Hi [fname],

Did you ever take on a really big project, a project that challenged you, stretched you, excited you, touched your soul, and was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

We’ve got one of those projects in our shop at this moment, and if you got my email from last week, you know what it is: we’re working hand-in-hand as partner and marketing/PR agency with The Buckeye Real Estate Group for an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition!

The deserving Toledo family will be announced next Sunday, September 7, with demolition and construction happening that following week. Ty Pennington and his crew of designers will help our community call for the bus driver to “Move that bus!” on September 14.

All of this surreal activity got me to thinking about the characteristics a team needs to have in order to successfully navigate through such unfamiliar waters, especially when the stakes are so high and the deadline is so tight.

With best wishes of success for you,

Marcia E. Hoeck, President, Hoeck Associates, Inc.

When we got the call to help with the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition project, I had just begun my month-long semi-sabbatical on Pelee Island in the middle of Lake Erie. While only five hours from my office in Toledo by ferry boat and car, Pelee Island is officially designated as a “remote” location — a point proven by the FedEx overnight delivery from my pharmacy that took eight days to get there. I was available to my staff by phone and email, but wasn’t much help for the day-to-day, in-the-trenches management of this huge undertaking.

My staff dug in and whipped this project into shape like you wouldn’t believe. Their ability to work together to do what needs to be done is almost astounding, even to me. They didn’t need to be supervised. They are all leaders in their own right, and have the ability to work smoothly together, like a well-oiled machine, for the success of the project and the good of the company.

My company has a solid culture of interdependence, and we rely heavily on it when we need to get a large amount of work through our shop with efficiency and excellence.

Build a culture of interdependence
At first blush, it sounds like a good idea to hire people who are self-motivated and can work independently, rather than interdependently, and I’ll agree those are good qualities to have. But the temptation with employees like these, for managers, is to put them at a desk and just let them do the job, thinking, “Good, that’s one less thing I have to worry about.” Leaving employees to manage themselves can get you into trouble over time, in more ways than one.

First, all employees need direction and feedback, no matter how self-motivated and able to work independently they are. I’ve yet to meet an employee who wants to be left entirely alone unless he was up to no good. (And I’ve had a few of those, too.)

Second, people who prefer to work on their own may not be good team players. An interdependent team knows the value of working together for the good of the company or team versus gaining glory for themselves. The tactics used for building a culture of interdependence can help teams to rely on each other, which can alleviate all the craziness of problems like withholding of information, sabotage, cliques, prima donnas, and a raft of other tricks that people resort to when they don’t feel valued as part of a team.

Interdependent teams are teams you can count on when things really get challenging — like they are for my group right now. No one is concerned about their place in the pecking order, and everything just gets handled. Go ahead, ask any member of my staff if they feel valued as part of the team. On second thought, better wait until our Extreme Makeover build is complete — we’re too busy working interdependently right now!

For more on team building, see my special report, “From Problem Team to Money-Making Machine.”

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