Fatherlessness is a rapidly growing problem in the nation; and, it is also one they believe the church is uniquely equipped to address. Their mission was to create an awareness of this problem on a larger scale. After completing their mission statement, identifying their value structure, designating inner-city communities for outreach; and, nominating strategic directors, the church leader thought they would have overwhelming success. When the first obstacles arose, he told us, "I thought we were clearly aligned on the importance of the mission. Yet, when I talked with the directors about overcoming these problems and enlisting more people from the community to help, their response was, 'it's too big for us to solve. This collapsed the whole organization!"
Often when people are faced with challenges that prompt them to work around unexpected adversity they fall back into routine responses. Many studies have demonstrated that the first emotional response to setbacks or adversity is fear. Successful teams confront adversity with courage, making decisions to realign responsibilities where necessary.

Courage is not the demonstration of recklessness, but can propel people to act with a solid foundation of values in place. Courage can enable us to view product failures, slumps in financial income, or large scale

humanitarian projects in a new worldview. Rigorous analysis combined with courage creates the energy to go forward with conviction, the guiding force behind effective teams.
An illustration of success after a drastic sales decline in 2008 was Phoenix based, Daphne's Headcovers. The novelty golf club cover business had to face the economy collapse; and, had to brainstorm over innovative ways to reach new customers. Last quarter, they were awarded the Spirit of Enterprise "Overcoming Adversity" Award by Arizona State University for creating jobs, contributing to charities, overcoming adversity and promoting innovation. Today, Daphne's serves resorts and golf shops in 75 countries, with covers on the clubs of more than 200 touring pro golfers. A significant achievement is that Daphne's has brought much of the company's manufacturing back to the Arizona valley. In their charitable contributions, proceeds from a special 'Weimaraner' cover goes to Gabriel's Angels, a nonprofit that provides pet therapy to abused and at-risk kids.
How successful teams deal with adversity or roadblocks is by using these elements:
• Team leaders are flexible in analyzing the exact situation at the moment. They are not angry about the circumstances, but use their positive presence to motivate and rouse the team members to do the impossible. Frequently, it is the leader that presents the team's strategies to finance meetings or review boards explaining how they will overcome obstacles; and, make the case for more finances or resources. That person is the champion of how to coordinate company tradeoffs and timelines.
• Teams review their original outcome and delivery dates to establish the new direction. They determine if these still have value and whether they need to change to deliver a new value structure. They do not use blame behavior or finger pointing in their assessments knowing that it is not a respectable use of energy. They have conversations now that will be used for execution, not produce resentment.
• Teams evaluate available resources and stabilize the effects of any departing personnel or failed research. They sometimes leave convention behind, using innovative thinking to address the current conditions. Often, innocent statements of the problem put folks into a creative space where no flawless solutions are presented, but a combination of thought that could be the steps to achievement. Think how today's medical world would have been different if Sir Alexander Fleming had not persisted in his search for a "wonder drug" that could cure diseases. He threw away his previous experiments when he found that he had grown a mold that today is a powerful antibiotic, penicillin.
• Effective teams leave all their evaluation meeting with precise tasks, owners of those tasks, and a schedule of the next progress meetings.
When you and your team are facing adversity or roadblocks, ask yourself:
• What are the outside challenges that have jeopardized the progression of the company goal or project? Are these factors a short term hiccup or some trend in the economy that will prove to impact the long term?
• What other resources will you need for success such as, political advocates to spread and support the mission statement? Will the situation become worse if no champions are identified to help?
• What measurements will you put in place to quantify progress? What will be the checks & balances so that you catch miscalculations in time to change direction?
• What sacrifices will the team have to make for navigating a new course? Is the journey to produce the product or service still valuable?
• Is the team effort viewed as pioneering or as experimentation only? If so, how can you demonstrate that the prototype or proof of concept is a valid investment? What research do you need to collect first, market data from industry experts, business affiliation contacts, or community leader support, to achieve that potential project?
• How can you help your staff believe in the concept of resistance helps clarify purpose?
• How can you help team members embody commitment, that mediocrity will not produce an excellent outcome?
• What mood do you bring to progress meetings, general optimism, stringency, cynicism, or gloom? How will this mood affect the probability of success with the team?