The best team leaders are not bashful about good ideas. They don’t care where a best practice originates. They see their role as finding the best solution or process from anywhere, even those used by competitors. Leaders then incorporate such practices into the everyday approaches of their own teams.
Good leaders believe introducing a best practice and mastering it is what makes teams rapidly better. A new and effective best practice can energize the team and encourage team members to recommit to continuous improvement. As a result, the best leaders and teams never stop looking for new and better practices.
However, those same leaders seem to rarely look across the aisle for best practices or share what they learn and implement with other teams. Curiously, new practices and procedures commonly don’t get shared across teams, divisions, and businesses in the same organization.
This makes little sense and puzzles those who believe the organization would greatly benefit from the cross-collaboration. Why on earth would leaders resist sharing best practices with others that would make the larger organization more effective?
As it turns out, the underlying reasons teams are protective of best practices usually involve everyday motivations. Leaders and teams want to stand out and be recognized for their work. They sometimes believe sharing their best practices undermines their ability to distinguish themselves.
Once this competitive jealousy takes hold, leaders keep their mouths shut and focus inward and not outward. This attitude is compounded in organizations where teams and units are siloed and don’t have a reason to communicate on a regular basis.
As hard as this problem appears, a simple solution often breaks the logjam and gets leaders and teams to share best practices. The best organizations place an emphasis on collaboration by expecting and rewarding it. By establishing a frequent forum where leaders and teams are given credit for introducing a best practice across the organization, people quickly learn that the best way to stand out is to be an exemplar and to spread the word.
Setting aside even 20 minutes each quarter to announce what best practices have been recently introduced by which exalted team galvanizes collaborative effort. Soon, leaders and teams compete to find and launch best practices across the enterprise in a surprising show of goodwill and partnership.
It just goes to show that whatever is emphasized and rewarded has a profound effect on team behavior, as well. If innovation is inventing tomorrow, then today must be about recognizing leaders and teams that share best practices. That is what pushes an organization collaboratively forward.
A Daily Dispatch from the Front Lines of Leadership.
