Just a quick 4 minute post, the basis stolen with pride from Sir Clive Woodward.
When Sir Clive took over the England Rugby team more than 2 decades ago, he made a decision to assess the inherited group of players as either sponges or rocks….
A sponge is someone who has an absolute thirst to take in new information, experiences and knowledge to continually improve.
A rock is someone who is not receptive to new ideas and generally has a closed mind, firmly believing they already have the tools to succeed.
He systematically removed the rocks, leaving his team of sponges to subsequently go on and win the Rugby World Cup and earn Sir Clive his knighthood.
So how can we take this really simple concept and apply to the team’s we lead?
With a national sports team, it is far easier to make changes. You can select from a pool of usually hundreds or thousands of people, that have spent their lives dreaming of being selected to play for their country.
In most teams we do not have that luxury. It might be a nice thought to have hundreds of capable people to select to build your team, but unfortunately that’s not reality for most of us. So what’s the plan?
My build on Sir Clive’s work is to break your team down into 4 categories, with a default next step for each behaviour…
Have a snoop doggy dog at this…
Here are the four behaviours, the reality and the next step…
- Wet Sponges. These are team members that are constantly looking for new ideas and knowledge to support their growth and build capability. They show initiative and require low supervision. The relevant next step is to showcase them encouraging others to model their desired behaviour
- Dry Sponges. These are team members that have the capacity to seek new ideas and knowledge to build capability, but are somehow not connected to the wider team goal. They need you to help water them to get them growing again. The relevant next step is to encourage them to join the vision
- Permeable Rocks. Permeable means it can take in water, but it’s still a rock and resistant to change. The relevant next step is to challenge to join the vision and work hard to build capability.
- Impermeable Rocks. Impermeable means that it has no capacity to take water in and is hugely resistant to change. These team members wish to be left alone in comfort. The relevant next step is to Call Out. Any team member in this position should be non emotionally told the required expectations, the impact of their behaviour and supported to join the vision or find another path.
The result of following the appropriate next step for the four behaviours means that you will slowly, calmly and consistently build a culture where people understand that continually getting better and building capability is the primary goal.
It also allows you as a leader to focus more as a leader on the Why and the What leaving the team to work out the How as detailed in my previous post You clever little Drucker.
https://sillyelliott.com/2019/04/04/youTwo final thoughts…..
- Where do your team sit on this scale?
- Where do you sit?
Don’t be a Squidward…..
