As I was driving to our lake house recently, I had time to ponder a number of things.  I was thinking a lot about the biggest issue we face when marketing and selling anything online: TRUST.  Then it hit me…

Perhaps there’s a link here that’s been overlooked:  The “5 Dysfunctions of a Team“, a tremendous book. For anyone who hasn’t read it, this book can save your business or project if you’re experiencing teamwork issues and will serve as a tremendous foundation for success building.

In case you haven’t read this book yet, I highly recommend you stop, order it now and actually read it when it arrives :)  Then, order copies for each person on your team and make it mandatory reading.  Finally, organize some team-building exercises and make an investment in your teams - your executive leadership team, their teams, and their teams (and so on). 

Trust me - you’ll be glad you did this… (it’s one of the success secrets I learned while at Citrix).

This is one of those great leadership books that’s a must-read for every business owner, executive and manager of people - it’s surely destined to become a classic, like Good To Great (another favorite of mine).

A quick overview may be helpful as background, then I’ll discuss how this ties back into building strong customer relationships.

The premise put forth by author Lencioini is that groups of people working together on a “team” ascend through various levels of cohesiveness and effectiveness as a team, as depicted in the following diagram:

The foundation of any team is Trust. The Absence of Trust (as shown in the above chart) is at the root of most teamwork problems. This is especially acute whenever: 1) the team is relatively young and people don’t know each other well and haven’t developed the bonds of trust yet, and 2) whenever someone new joins an existing team. 

The absence of trust causes a dysfunction referred to as “invulnerability”. This means that team members don’t trust each other enough to become “vulnerable” to the other team members yet, so they often clam up in the group setting, afraid to speak their mind.

It’s easy to tell when people on a team begin to gel and trust one another - they begin to surface and air Conflict openly with one another - both in team meetings and in 1-1 sessions. By surfacing the conflicts, it becomes possible to face the real issues together and work them as a group, greatly increasing the effectiveness of the team.

The absence of Conflict leads to “artificial harmony”, a situation where issues aren’t raised, and team members are often afraid to speak up as it might cause conflict.

Worse yet, team members may actually disagree with one another on key issues, and by failing to face and resolve these disagreements, artificial harmony undermines the team’s success, or even causes “divisiveness” - disunity or disssention.  Ever see this one in a team?

Lack of Commitment is the next level of teamwork, where team members openly make commitments to get certain things done.  Have you ever seen the situation arise where one person proposes that someone else on the team get something done (that the person proposing it needs to be successful), and there’s not a resounding commitment shown by the person who must deliver?  Of course we have - it happens all the time!

The absence of commitment leads to ambiguity around what the team can get accomplished, as one or more team members won’t openly commit to doing what the team needs to succeed as a whole.  Sometimes this is due to a difference in priority, could be due to budget or other constraints; however, if the team members are able to openly confront and deal with conflicts properly, these barriers can typically be recognized and then addressed by the team (if the team’s commitment is truly required for them to succeed together).

The next thing that invariably happens is a deadline or commitment cannot be met. Instead of fessing up to this failure with the team, the team member avoids Accountability. This manifests itself in the form of excuses or reasons the commitment couldn’t be met, or even redirection to another team member who supposedly caused the failure (instead of the individual being accountable and working directly with other team members to resolve the issue before it became a failure in the first place).

The absence of accountability results in “low standards” for the team, where less than optimal results are being accepted and dealt with by the team as a whole.  This can be failure to meet a deadline, desired quality level or deliver on the commitment.

The final level of teamwork is innattention to Results. In this situation, results aren’t being achieved and instead of holding each other accountable and ensuring success, the team succumbs to failures or shortfalls, overlooking the real results that were expected, promised or required.

The absence of results can be a by-product of people’s egos or status, where they just won’t admit they’re failing and instead make excuses or try to justify the lackluster results in various ways.

So, in a a truly effective team operating at its optimal level:

• Team members trust each other and always assume the other members have the best interests of the team at heart
• Have open, unfiltered debates about the most important, and often, most difficult issues and are able to face and resolve issues effectively together
• Commit to each other on decisions and plans of action they truly intend to follow through on
• Hold each other accountable for delivering on their commitments
• Focus on achievement of the results the team needs to reach its goals and be successful.

For a deeper analysis of the 5 dysfunctions book, here’s an excellent book review.

One last key point, from Good to Great. It’s critically important to identify those individuals who aren’t progressing as the team grows, and either help them, or replace them. This is sometimes one of the most challenging things to face - a team member who just doesn’ fit for some reason(s).  It’s important to “get the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off the bus (team)” in order become a great success.

So what the heck does any of this have to do with customer relationships, you might ask?

Well, as I was saying, this is the question I was pondering while driving to the lake, trying to find some good music to listen to on XM radio…

When dealing with a “prospect” who has yet to become a “customer”, the biggest foundational barrier to progress is often “trust”. This common thread of trust is what got me thinking about this in the first place.

Especially when doing business online, the number 1 barrier to success is lack of trust by prospects of the vendor or website owner. There’s a couple of reasons for this. First, we’re all taught from a very young age not to trust strangers. So, unless someone we already know and trust introduces us to someone new, that unknown person starts off in the category of “stranger”.

Second, there are so many scams and untrustworthy sites and people (stangers) on the Internet, trust doesn’t come easy - that Trust must be EARNED.

When dealing with customers, we ultimately want a relationship exhibiting most, if not all, of the same characteristcs we see in functional teams. Ever hear customers say they’re looking for a “partner”, when doing business?  I certainly have…

What they’re saying is…

• They want someone they can trust to do what they say they’ll do
• They want someone who will face the most difficult issues together with them and resolve issues effectively
• They want someone who follows through on their commitments
• They want somene they can hold accountable for delivery
• They want someone who delivers the results they promised when the sale was originally consumated.

Isn’t that interesting?  The highest level of customer service actually shares many of the same characteristics as great teamwork.

These realizations have given me a new perspective on dealing with prospects, converting them into customers, and then driving that customer relationship to the highest possible levels.

Why?  Simple. Happy, satisfied customers are our biggest source of profits, due to lowering our cost of sales, through repeat business, referrals and testimonials.

I’m starting to think differently about customers who raise issues, and think this perspective may help us carefully examine how we’re responding by understanding what level of “teamwork” we’re exhibiting with our most valued business asset of all - our Customers.

So, what are your thoughts on this connection between Teamwork and Customer Relationships?