Team Doctors, Report to ER

Coordinates: Tom Ruddy, tom_ruddy@mc.xerox.com

Los*ing Life Sup*port, verb, noun: being deprived of money, space, equipment, and information - everything essential to maintain the life and health of a team.

Senior leaders aren't looking out for the team? Can't get a budget that will make things happen? The symptoms are obvious. The diagnosis is in: The team is losing life support. And if intervention doesn't take place immediately, the prognosis is certain: death from wanton neglect.

"Teams that start with great enthusiasm can quickly become disillusioned as they encounter frustration after frustration while trying to get the support they need," says Richard Hackman, a professor of psychology at Harvard University and editor of Groups That Work: And Those That Don't (Jossey-Bass, 1990).

A good tactic for reviving a team's life-support system is to recruit a sponsor who can make things happen - someone who, for example, can go to HR and shake loose the staffing that the team needs.

One man who knows how to leverage a team's sponsor is Joe Bonito. A consultant and team leader at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Bonito teaches teams there how to work together. He tells people that when they need someone to look out for their team, they should first look to their own bosses.

"Get one of them excited," says Bonito. "If you can show the boss that your team is doing something unique, something that will create a competitive advantage, the boss will want to become the de facto sponsor."

Bonito says there's an art to getting a senior leader hooked on a team's project. He once found himself on a team organized by a senior vice president of marketing. Its mission: Within six months, recommend a redesign of the company's market-research and information-technology functions - without disrupting service to clients.

"Every two or three weeks, we brought the vice president our latest blueprint and asked him to review it," Bonito recalls. "That got him to buy into our team. His thinking evolved along with ours. He felt like a codesigner."

A lack of company support is one disease that teams rarely cure on their own. But teams aren't helpless. "Teams tend to make do with what they have," Hackman says. "But if the person who formed the team wants it to succeed, he should be willing to hear a case for more support."

Coordinates: Joe Bonito, bonitj@pfizer.com; Richard Hackman, hackman@fas.harvard.edu

Mark Fischetti mf@berkshire.net covers business and technology for many publications, including Smithsonian magazine and the New York Times.