Ch18 Apply Your Skills: Case for Critical Analysis Are We a Team? intimidating" were typical. The most disturbing comment, Hi. My name is Jenny McConnell. I am the newly ap- "Bob always agreed with me," was expressed by most of the pointed CIO of a medium-sized technology company. Our team members at some point in our conversation. It was as company recruits top graduates from schools of business if the regional heads believed that the CIO wanted them to and engineering. Talent, intellect, creativity-it's all there. succeed by doing as they thought best for themselves. If you lined up this crowd for a group photo, credentials in I queried members about the level of cooperation dur- hand, the"wow" factor would be there. ing meetings and uncovered areas of concern, including the Our company is spread over a dozen states, mostly complaint that others at the table were constantly checking in the Northwest. The talent pool is amazing across the their iPads and smartphones during meetings. One depart- board, both in IT and in the rest of the company. But when ment head told me, "You could turn off the sound while the CEO hired me, he said that we are performing nowhere watching one of our meetings, and just by the body lan- near our potential. On the surface, the company is doing guage and level of attention, tell who is aligned with whom fine. But we should be a Fortune 500 organization. With and who wishes the speaker would just shut up. It would be this much talent, we should be growing at a much faster comical if it weren't so distressing. rate. The CEO also said that I was inheriting a super team Such remarks were indicative of a lack of trust and with disappointing performance." His task for me was to respect and a breakdown of genuine communication. One pull the IT stars into a cohesive team that would meet team member told me, "I recently encountered a problem company needs for new IT systems and services much that a department head from another region had success- faster and more effectively. fully solved, but the information was never shared, so here Without making our superstars feel that they were I am reinventing the wheel and wasting valuable time." It being critiqued and second-guessed, or indicating "there's was apparent that these so-called high performers were ter- a real problem here," I wanted to gather as much informa- ritorial, and that the "each division for itself" attitude was tion and feedback as possible from the 14 team members becoming a cultural norm that, unchecked, was slowing our (regional CIOs and department heads) who report to me. response to line departments and customers. I held one-on-one meetings in order to give a voice to each I was also struck by the similarity of the regional IT person, allowing each individual to provide an honest as- leaders in their backgrounds, comments, and attitudes, sessment of the team as well as areas for improvement and which presented a whole new dilemma: How do we create a vision for the future of team efforts. diversity, jump-start ideas, and reignite passion? This looks I was surprised by the consistency of remarks and like a group of individualists who don't know how to play opinions. For example, a picture emerged of the previ- as a team. I don't want to diminish the individual talent, ous CIO, who was obviously awed by the talent level of but I am concerned by the lack of cohesion. I need to find team members. Comments such as "Bob pretty much let a way to help people think less about themselves and more us do what we wanted" and "Bob would start the meeting about sharing work and information and achieving collect and then just fade into the background, as if he found us tive results for the good of the company