Teams – Read Write Collect

Watched

There were two points that stood out to me from David Marquet’s presentation on distributed leadership:

Move authority where the information is

And

Create the environment for thinking

This has correlation with Adam Grant’s discussion of creating a culture where givers can prosper.

Listened CM 097: Sam Walker on Creating Outstanding Teams by Gayle Allen from Curious Minds

Sam Walker lays out his findings in his latest book, The Captain Class: The Hidden Force that Creates the World’s Greatest Teams. Initially, he expected to find a magical combination of factors such as exceptional skill, brilliant coaching and remarkable strategy. Instead, he discovered something completely different: the 16 teams with the longest winning streaks across 37 elite sports succeeded because of a single player — the captain of the team. These captains were not only not the best player, but also possessed all or most of seven characteristics rarely associated with great leaders.

Sam Walker argues that successful ‘captains’ are not the usual. In his research, he identified seven key behaviours:

they are relentless
they are aggressive
they are willing to do thankless jobs
they shy away from the limelight
they excel at quiet communication
they are difficult to manage
they have excellent resilience and emotional control

Moving forward, he suggests dropping your preconceptions about leadership, looking for those who deflect praise onto others and are focused on team goals, even if this is critical of current practices. This has many correlations with the work of Leading Teams.