1. Ten tools to enhance your
team's performance
Chapter 5 of The Idea Generator : Tools for Business
Growth by Ken Hudson

2. Tool 5/1: Push team out of comfort zone
 Teams often build collective lenses;
introduce team members to new
experiences
– i.e. move team members around, into
different roles, halve the time to complete a
project
 Old lens is shattered and new one
emerges; often team can go where
individuals will not; team takes up
collective risk
– i.e. individuals will accept new fitness
regiment when approached in a team
environment (drill sergeant)
 Application: Divide teams into two
smaller groups; select business challenge
and ask teams to write down six actions;
but make them uncomfortable
– i.e. How to better understand the
customer? Spend a day in the field making
new business calls
 Concentrate on the uncomfortable list and
select one for next month
 Remember to swap the list form Team A
to Team B; as a way of moving them out
of their collective comfort zones; What are
our key business challenges? What are
the actions that address challenges are
uncomfortable to perform?

3. Tool 5/2: Study great teams outside the business
 High performance can be found outside
current business environment; i.e.
Australian Olympic Women’s swimming
team; apply what high performance
means in another context
 It was found that female swimmers
need to be coached in a different
fashion than their male counterparts;
Would you be better served by having
your high potential female leaders
coached by female leaders?
 Application: Have team members
reflect on their own team experiences;
list the characteristics of a great team
they’ve been a part of? (i.e. common
purpose, diverse people et al) Ask
what worked and why? Doing this
reinforces that it is within anyone’s
reach; Decide which characteristics
are most inspiring; after creating this
list, search for a great non-business
team that typifies a high performing
team;
 What great team have you been a part
of? What could you learn, adapt or
borrow form this team?

4. Tool 5/3: Build most diverse team imaginable
 Diverse teams are comprised of
individuals with diverse skill sets and life
experiences; broad array of lenses that
when combined can create more
original solutions;
 Try to base teams entirely on
differences; start the team off initially
with nothing in common; forces the
team members to realize that there are
many different ways to solve problems
and resolve issues; challenge is
ensuring that people with diverse
mindsets still listen and value other’s
opinions; make sure that diverse team
has no common goals
 Application: To ensure diversity, rate
all members based on their preferred
intelligence style; i.e. rational (logic,
analyses and reason) emotional
(collaborative, energy passion) or
imaginativecreative (new solutions and
challenges status quo)

5. Tool 5/4: Build great team from the individual up
 More and more teams are seen as the change
driving forces in organization (i.e. cross-
functional teams, new product development
teams, innovation teams et al); downside to this
marked emphasis on teamwork is possible loss
or silence of the introverted or person lower in
the ranks; (imagine Albert Einstein on your
team);
 Select one high potential employee and then
select who else could add value to them then
add another, then another until you have the
desired number of members to your team
 Application: 1) start by having everyone solve
a problem by themselves in five minutes; no
talking; then have each work with a partner and
come up with the best ideas; pairs then present
best ideas to the group 2) hole a problem
solving contest between individual members of
the group; post a problem and ask group
members to come up with as many solution on
their own within 5 minutes; then compare and
contrast 3) in identifying best ideas to follow-
through on; give team members three “dots”; all
three could go on one or placed around the
various selections; give them only sixty
seconds to decide; this forces intuition; then
focus on the best ideas based on votes

6. Tool 5/5: Think strategically and aim for quick wins
 Change lens from we will generate short term
results OR focus on long term strategy  think
strategically AND obtain quick wins;
 Replacing and viewing goals of the team with
OR with AND leads to early wins  beneficial
 momentum  confidence; shows team and
rest of organization that the team is up and
running and getting results (i.e. revenue
growth team in an manufacturing concern
where results were expected in 12 months;
suggested that focus should be on quicker
projects; greater  energy for team 
acceptance from rest of company; short term
results must live besides long term strategic
direction
 Application: Starting point is to plot all
current and potential projects on a matrix; x
axis is business impact (low, medium, high), y
axis is time to test (short term, medium term,
long term); with an unbalanced portfolio
reconsider letting go of some the projects;
when considering new business initiatives ,
plotted them on the matrix and compare and
contrast

7. Tool 5/6: Focus on being receptive to new ideas
 Quickest way = willingness to accept and use
new solutions (left field ideas). Aim is to move
towards a goal and get everyone linked to
creating and sustaining energy of its
members…
 Best ideas often come from unexpected places
or people (i.e. brand team on desserts…built
on assistant's idea from something seen in
Europe…best of the session…
 Application: 1) use yes, and not yes, but
…forces builds and strengthens original
ideas… aids in smoothing out differences
between the idea creator and idea receiver
2) find something interesting about the
idea…suspend initial judgment…encourages
the receiver to really listen to the idea…left
field idea offers are more readily offered if the
owner feels that they have been heard

8. Tool 5/7: Build an out of box team
 Think in a non-linear way….not all teams need
to be implementation teams
 New way is to think in a non-linear
(discontinuous innovation) is to form a team of
lateral thinkers to work on growth
opportunities…team that makes new
connections or sees new possibilities… (i.e.
insurance company: leaders create a team of
lateral thinkers who work on developing a wide
range of breakthrough solutions…then owner
of “problem” gets to test the solutions
 Application: Key challenge is to identify
members from all over the organization: 1)
advertise for the team…original thinkers self-
select; on average 1/10 will identify
themselves as out of the box thinkers…are
you an out of the box thinker 2) ask your
peers to nominate people who consistently
develop left field ideas

9. Tool 5/9: Define what winning means
 Often teams are formed without any real
knowledge about how efforts will be judged;
difficult situation when teams don’t
understand what success looks like
 Group decides what succeeding means and
the criteria for success; this means the team
can control its own destiny
 Should be a range of objective criteria such
as: skills development, meeting deadlines et
cetera along with subjective such as team
harmony
 Application: every team should have
multiple goals related to its goals and its
members (i.e. Objective: Financial: ROI;
Milestone: Deliver this result by 12/1;
Performance based: Achieve specific
results; Team Interaction Goals: level of
collaboration, mutual trust, high levels of org
dynamics, learning goals)

10. Tool 5/9: Build teams around passion
 When you really care about something 
you tend to be more effective & enjoy your
work more
 Normally you build teams around skills, roles
or the problem @ hand; new lens designs
team around team members interest in the
subject; if team members are passionate,
they will be more likely to overcome barriers
and be motivated to achieve the final
objective
 One CEO of a large electronics company in
China  made Monday is Passion Day;
employees were encouraged to dress in red
and were free explore new projects that they
were passionate about
 Similarly think Google Engineers 
producing Google Earth
 Application: 1) Post a team assignment
on the intranet or by e-mail 2) form a team of
people with interests similar (i.e. improving
customer service 3) form a team of people
with interests similar to yours and work on a
project together 4) with a large group, divide
into smaller groups and have group members
nominate the aspect of the project they have
an interest in pursuing.

11. Tool 5/10: Imagine the perfect team result
 Break free of your existing mindset by designing the
perfect team result first. This is a counterintuitive,
carefully analyze where the team is now, where the
team wants to go and then how to get there. Process
usually involves a series of timelines, deliverables
and milestones.
 Good for most business-as-usual projects; however,
if facing a completely new challenge, or need a
breakthrough solution, it may be better to decide
what the perfect result is first, then design back to the
current situation.
 Designing backwards means that you are not as
fixed in continuing what has gone before, and the
short-term barriers do not seem as big, because they
are seen in the context of the perfect end result. A
dance company director uses this approach for new
shows. They select the date and location of their next
show, then work back to the present. This creates a
sense of urgency and a common purpose.
 Application: 1) Start by ignoring current situation and
focus only on defining the perfect result 2) When that
has been done, the group can design back to the
current situation. Ask yourself: What is a perfect
result? What is stopping us from achieving this result?
How can we overcome these barriers?