How to take a group of people to accomplish something impossible

Learning how to build a team

It has been said “Nothing of significance was ever achieved by an individual acting alone. Look below the surface, and you will find that all seemingly solo acts are team efforts” — John C Maxwell.

This week I will share my experience of building a team to try and accomplish something which seemed impossible at the time. We want to build a school in northeast Nigeria, we had a goal of raising 90k in a year, and we were all 100% volunteers with full-time jobs.

1. Where do you want to take your team?

This is probably the hardest part to understand and to implement. Vision has been so overworked and rehashed that we all struggle to settle on a vison. We use big words, extravagant nuances and great catchphrases in a hope to have a compelling ‘vision’.

Saying this, the team and I did spend two years working on 14 words for our vision at Wellwater. In hindsight I don’t think it needed to be that hard. Hindsight is a beautiful thing.

At Wellwater, we want every human to live a better tomorrow: with purpose and without poverty.

Our vision outlines our two core drivers. To create leaders by giving them purpose and to eliminate poverty around the world. We believe that if we’re able to do this, every human could live a better tomorrow, forever.

So how can you arrive at a vision?

A. Begin with the end in mind

Stephen covey put these words together and are the bedrock for understanding where you want to go.

Think to when you are 80 years old.

Your grandchildren are surrounding you.

They ask you…. “Tell me a story!!”….” What did you do with your life??”….

What do you want to say?

The two most important moments in your life are; when you are born and when you understand what you were born to do.

Answering the question above is a crucial indicator of what you were born to do.

Let me say… YOU MUST DO WHAT YOU WERE BORN TO DO!!

Don’t settle for less. Don’t settle for a position, for money, for the status quo.

Abraham Maslow, a clinical phycologist said: “The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.”

Do not sell yourself short.

Answer the question and go and fulfil your purpose. That is where real joy is found.

Rant over.

Yes, answer those questions and when you have then answer you can begin to articulate it. Don’t worry too much about having the minutia of the precise words set in stone, they will change.

What you need is to have a picture of where you are going, only then can you build a team around you to get there.

B. Be prepared to tell people

Once you know where you are going, and you begin to tell people your dream. Try to be able to articulate the following to help people believe in the dream and in you:

- What you want to accomplish

- How long you think it will take

- What will that dream look like in reality

- How people’s roles are essential in that dream coming to fruition

Don’t be afraid to dream big. Don’t be scared to be bold. So many of us are so afraid of failing that we give up before we have even begun. We can be too afraid of speaking about our dreams in case people laugh at us in disbelief.

Ozan Verol, a rocket scientist, turned lawyer said: “We’ve been seduced into believing that flying lower is safer than flying higher, that coasting is better than soaring, and that small dreams are wiser than moonshots.”

Fly high!

Soar!

Dream big!

Only when you, as the leader, are prepared to do this can you build a team to take people with you.

2. Who do you need on the team?

Once you know where you want to go and have a picture of your dream, it’s time to build a team to get there.

I must add, the team that you build is not there to help you achieve your dream. Crazy, I know.

Your dream must be so big and encompassing that it will serve your team in achieving it. If you are in this for selfish motives. Please don’t take people with you, go and do it alone.

At the core of your being must be the desire to see every person you invite on this journey become a better person because of it.

Once that is the case, then begin to think:

1. What are the crucial elements that are required for this dream to come to pass?

2. What skill/ talents/ gifts do I not have?

When thinking about building a team, you can get impatient and be so happy that anyone would like to do it that you just let anyone join.

I made this mistake.

It is very dangerous. If people join your team, who do not have the right heart and are not ready for the challenge, they will severely slow down the process for the dream being fulfilled.

Think about the following:

- Do they have character? Are they a person people want to follow? Are they a person who is an example to others? Do they have integrity? If not… don’t go there!

Steven Beagles, a psychologist at Harvard medical school, wrote the following on character “People who have great success but lack the bedrock character to sustain them through the stress are headed for disaster. They are destined to one of four: Arrogance, painful feelings of loneliness, destructive adventure-seeking or adultery. Each is a terrible price to pay for a weak character.”

- Are they competent? Is this person good at what they do? Can I trust them to get on with their work without needing to oversee what they do?

o Some people might be competent, but if they do not have the character don’t risk it. Some people might have a lot of character but not much competence. You can train competence, but this is going to take time. Be prepared for it

- Is this person courageous? Are they willing to do things they are uncomfortable with? Are they prepared to put their money where their mouth is? Are they willing to take risks in their own life, are they unafraid of failure?

o This is the hardest characteristic to find, I believe. People can have character; some people pride themselves in their competence, but courage is not emphasised enough. Our generation is too comfortable. If you find a person of courage who is enthusiastic, bold and willing to go to places they haven’t been before, treasure that person. Invest in them. Courage is something which can be learnt but which I have found is just innate in some people.

- Can this person work in collaboration? — are they willing to listen, are they ready to submit to others plans, are they prepared to debate and lose and keep on working just as hard?

Paul Bryant said “To have a winner, the team must have a feeling of unity. Every player must put the team first ahead of personal glory.”

o More often than not, this trait can be taught. Some will be better than others at working together, but as the leader, you must set the example. In the way you listen, apologies, help others with what they need to do and teach on this.

- People who are different from you in worldview’s — are the people that you are recruiting different to you in perspective, ideas and passions? This is very difficult to do, although not intentionally, I have just found that most people gravitate to people who are similar to them. Do the hard work and build relationships with people who are unlike yourself. This will pay off!

Shane Snow, the author of Dream teams wrote “The important ingredient, the thing that gets teams into The Zone, is not peace and harmony and sameness — it’s engaging the tension between their perspectives, heuristics, ideas, and differences.”

3. See yourself as the servant of your team

Now that you have a dream, you are inspiring people to join you on the mission, it can be easy for your as a leader to get a little bit proud or arrogant.

NO!

The most important thing I have learnt about leadership and taking people on a journey to accomplish something impossible is that I, as the leader must see myself as the primary servant in the team.

- My role is not to take the limelight, the credit, or to be the one who makes all the decisions

- My role is to make each person on my team better than me in the long run

- My role is to ensure that each person in my team is at least 1% better today than they were yesterday

- My role is to be there to listen to what is happening in my team’s life

- My role is to serve my team by the way I live, when they see me and when they don’t

- My role is to serve my team by giving them encouragement and feedback

I mean all of these could be a thesis in and of themselves.

But all of this to say is… NEVER ALLOW PRIDE TO TAKE HOLD OF YOU.

The org chart is on its head, and as the leader, you are at the bottom doing everything in your power for your team!

Another rant over…

So how do we do this?

a. To lead others, you need to lead yourself

If you want to be able to serve the people in your team, you must be a person who can improve their lives.

John Maxwell put it brilliantly with these two laws of leadership:

The law of respect “people naturally follow leaders stronger than themselves.”

The law of the lid states “your leadership ability is the lid that determines your level of effectiveness.”

I have naturally found these laws to be true in every area of life. It is essential that you, as the leader, serve your team by doing everything in your power to grow in your competence.

You may be effective today, but the moment you stop learning, you start dying.

- Be the person in the team who learns the most

- Be the person in the team who takes the most risks

- Be the person in the team who is the most loyal

- Be the person in the team you is growing at the fastest rate

You cannot take people to a place you are unwilling to go.

Strive to be the person you would wish for in your team.

Jesus wisely said, “You reap what you sow”.

This is true in every aspect of life.

I would also add; you reap what you sow, you reap later than you sow, and you reap more than you sow.

When you take this leadership journey of leading yourself so that you can lead others, it may feel like nothing is happening. It may feel like things are moving slowly. It may feel like it’s not worth it, it will feel like you are the only one making an effort but…

Remember

You will reap what you sow, and you will reap later than you sow!

It will happen, the fruit will come, but a harvest takes time to grow! Be patient!

When it does happen, it is beautiful! It will feel like it happened all of a sudden when your team becomes to multiply, grow, reach goals and you will begin to wonder how it all happened. It happened when you sowed those hours of learning that nobody saw! Remember, you reap MORE than you sow!

You will reap what you sow, you will later than you sow, and you will reap more than you sow!

b. Grow them

The second component of serving your team is taking the time to develop them.

Niccolò Machiavelli

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men/women he has around him

It is critical that the leader takes the time to invest in the team, here are some of the best things to teach a new team:

- Teach them how to dream

- Teach them how to fail

- Teach them how to be vulnerable

- Teach them how to lead

- Teach them how to face their fears

How do you do this?

- Teach material — I hold monthly book clubs with my team where the book would teach on a subject, I have found to be most relevant to all of us. The most recent one we did was “Mindset” by Carol Dweck. Reading a book together has helped work together as we can use the same language and frameworks in our decision-making processes.

- Use every opportunity — Tell a story before a meeting for example that will teach a principle you want them to catch.

- Talk about your failures in an area and how you have learnt to live in a new way. Vulnerability helps to build connection, but it is also a great way that people can learn from your failures. Share your failings!

- Provide learning opportunities — at Wellwater, we take on a yearly fundraising challenge which aims at stretching us by putting us outside of our comfort zones. This has been foundational for us to learn how to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. What could you put in the calendar to encourage group learning?

4. Make it more than a team — it needs to be family

Now I was going to give sub-points for this, but I am going to try and just state it simply.

One of the determining factors in a successful team is how they feel about one another. It is one thing, going to do your job because you are getting paid, it is quite another when you are on a mission with your best friends.

Are you on a mission with your best friends?

Do you know their likes and dislikes?

Have you cooked for them?

Do you hang out with them for social events which are non-work related?

When a team is a family, a few things happen:

People go above and beyond

People are more accountable

People often say it doesn’t feel like work; it feels like fun!

We still have a lot to learn at Wellwater but what I do know is that we are a family on a mission. We love one another, we defend one another, and we support one another. Every single person at Wellwater is a 100% volunteer with full-time jobs, yet their work at Wellwater is what gives them purpose and passion. We are in the process of building a school in Northeast Nigeria which whole teams of staff are typically contracted for.

It is incredible what you can accomplish when you know where you are going, you have the right people on the team, you serve the team, and you make the team a family.

Final thoughts

To conclude, I just want to say, learning to build a team has been the most exciting, motivating and fulfilling experience of my life. I have seen people grow, flourish and excel. At the same time, I have had people whom I love leave, people who were brilliant give up, complicated team dynamics and a spectrum of challenges along the way. I have felt like giving up, like I am not good enough and thoughts of everyone else being better than me.

You will probably feel like this too!

BUT KEEP GOING!

So, to summarise in case you just scrolled through this whole thing:

This is hard

You will fail

You will learn

You will grow

Don’t give up!

Build your team!

Change the world!