In Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations, one of Rich Karlgaard and Michael Malone’s key insights is that work really gets done by informal teams rather than by standing committees or groups assigned to formal projects of finite duration. Think in terms of high-impact collaboration that is often spontaneous and improvisational rather than initiated and supervised by senior management.

Teamwork, therefore, does not require the formation of a team to produce high-impact results. However, as the Manhattan Project and Lockheed’s “Skunk Works” suggest, human resources must be sufficient to the task at hand.

Here is a brief excerpt from an article by Tim Sackett for Halogen Software’s TalentSpace blog. To read the complete article, check out others, learn more about the firm, and sign up for email alerts, please click here.

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Creating a high-performing team is the hardest thing you’ll ever do as a leader. It’s the only thing you were truly hired to do. Sure, you were the best HR generalist, or best accountant, or best software engineer, etc. The reality is none of that matters anymore; your organization just needs you to lead a team of folks and do great stuff.

A challenge to your ego

You got to where you’re at because you were very good at what you do. That’s one hell of an ego stroke! Getting promoted is validation that you’re the best. The Ego of Me, at this point, is at full attention.

I speak from personal experience: I get to go around the world and speak to groups of leaders and it’s a huge stroke to my ego. My wife says it’s like a drug. If I get on stage and do well, I can feel the validation from the audience. It builds my ego.

The problem with the Ego of Me is that it only really makes one person feel good: me or you. Not both of us at the same time. We all need a little of this “me” ego time. It’s not a bad thing; all great leaders have an ego. It comes part and parcel with the job.

The bigger question is: How do we transition from Ego of Me to Ego of We?

Moving from me to we

The greatest organizations and the greatest leaders of our time have figured out that the Ego of We is truly the only path to greatness. If it’s only about you doing well, others can feel this. Most leaders who fail do so because they didn’t know how to lead. They fail because they don’t know how to get others to walk the journey with them.

Employees want to be successful and they want to work for a successful organization. They want the Ego of We!

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Here is a direct link to the complete article.

Tim Sackett is the President of HRU Technical Resources, engineering and IT staffing firm in Lansing, MI. He has 20 years of HR and recruiting background split evenly between corporate Fortune 500 gigs and third party staffing gigs. The best performance feedback Tim ever received was that he was “unfiltered and loose in the corners.” Tim tells it like it is, which means sometimes he calls HR and Talent Pros out on the dumb stuff we do. Catch him weekly here and here.