An IT Leaders Guide to Getting the Rest of the Organisation On-Board. Getting teams to work in a cross functional project is rarely easy. And most projects fail because the IT leader has been unable to get the rest of the organisation truly on-board. So what can the IT leader do to ensure success?

1. What Makes Teamwork Work?
An IT Leaders Guide to Getting the Rest of
the Organisation On-board

2. What Makes Teamwork Work? Page 2
Why Teamwork Matters
Or does it?
There’s a lot of talk about teamwork. About how much better teamwork is than
working independently. Words like “Synergy”, where the sum of the whole is
greater than the parts.
But many of the proponents of teamwork fail to mention the less than productive
meetings, the fact that some team members rather than contribute, actually
appear to sabotage your own work.
And doesn’t individual skill and character of all the team members have a part to
play in this “synergy”.
I’m sure that I could gather 11 of you together and call you a soccer team. Then
you’ll play your first match against Man Utd. OK? Your chances of winning?
OK, so how about Kallang Utd.?
The local Primary school?
OK maybe then, but that rather depends on which eleven of you I choose,
because even 6 or 7 year olds could run rings around some of you 
Granted, the skills and knowledge of the team members will have a part to play.
But is teamwork really a good thing? Is it better than working independently? And
when, as I suspect in your own situations, you don’t get to pick all of your team
members, you may have some doubts about the efficacy of teamwork over
working independently.
Today I hope to raise your
thinking about teamwork,
and why it matters…. Or
does it?
Why Teamwork Matters ..................................................2
The Law of Significance....................................................3
So, are teams more productive?.....................................5
Why we like to go it alone (aka What makes
teamwork NOT work).......................................................6
What Makes Teamwork work?........................................7
Leadership Lid and Effectiveness .................................10
IT Leadership Lid and Profitability ...............................11
IT Leadership Flexibility.................................................12
So when is team work a good thing and when is it not
such a good thing?..........................................................13
IT Leadership Flexibility and “Success”........................14
To summarize:.................................................................15

3. What Makes Teamwork Work? Page 3
The Law of Significance
Dr. John C. Maxwell wrote the 17 Indisputable laws of teamwork, and Law number
1, is the Law of Significance:
One is too small a number to achieve greatness.
Leaders who fail to promote teamwork undermine their own potential and erode
the best efforts of the people with whom they work. To accomplish anything
significant, leaders must learn to link up with others.
At a recent seminar, a delegate came up to me beaming and full of pride and told me
“I’m a successful businessman, I have a beautiful bungalow, , not one but two Ferraris,
and a 42 foot luxury yacht… and I’m a self-made man!”
He was surprised when I responded “Oh that’s a shame. Just imagine what you could
have achieved with a team.”
He walked away deflated, but I trust, thinking.
So I put to you a simple challenge:
NAME ONE SIGNIFICANT ACHIEVEMENT THAT WAS THE RESULT OF ONLY ONE PERSON’S
EFFORT?
Anyone?
Anything?
Even inventions of one mind, to become significant, require a team of people to
make, market, sell and support.
Heck, even inventions come about from minds educated by others.
So let’s accept that at some point, a team of people needs to be involved. i.e. it
takes more than one person to create anything, certainly anything of any
significance. But do teams actually perform better than a collection of individuals?
Is “synergy” real?
We set out to find out. ..
To be able to compare individual effort against team effort we used one of our
business game simulations – “Strategy Edge”. This simulation can be played by
individuals competing with other individuals or competing with teams of people.
We compared two groups, one group from the telecomms industry, another
group from the IT industry.

4. What Makes Teamwork Work? Page 4
Proof for the Law of Significance
Analyzing data from 2 groups of 156 teams and 78 individuals all working in the
same industry as each other within different companies.
Here we compare the two key indicators for any business, revenue and profit.
A team is considered to be 3 or more individuals working together for a common
purpose.
Here’s a brief summary of what we found:
 On average, a team shows 276% higher revenue, and 115% higher profit.
 Less than 6 team members and the difference is insignificant,
 greater than 9 team members and team performance plateaus and falls off.
 Two individuals competing show a higher revenue and profit than sole
individuals, this is due to the raised level of competitiveness. Which remains
constant for sole individuals competing up to 12 individuals.
 More than two individuals competing (up to 5) and performance
improvement is marginal.

5. What Makes Teamwork Work? Page 5
So, are teams more productive?
SO it seems that teams are more productive!
And, despite what your best friends might tell you, Size matters!
 The Ideal team size is 8 or 9 members - this concurs with so many
researchers on teams from Meredith Belbin in the 60’s onwards, so we are
unsurprised.
 Each team, for our research had a nominated team leader. What we found
was:
 If the Manager’s leadership lid was greater than 5, the team averaged 6%
higher Revenue and 5% higher profit than team with a team leader whose
lid was less than 5
 If the Manager’s flexibility >4, the team averaged 8% higher revenue and 7%
greater profit
There are times when teamwork has been shown to
be COUNTER-productive:
Nature of work matters: Creative work – such as computer programming!
So if a team leaders lid and flexibility have such an impact, what is it that prevents
teams from being effective?
First, let’s challenge you again…

6. What Makes Teamwork Work? Page 6
Another Challenge
1. Think of three things that you do each week that you do entirely alone.
2. Now think of why you do these things alone?
3. Now, consider that you are recommending to someone else about how
best to tackle those things… would you recommend that they do it alone or
with someone else?
Why we like to go it alone (aka What makes teamwork
NOT work)
In John C Maxwell’s Law of Significance, he identifies these things as restraining or
reducing the effectiveness of teamwork
All these things reduce and constrain our ability as a leader.

7. What Makes Teamwork Work? Page 7
What Makes Teamwork work?
What we found is that teamwork works, under two key conditions:
1. The Leadership Lid of the Team leader and
2. the Leadership Flexibility of that leader.
Let me, briefly outline what these two things are:
Law of the Lid
John C Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership starts with Law Number 1, The
Law of the Lid.
Everything rises or falls on leadership.
Leadership ability is the lid that determines a person’s level of effectiveness:
 The lower an individual’s ability to lead, the lower the lid on his potential.
 The higher the leadership, the greater the effectiveness.
Your leadership ability – for better or for worse –
always determines your effectiveness and the
potential impact of your organization.
Maxwell uses the McDonald brothers as example of weak leadership putting a lid on
their ability to succeed. The brothers started the McDonald’s hamburger chain but
lacked the leadership to take it to national prominence. Ray Kroc had a vision for a
national hamburger chain and bought the brothers’ business and turned McDonald’s
into the successful giant restaurant chain it is today.
Ray Kroc’s lid was high and obviously the McDonald’s leadership lid was low.
I know this for myself.
You may already know this, but I was born as a chef. Actually that’s not quite true.
I was born as a baby and became a chef. Or at least that was my first career.
I started cooking because my mother, God bless her, was a terrible cook. And
when I say terrible, let me give you an example. My mum overcooked everything.
On Sundays we would often have roast beef for lunch. Roast beef in my home was
a charred blackened, rock like substance that would not be out of place in a stone
quarry.
Everything was overcooked. We used to joke that on Sunday morning, mum
would put the brussels sprouts on to boil before we left for church. By the time

8. What Makes Teamwork Work? Page 8
we returned home, 2 or 3 hours later, the cabbage, potatoes and carrots would be
a grey mushy slop, whilst the roast meat would make up for this with an entirely
inedible texture.
Mum would put the Christmas treat of Brussels Sprouts on in October… OK,
perhaps a little exaggeration but still.
So I started to learn to cook. Mostly so that I would have something I could enjoy
eating.
I even got pretty good at cooking. I worked with some of the very best chefs and
became a lot sure of myself and my fantastic abilities.
Brilliant. Now of course, I knew everything there was to know about leading and
running a kitchen.
In my first real leadership test came in the Isle of Man, when after assuring
everyone how brilliant I was, I was (rather foolishly as it turns out) given charge of
the Palace Lido kitchens. Our first event was for 800 delegates at a
telecommunications union conference. And just so you know, the telecomms
union was at the time, a very militant bunch.
Well, it was a disaster. I had 30 kitchen staff, 30 waiting staff, a great kitchen and
had even ordered enough food. My planning however was, well let me say, there
wasn’t really any.
Lunch for 800 hungry, angry and loud delegates was late… by 2 hours!
It was not pretty.
It was not good.
Perhaps my mum had a better way after all.
I didn’t know the Law of the Lid at the time. But very clearly, what I had
demonstrated was a very low number on my leadership. All the skills and
competence to do the job of cooking, had not prepared me to effectively lead a
team of 60 to deliver something.
I was ready to quit in shame. Already to hide out and hopefully disappear. But
along came the Executive Chef for the hotel. A big Swiss guy, renowned for his
violent temper. I wasn’t going to be fired, I was going to be sliced into pieces… or
so I thought. He, on the other hand wasn’t about to let me get away with it. He
immediately called the entire team together, issued instructions and took
command. Hey, we had a dinner to prepare and we were already running late.

9. What Makes Teamwork Work? Page 9
I realised as I watched and listened in awe. My job wasn’t about cooking at all. My
job was to lead a team of people and prepare and serve meals to the customers.
Looking back on this day in my life, I now realise that this was the day I chose to
develop as a leader and raise my leadership lid. After all, a team of great people
were expecting me to guide them to deliver and a whole multitude of hungry
people were relying on me to make sure they were served.
I wasn’t fired that day, by the way. Chef later told me that such a very expensive
experience wasn’t something he was about to throw out.
Your team, your organization, your church. Are limited by
your leadership lid.
It’s the maximum headroom of your organization. The team must fit
under the bridge.
Consider, for a moment, a leader you worked for who, shall we say, “could do
better as a leader”. Maybe it’s your current boss.
Do you often feel like you are banging your head against a wall and “not getting
through”. You are pretty certain that you could do better but frustrated by politics
or simple inertia this is you banging against your leaders lid.
You have a choice:
 Stop banging your head – i.e. stop pushing so hard and accept mediocrity.
OR
 Help lift your leaders lid – i.e. support your leader and help him or her be
better but with humility and great subtlety. OR
 Push past and become the leader – i.e. assume the leadership role where
appropriate (without the position, promotion or title or the pay increment!)

10. What Makes Teamwork Work? Page 10
Leadership Lid and Effectiveness
If the leaders lid is at one, then, in spite of the team or organizations success
dedication, or their competence at doing the job they do. The effectiveness of the
team or organization is held down by the leaders lid.
As the leader increases their leadership lid. Improves their ability to lead… so the
room for effectiveness grows.
Challenge #3
 What is the number on my leadership lid?
 Would others around me agree with my assessment?
 What is my plan to increase my leadership lid.
 What are the lid numbers of those who work with me?
 What is my plan to increase the leadership lid of others?
 How many of you have worked for a leader whose leadership lid was low?
We all have, haven’t we?
Very often, when I work with leaders in organizations on the leadership lid, they
will tell me that their own boss should really be learning about this. Well that may
be true. But what matters here and now, is that we consider your own leadership
lid.
But where’s the proof that leadership lid makes teams more effective?

11. What Makes Teamwork Work? Page 11
IT Leadership Lid and Profitability
From the same research project. We found that, as the Leaders lid (their ABILITY
or COMPETENCY to lead) increased, then both revenue and profit increased (this
was true for individuals AND for teams)
The Leader’s Lid was measured using our GAPPS4 leadership assessment tool.
The revenue and profitability increased significantly when the leader’s lid was 4 or
higher, though between 6 and 9, there was less significant results… however,
profitability was improved at the higher levels, albeit marginal in percentage
terms, 2% is still better than the return from a bank… and that’s the ‘extra’ profit!
And this is compared to the same computer generated competitor.
So a quick fourth challenge.
 Think of a leader you admire.
 Why do you admire them?
If your ability as a leader has an impact on team performance, what’s this
flexibility all about?

12. What Makes Teamwork Work? Page 12
IT Leadership Flexibility
IT Leadership flexibility (or agility) is the single greatest differentiator between
successful leaders and less successful leaders.
To have flexibility of your style, learning, approach demands that you have:
 Good, high level leadership skills (competencies) and
 Depth of leadership character.
The most flexible successful leaders in Singapore and most of South East Asia are,
incidentally, leaders in the civil service and/or politics and have a legal or finance
background.
Please note that “Flexible leaders” does not
necessarily mean ‘good’ leaders.
A ‘good’ leader is one who’s approach and style at the time, in the context is
the most appropriate.
But without the full toolkit available (through continuous development), there will
be times when you are forced to use a hammer when a velvet glove would be
more appropriate.

13. What Makes Teamwork Work? Page 13
Let’s compare and contrast a “Flexible” and a “Stubborn” IT leader:
Thus, you can see why leadership flexibility increase team effectiveness.
So when is team work a good thing and when is it not
such a good thing?
AND THE PROOF?

14. What Makes Teamwork Work? Page 14
IT Leadership Flexibility and “Success”
Based on the 22 thousand plus individual leaders in SEA in our database as of last
year.
We looked at the average salary of those leaders and the number of years
between significant promotions through their career.
 Leaders with greater flexibility (and in order to have this, they must have a
higher leadership lid too), are paid 50% more on average for every
additional flexibility they score.
 Up to a flexibility of 7, each additional point for leadership flexibility
reduced time between promotions by 9 months.
 Until a flexibility greater than 7, when promotions take longer. Largely
because, these leaders are already near or at the top of their
organizations… and there’s nowhere higher to go!

15. What Makes Teamwork Work? Page 15
To summarize:
Teamwork Matters:
 Teamwork increase profitability, efficiency and productivity
 “synergy” does seem to exist in practice. IT Teams outperform individuals in
profitability, efficiency and productivity.
Lift your own Leadership Lid
 IT Team Leaders who have developed their leadership perform better than
other leaders
Increase your Leadership Flexibility
 IT Team Leaders who are show greater leadership flexibility have more
productive and efficient teams
 Highly flexible IT leaders are paid more and get promoted faster
 When the IT team leader is both more competent as a leader and shows
the flexibility to change their style appropriately (they are flexible).
Additionally, the more competent you are as a leader and the more flexible you
are… the more you can command in salary and get promoted faster.
Being the best you can be, pays you, the leader, the team, and the
organisation.
Work with me to develop your Leadership Lid and increase your flexibility and
together we can significantly increase the effectiveness of your team.
You’ll find my contact details on the back page.