The building blocks of Tactical Capacity accelerate executive onboarding and the development of high-performing teams. Each building block has a key component. In building high-performing teams it’s important to put all the building blocks in place and even more important to focus on the key components:
- Burning Imperative: Co-created shared purpose
- Milestone Management: Systemic approach to learning and adapting
- Early Wins: Disciplined delegation
- Role Sort: Leveraging complementary strengths
- Communication: Two ways all the time
Tactical Capacity
Tactical capacity is a team’s ability to work under difficult, changing conditions and to translate strategies into tactical actions and results decisively, rapidly, and effectively. It is the essential bridge between strategy and execution.
In contrast to other work groups that move slowly, with lots of direction and most decision-making coming from the leader, high-performing teams with strong tactical capacity empower each member, communicate effectively with the team and leader to create critical solutions to the inevitable problems that arise on an ongoing basis and to implement them quickly.
The objective is high-quality responsiveness; it takes cohesive teamwork to make it happen. High-performing teams build on strategy and plans with strong people and practices to implement ever-evolving and acutely responsive actions that work.
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. – Attributed to Charles Darwin
Burning Imperative
The Burning Imperative is a sharply defined, intensely shared, and purposefully urgent understanding from the team members of what they are “supposed to do now” and how this works with the larger aspirations of the team and the organization. Mission, vision, values, goals, objectives, and action-based strategies are key components of the Burning Imperative. The essence of the imperative is articulated in the rallying cry that everyone understands and can act on.
The key here is co-creating. Bryan Smith laid out five ways to “persuade” someone: tell – sell – test – consult – co-create. If you tell someone to do something, the best you can ever hope for is compliance. If you want them to contribute you have to invite them by selling, testing, or consulting. If you want them to commit, they have to co-create the imperative and their own norms for how they are going to work together so they share a complete picture of success.
Milestone Management
Milestones lay out what is being done, by when (completion date,) by whom (accountable).
The key here is managing milestones in a way that becomes a systemic engine for learning and adapting. Instead of meeting just to update each other on progress, flip the classroom, putting the updates in a shared file that all can access all the time and use the meetings to lay out and discuss wins, learning, and how to help each other – adapting as a team. This requires psychological safety to build trust so team members can take interpersonal risks without fear of negative consequences.
Early Wins
Early wins give the team confidence in itself. This is why they are generally little wins that can be delivered, wait for it, early, as opposed to big wins that take more time. The general guidance is to over-invest in the early wins to accelerate them and pave the way for other wins.
The key here is disciplined delegation, likely with some sort of team charter that lays out:
- Inspiring Direction: Objectives/desired results/context/intent – what and why
- Enabling Resources: Financial, information, technical or operational, people, time
- Empowering Authority to make mission tactical decisions within strategic and operational boundaries/guidelines/intent – different than superior would have made
- Credible Accountability and consequences (standards of performance, time expectations, positive and negative consequences of success and failure)
Role Sort
Structure follows strategy. Figure out what roles you need to implement the strategy. Be specific about talent, knowledge, skill, experience, and craft requirements in each key role, and then sort to get the right people in the right roles with the right support now, while putting in place a future capability plan to build the team you’re going to need over time.
The key here is leveraging complementary strengths. It’s not about the best players. It’s about the best team.
Communication
Everything communicates: everything you say and do and don’t say and don’t do – including how you listen.
The key here is two-way listening. Of course, a new leader has to start with a hypothetical message to position themselves in others’ minds instead of letting others position them. But if they aren’t always listening to ratchet up their current best thinking, they can’t possibly build a high-performing team with all enrolled in what it takes to win.
John Hall
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