Feature Article - November 2008

President-elect Obama Picks his Leadership Team:

The "complicated calculus" of building effective teams

                                                                                                                                                  by Tom Davidson

If the stakes weren’t so high, it would be entertaining.  But with two wars and a newly crippled economy, the unfolding drama of President-elect Obama’s senior leadership appointments is only riveting. 

Personnel decisions don’t usually make this much news. The mundane yet efficient process for hiring a sales professional can take two to four weeks.  In other sectors, it can take six months or more to hire technicians. While Obama’s predecessors had the luxury of months, he has a matter of days to select the inner circle he will depend upon for much of the next four years. 

In this uniquely compressed timeframe, personal lives must be safely “vetted,” technical capabilities accurately judged, and credentials uniquely matched to a Rubik’s Cube® of stakeholder requirements.  “Obama has the most complicated calculus for selecting a cabinet of any recent president,” said Paul Light, a public-policy professor at New York University, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.  Without exaggeration, the fate of much of the world could turn on these decisions.

Functional expertise is the major focus

Coffee-shop chatter, daily newspapers, televisions, radios, blogs and twitters are clogged with information about these cabinet-level appointments.  From these sources we learn about the nominees’ credentials, education, and experience.  Pundits and official spokespersons comment on their hobbies and hygiene; even their mothers are interviewed for juicy tidbits. But the focus remains on their functional expertise.

Outside of a few raised eyebrows about what “strange bedfellows” were made with the nominations of Bill Richardson as Secretary of Commerce and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, relatively little has been said about how well these individuals can work as a team, easily the most important leadership cadre on the planet.  Even though this should be a critical concern, the bulk of our attention, and that of the media, is given to their individual knowledge, skills, and abilities.  Let’s hope, like any good supervisor, plant manager, or CEO, Obama is considering team-player factors as well. 

Team abilities should be weighed more heavily

Some would say that top teams don’t need teamwork and that they are supposed to be composed of strong-willed senior executives who have gotten there by knocking heads and taking names.  They were promoted for results, not their “soft skills.”  Yet few could argue that at this place and time in history, this top team may need better-than-average teamwork if they are going to stabilize and help surmount the problems our country is facing. 

What then are the team traits that President-elect Obama, and all leaders, should be looking for in their teammates, and are there already some examples among his nominees? 

Glenn Parker (Team Players and Teamwork, 2nd Edition ) provides a useful template for identifying and leveraging team player styles.  He shows that individuals tend to prefer one or two of these modus operandi and makes the case that teams as a whole need to have skills from all four styles to be effective work units, boards and even presidential cabinets.  The styles are: collaborator, challenger, communicator and contributor. 

Collaborators

According to Parker, “collaborators” are goal oriented and visionary.  They will be creative and stop at nothing to achieve their mission, sometimes bypassing better alternatives in the process.  Top leadership teams are heavily populated with these individuals because these behaviors are rewarded with promotions (and votes).  Senator and Cabinet-nominee Hillary Clinton is a good example of this team style.  She is known for these tendencies, and they can be expected to continue on President Obama’s team.

Challengers

“Challengers” are valuable team members, too, but they can be much maligned by the group.  They question goals, point out pitfalls, and disagree bravely (and sometimes brazenly).  While they earn a reputation for being contradictory and difficult to be around, they are often the conscience of the group and keep the visionaries grounded in reality.  Soon-to-be Chief of Staff Rham Emanuel has this reputation.  He is likely to be a tough-minded gatekeeper to the president and is unconcerned with people’s feelings one way or the other.  In fact, it’s a job requirement.  While appearing disorganized at times, recently appointed Press Secretary Robert Gibbs also has “a taste for a good fight,” according to the Associated Press.  He prides himself on speaking freely and has been known to spar pointedly with the media, as a good challenger is prone to do.

Contributors

Parker describes “contributors” as those who bring data, subject matter expertise, and execution excellence to their teams.  They are concerned for a quality output and will be more detail-oriented than their counterparts.  If they don’t get “buried in the weeds,” they add a valued role as reliable “work horses” who ensure follow through.  Janet Napolitano (nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security) has a reputation for being dependable, well-organized, and quality-minded as well. 

Communicators

There is some evidence that the fourth team player style – “communicator” – may be represented in Obama’s cabinet as well.  Even though this one is stereotyped as the most “touchy-feely,” it is the one most often missing from top teams and can be the reason for their dysfunction.  The behaviors characteristic of this style can hold a team together through facilitation, active listening, and building work relationships.  Bill Richardson and Timothy Geithner (nominee for Secretary of the Treasury) appear to be bringing these attributes to Obama’s team.  Former colleagues repeatedly describe Geithner as a “relationship builder,” according to Time magazine.

What about your team?

If your selection and teambuilding processes focus heavily on the functional expertise and little on team abilities, then your task forces and other teams may fall surprisingly short of expectations.   Talk with your human resource representative or organizational psychologists about ways to enhance your selection methods.  These can involve important improvements in your behavioral interviewing techniques, personality tests, work simulations, or assessment centers.  There are reputable methods for assessing team behaviors, so you don’t have to rely on your “gut feeling” alone.

Click here to Subscribe to our Leadership Newsletter