Global e -Procure

Background:

GEP^® (Global eProcure) is a procurement services firm focused on helping financial and procurement executives refine their supply chain practices, and transform their procurement organizations -- all to substantially reduce costs for the enterprise. The company supports its clients with a blend of strategic consulting and implementation, outsourcing services, as well as commercial, off the shelf, procurement tools and technology solutions. The company is especially experienced in uncovering savings opportunities, and implementing processes, practices, or technologies that allow the procurement teams to deliver actual, realized savings to the bottom line.

Founded in 1999, GEP has a staff of procurement professionals who have created a culture that values innovation and agility – and long-term relationships with the clients.

GEP is based in Clark, New Jersey, USA, with other offices in the US, UK, Czech Republic, Brazil, China and India - supporting companies that operate, as well as source supplies, across the globe.

At-a-glance:

• Over $50 billion in spend managed and sourced for GEP’s clients
• 120+ customers in more than 20 industries worldwide
• Spend sourced across 200+ categories, in 22 countries
• ISO 9001:2008 certified
• SAS 70 Type II certified
• Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprise (MWBE)

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Milestones:

Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100 Listing
The Executive 100 is a list of supply chain solution providers, consultants and other organizations that are helping lead the way by transforming companies' supply and demand chains. | 2005 | 2006 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 |

                                                                                                

Supply & Demand Chain Executive Magazine - Provider Pros to Know
The "Pros to Know" list recognizes individuals from a software firm or service provider, consultancy, or analyst or research firm.
GEP^® (Global eProcure) executives named as ‘Provider Pros to Know’ in Supply and Demand Chain Executive Magazine. | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 |

IAOP – The 2011 Global Outsourcing 100^®
GEP is listed as a "Rising Star" in IAOP's 2011 Global Outsourcing 100^® list. | 2010 | 2011 |

NJBIZ

NJ BIZ is the leading provider of business news and information about New Jersey companies and the New Jersey economy. | 2005 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 |

Recognized by NJBIZ Magazine as a Fast Growing Company.

Deloitte Technology Fast 50

The Deloitte Technology Fast 50 is an award program honoring business growth, technological innovation and UK entrepreneurial spirit. | 2005 | 2007 |

Named One of New Jersey’s Fastest Growing Technology Companies in "Deloitte & Touche LLPs Technology Fast 50 Program".

Inc.500|5000

Inc.500|5000 celebrates and rewards the remarkable achievements of entrepreneurial superstars who have created the 500|5000 fastest-growing private companies in America. | 2005 | 2008 | 2009 |

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Governance:

Dr. Subhash Makhija

CEO and co-founder

As the CEO of GEP, Subhash has been instrumental in guiding GEP into one of the fastest growing technology, consulting and outsourcing companies in the US, by building a cohesive global leadership team, simplified technology and a list of Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies as customers.

Jagadish Turimella        

COO, CTO and co-founder

As Global eProcure’s co-founder and COO, Jagadish “JT” Turimella leads the consulting practice and manages the company’s operational functions. Under JT’s leadership the company has grown into a leading procurement consulting, outsourcing, and technology firm that has won many industry accolades for growth and great client work. For his leadership within GEP and in the broader supply chain field, JT has been named one of the "Pros to Know", a list of top industry professionals, bu the Supply & Demand Chain Executive.

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Products/Offerings:

Spend Analysis

Uncovering the savings opportunities, trends and patterns in spend

Part of an overall procurement transformation involves gaining all-new visibility into true spend across categories and business lines - with the goal of sharpening sourcing strategies and processes.

The GEP^® (Global eProcure) Spend Analysis solution will give a whole new perspective on spend ways, both to identify best savings opportunities and to monitor the effectiveness of sourcing. This detailed analysis of client’s spending profile can even identify how quickly procurement transformation can progress at various levels of resource commitments.

GEP spend: Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Spend Analysis Engine
To perform spend analysis, GEP’s analysts use GEP Spend, a patent pending, artificial intelligence based analysis engine that can work with data from virtually any system, in any file type (e.g. text, Microsoft Excel, XML), in any language or character set. Client data is then cleansed, validated and normalized for full analysis, which involves sorting, searching and mining the supplier and commodity information. An expert opportunity assessment can also be performed to provide insights on where and how to achieve cost savings across client’s entire spend.

Enabling better decision making
Customized GEP spend reports can give the client detailed views of his enterprise spend, with 95% + accuracy, and visibility to the level of line item, commodity and SBU.

The engine then uses this intelligence to help Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) identify better sourcing opportunities and estimate the savings that could be achieved with improved strategies and processes.

Strategic Sourcing

Savings delivered to the bottom line

To support client’s procurement transformation, GEP^® (Global eProcure) offers proven sourcing services that deliver substantial cost savings and dramatically improve efficiency.

GEP’s approach integrates strategic sourcing methods, advanced analysis, and integrated procurement transformation suite to create a more comprehensive and holistic solution.

GEP provides exceptional value by:

• Focusing on results and a high ROI
• Ensuring rapid savings implementation
• Analyzing and creating spend visibility
• Continually calculating effectiveness and efficiency across cost, quality and service dimensions
• Creating a dynamic internal strategic sourcing team for valuable knowledge transfer

With GEP, strategic sourcing involves improving the management of people, processes and technology, in an ongoing procurement transformation effort.

People

• Assess skills and structure
• Implement strategic sourcing best practices
• Project management support

Process

• Evaluate current process
• Conduct spend & opportunity assessments
• Apply strategic sourcing methods
• Create key performance metrics
• Implement ongoing communication procedures

Technology

Improve efficiency with:

• GEP Spend
• GEP RFx/GEP Auction
• GEP Contract
• GEP Supplier
• GEP Compliance
• GEP Purchase

Procurement Outsourcing

Accelerating client procurement transformation

Enterprises are increasingly turning to procurement outsourcing as a solution for creating strategic value through quick and cost-effective process improvements. By outsourcing selected functions, client company can benefit from GEP^® (Global eProcure) purchasing expertise and technology, without making huge investments in staff and software of client’s own.

GEP’s procurement outsourcing services help reduce costs and improve operational efficiency as part of client’s ongoing procurement transformation.

Focus on staff

Let GEP experts do the heavy lifting for client’s entire source-to-pay process. Whatever the objective — whether there’s a need for extra muscle, lower costs or smoother operations — GEP’s procurement outsourcing teams can help the client achieve his goals. Save client’s staff for the mission-critical work.

How GEP improves ROI

Finely honed processes. Access to more suppliers and sources, worldwide. Battle-tested technology. Extraordinary agility. And because at GEP, people eat, sleep, and dream procurement.

Client’s apps. Or GEP’s.

GEP’s procurement teams can work with client’s existing platforms, or bring in the GEP suite of world-proven procurement technology, as needed. (Yes, they’ll work with client’s ERP.) Either way, it’s friction-free.

Procurement Technology

Sourcing and Procurement Tools

Automate. Manage. Integrate.

To achieve maximum efficiency and quality in client’s procurement organization, it’s critical to find better ways to manage an array of diverse activities, and vast amounts of data across multiple enterprise systems - with an absolute minimum of manual intervention.

The solution is to automate, standardize, and integrate wherever possible - as part of client’s ongoing procurement transformation strategy.

Cloud-based procurement solutions
With GEP^® (Global eProcure), client can take advantage of ready-to-use, cloud-based technology that greatly streamlines all of client’s source-to-pay activities, while reinforcing best practices at the same time.

GEP Suite: Integrated procurement technology
GEP’s proven procurement tools can work as stand-alone systems (GEP Spend, GEP RFx/GEP Auction, GEP Contract, GEP Supplier, GEP Compliance, GEP purchase) or as a fully integrated suite (GEP Suite 5.0) that can share data seamlessly.

Nothing to deploy: Just log on
GEP’s tools run on a cloud infrastructure and are offered as SaaS (Software as a Service). There is no special hardware or software to buy, no infrastructure to manage, offering the client huge savings in implementation and ongoing maintenance or administration. GEP handles all that.

Tap into client’s data
GEP’s tools work very well with an existing enterprise system, enabling smoother process integration. They can capture data streams from a variety of enterprise apps such as SAP or Oracle.

Procurement Strategy

Delivering maximum value through enterprise-wide performance

Getting the Answers
Procurement transformation is a result of a number of key questions being addressed: How could procurement processes, practices and vision better drive an enterprise? Boost financial performance? Improve operations, competitive advantage? Efficiency? Those are the questions GEP^® (Global eProcure) answers every day, for companies in every industry.

Implementation
The key to transforming procurement into strategic enterprise function lies in the implementation. GEP has the talented people, the ground-level experience and the tools that help put innovative ideas to work, make the changes, launch the practices and deliver results. GEP has a proven track record when it comes to transforming organizations by translating strategies into action.

Support
As needs change and business evolves, organizations count on GEP to follow through with new ideas, specialized technology and best-in-class services —assured that their procurement organizations, strategies and practices continue to advance.

GEP supports all transformation programs with best-in-class change management practices, working closely with all key stakeholders to establish buy-in and transfer knowledge along the way.

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Diversification:

GEP caters to the needs of a variety of industries. The major ones are as follows:

Consumer Goods –

After years of continuous increase in consumer spending, consumers are facing the realization that they cannot continue to finance purchases today without sacrificing at a later stage. During recession, consumers have put brakes on their spending patterns and returned to a “back to basics” philosophy. At the same time that consumer confidence was falling, companies saw the cost of inputs rise significantly. This continued pressure on margins addresses the need for companies to focus on executing in their supply chain to produce and bring products to market for the lowest total cost. GEP has helped many similar companies significantly reduce costs in their supply chain, so contact us to discuss how GEP can help.

Energy and Utilities-

Energy is the vital force powering businesses and commerce and is the backbone for economic prosperity and national security. The United States spends over $500 billions annually on energy. Energy demand will grow in the future, but not in 2010, as the road from recession to growth is not smooth. The current recovery period is marked by lower customer demand, aggressive federal environmental policies, disappointing rate relief and booming capital expenditures. The effective deployment of capital may be the most critical element by which energy and utilities can be proactively and entirely controlled. It is precisely here that GEP’s expertise in leveraging world-class sourcing and procurement consulting and outsourcing services with technology applications comes in place. GEP’s low cost country sourcing teams are a proven asset for companies needing specialized sourcing skills.

Financial Services-

The most recent economic crisis hit the financial services sector harder than any other crisis in recent memory. As financial institutions begin to dig themselves out of the hole the crisis created, uncertainty in the future is high.

As government oversight increases, change is inevitable. While the changes will vary by sector, increased regulatory scrutiny is likely to depress margins for the entire industry. With this reality, financial services companies will need to evaluate their current cost structures and align them with the current market by reducing costs, improving efficiency, and outsourcing non-core functions and activities.

Government-

Governments across the globe are seeking ways to create a lasting foundation on which economic recovery can be built upon. They are redefining their role in the provision of a broad array of services which are challenged to improve and expand services and also stimulate jobs while reining in deficits. Where there is a demand of almost an immediate return on investment, a wise use of funds can be directed to expanding shared service enterprises to efficiently deliver cost effective mission support services from a centralized and highly specialized unit to a leveraged user community either within or across agencies and departments.

It is GEP’s opinion that strategic sourcing, a proven cost cutting and value enhancement process, is the right choice for such shared service investment. At GEP(Global eProcure), GEP believe that strategic sourcing is a fact-based chain of analyses; decisions and strategies focused on the both the characteristics of internal spend and supply market dynamics. Ultimately its success rests in the ability to optimize the competitive process yielding the lowest total cost and highest value outcome.

Industrial Products-

The Industrial Products industry encompasses a wide variety of companies in manufacturing, wholesale and distribution of goods such as building products, construction materials, engineering equipment, machinery / heavy equipment, forest and paper products, and chemicals. The industry is cyclical in nature, but rapid globalization poses new challenges such as shifts in demand to developing markets, sharpened competition from low-cost producers and spikes in raw material prices. In addition, the economic downturn has resulted in an overall decrease in demand for industrial products.

Reduced sales in the economic downturn
Almost all sectors of the US products industry have witnessed a decline in revenues at a rate faster than that of the US GDP. The growing uncertainty in the economic recovery has forced many customers to defer or cancel new orders as demand for their own products and services has declined and they do not have the budgets for capital investments.

Low cost country (LCC) competitors
Decreased demand and increased price-sensitivity by customers have led to greater competition from LCC industrial manufacturers. Leading players will need to implement cost reduction programs to remain price competitive against their LCC competitors while maintaining reasonable profit margins.

Increased volatility in raw material prices
The rapid development of emerging markets has led to volatility in raw material availability and cost. As customers continue to push to lock-in competitive pricing or shift to LCC suppliers, efficient procurement practices across indirect spend categories can help maintain profit margins as raw material costs fluctuate.

Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare-

The pharmaceutical and healthcare sector continues to grow faster than GDP, now accounting for approximately 16% of total GDP, making it the single largest area of consumer spending. Companies face increasing challenges as they deal with rising costs, pressure to keep prices low while improving service and value, and increased government scrutiny and intervention. This increasingly complex operating environment has forced companies to look outside their traditional core focus areas to help maintain margins.

Successful organizations must be able to understand the constantly changing environment and build organizations and processes to embrace these emerging trends:

Increased Demand
With aging populations, a growing prevalence of chronic conditions and efforts to provide healthcare to everyone, existing capacity will be expected to provide more services at lower cost and higher quality than ever before.

Downward pricing pressure
With rapidly increasing costs, both private and public payers of healthcare are scrutinizing the costs for procedures and treatments, and increasingly pushing only the most cost effective ones. This focus on financial results for healthcare serves will increase and force companies to justify the costs of their offerings.

Increased Regulations
As consumers find it increasingly difficult to find quality and affordable healthcare, the issue has become a hot political topic. With increased political inquiry, increased oversight and regulation in the coming years appears inevitable.

Increased Consumer Involvement
The managed health care battlefield between doctors focused on quality and payers focused on cost has expanded to include the highly activist consumer involved in decisions around treatment and coverage. The Internet enables increased involvement in decision making for consumers and increases the price pressures felt throughout the sector.

Technology

Over the last several years, business customers have continued to rein in their technology expenditures to help control costs. With increased focus on maximizing return from their investment, technology buyers expect tech companies to deliver more value for less cost.

In the coming years, GEP expect the following trends to continue in the technology industry:

Continued cost pressure
The economic decline and increasing competition from global low-cost competitors have intensified pressure on margins for technology companies, forcing companies to focus on controlling costs in order to remain competitive.

Software sector consolidation
With the rise of the Software as a Service (SaaS) market, technology companies are racing to build powerful data centers in order to compete in the "cloud computing" environment. As companies build larger and more powerful data centers, the differentiators between software, hardware, networking, and storage companies will continue to fade.

Innovation is vital
The rate of innovation in the technology industry has always been fast, and this is not going to change in the near future. Although companies will need to focus on costs more than they traditionally have; R&D to create the next innovative change will continue to be a necessity in order to prevent commoditization of products.

Telecommunications

Over the last five years, the telecommunications industry has seen overall growth due to robust advances in wireless technology, however fixed line business has been on the decline. Despite the overall growth trend, during the economic downturn in 2009, industry revenues shrank due to more cautious consumer spending causing the telecom industry to shrink as a faster rate than the US GDP.

Fixed line service will continue to decline as individual consumers switch exclusively to wireless service and corporate customers migrate to VOIP infrastructure.

A new segment emerges in the fixed line services
Despite the economic downturn, business and individual wire line customers demanded faster and improved IP services. To capture this growing demand, companies have increased their investments in IP infrastructure, but with recent premiums on raising money for capital projects, companies should look to offset the investment outlay by controlling and reducing all input costs.

Industry competition limits revenue growth opportunities
The presence of four national players and a host of smaller regional players make the US wireless industry one of the most competitive developed markets in the world. The intense competition in rates per minute and bundled packages have limited the average revenue per user (ARPU). Managing operating costs by implementing more efficient purchasing practices and outsourcing non-core functions can improve profits margins while still allowing client company to be competitive in the market.

Travel & Hospitality

The Travel & Hospitality industry was hit hard by the international financial and housing market collapses in 2009. Revenues declined as households cut back on leisure travel and corporations reduced business travel budgets. Other factors, such as the (H1N1) influenza pandemic, instilled a fear of travel among some passengers and worsened the industry decline.

Industry Over-Capacity
Hotels, airlines, and car rentals have been forced to lower prices to try to compete in an industry with too much capacity. Airlines have eliminated amenities or have started charging for previously complimentary services to recoup some of their profits.

Cost Savings Strategies
To maintain short term profitability most airlines, car rental and hospitality companies have implemented immediate but temporary cost cutting measures. Companies reduced fleet, laid off employees, and closed floors in an effort to offset rising costs and decreased demand. Travel and Hospitality companies can benefit from longer-term cost reduction strategies such as implementing more efficient purchasing practices, streamlining corporate spending, and outsourcing.

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Capacity:

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Turnover:

Since GEP is not publicly listed, the exact revenue of the company is unknown. However, the estimated revenue is expected to be approximately 75 million USD.

(http://partners.zoominfo.com/Search/CompanyDetail.aspx?CompanyID=16122223&cs=QC9gFv1s&pc=indeed)

Global eProcure, a leader in procurement services and technology, reported that it ended 2010 with over 20 percent revenue growth over fiscal year 2009 and continues to be profitable for the 9th consecutive year.

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Profitability:

The company reached the profitability mark right from the second year of its coming into existence i.e. from the 2001. The company has been growing at a whopping 30-40% year on year. The firm has shown a CAGR (Cumulative Annual Growth Rate) of 55% in 2005-2008 duration.

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Share Capital:

According to a report from Gartner in February 2010, the key players in the sourcing market are: Ariba, BravoSolution, Emptoris, Global eProcure, and SynerTrade.  Considering the market to be broadly covered by these five companies, the market share of the GEP comes out to be around 16%, with the major player being Ariba Inc.

Three Monks

The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water." The film does not contain any dialogues, allowing it to be watched by any culture, and a different music instrument was used to signify each monk. The film tells the story from the aspect of the buddhist bhikkhu.

This animation is a masterpiece of social satire and although it was made nearly a quarter century ago, its criticism still applies today. The hidden target of criticism is the massive Chinese bureaucracy that are extremely inefficient and ineffective: so many people are hired but nobody does any job because everyone wanted somebody else to do the job, just like the way those three monks expecting others to get the water.

There was a small temple on a mountain and a little monk in the temple. His daily routine was shouldering water, chanting sutras, knocking the wooden fish, adding water to the holy water bottle on the table honoring the Goddess of Mercy, and watching over the mice from stealing food at night. His life was smooth and comfortable. Soon after, a tall monk came. He drank half of the jar’s water as soon as he arrived at the temple, so the little monk asked him to fetch water. The tall one thought it was unfair for him to fetch water alone, so he asked the young one to do it together. They could only carry one bucket a time, and they would only feel content when the bucket was placed in the middle of the shoulder pole. Anyway, they still had water to drink in this way. Then, a fat monk came. He wanted to drink, but there was no water in the jar. The short monk and the tall one asked him to fetch water by himself. He carried a bucket of water, and drank it up immediately. From then on, nobody would fetch water, so they had no water. Everyone chanted his own sutras and knocked his own wooden fish. As nobody would add water to the holy water bottle, the plant in the bottle withered soon. At night, a mouse came out stealing, but everyone pretended not to see it. As a result, the mouse was so rampant that it knocked over the candleholder and caused a fire. Only thus did the three monks make a concerted effort to put out the fire, and finally awaken. After that, they started hanging together and the temple never lacked water again.   

The film tells a simplest story with simplest lines and a simplest form. There is no dubbed voice. Even the background music is reduced to the occasional sound of wooden fish. But it is this simplicity that makes people unwilling to miss a single scene. When we review the Three Monks after seeing numerous Japanese, Korean, European and American cartoons, we will be shocked. We will even smugly say, look at our Chinese “silent movie”. Maybe, only Chinese water-and-ink painting has such a magic to depict a figure with distinct personality with just a few strokes. The film is based on a folk proverb. It has national features, a complete scene of mountain, water and temple drawn with traditional painting skills, and figures with strong characters. Although it is meant to reason things out, the film is humorous and void of rigid sermon.  

Innovation can be defined as the application of new ideas to the prod­ucts, processes, or other aspects of the activities of a firm that lead to increased “value.” This “value” is defined in a broad way to include higher value added for the firm and also benefits to consumers or other firms. 

In the film two concepts shown are continuous innovation and drastic innovation . During fire the monks show continuous innovation as that is the need of the hour and there is not a lot of time for thinking . They do increase their efficiency but still do not reach their potential . But later on when they have time they do a drastic innovation by constructing a pulley and save a lot on time and effort . 

Teamwork

What is Teamwork ?
Teamwork is defined in Webster's New World Dictionary as "a joint action by a group of people, in which each person subordinates his or her individual interests and opinions to the unity and efficiency of the group." This does not mean that the individual is no longer important; however, it does mean that effective and efficient teamwork goes beyond individual accomplishments. The most effective teamwork is produced when all the individuals involved harmonize their contributions and work towards a common goal.

Stages of team development :

1. Forming : During this stage the group forms and learns what sort of behavior is acceptable to the group. By exploring what works and what does not work , the group sets ground rules that govern the group dynamics.
2. Storming: As group forms members become more comfortable with another . They may oppose the formation of a group structure as they begin to assert their independence and individualities . Members often become hostile and often fight ground rules set during the forming stage .
3. Norming: At this time , the initial conflicts are addressed and hopefully resolved .Group unity emerges as members establish common goals , norms and ground rules .The group as a whole participates  , not merely a few vocal  members. Members begin to develop close relationships.
4. Performing : Now , that the structural issues have been resolved , the group begins to operate as a unit .The structure of the group now supports and eases group dynamics and performance .The structure becomes a tool for group's use instead of an issue to be fought over . Members can now redirect their efforts from development of the group to using group's structure to complete the tasks at hand.
5. Adjourning: Finally , for temporary groups such as task forces , this is the time when group wraps up activities. With disbandment in mind , the group's focus shifts from high task performance to closure . The attitude of members vary from excitement to depression .

The Task :

Task given  is to  switch over from left side of the valley to the right side of the valley by taking  the support  of the  pole as shown in the cartoon. Direct jumping and attempts are considered FATAL and not welcomed at all.

Vision :  "A world without barriers"

Mission : To help people cross the valley

Values : Teamwork and persistence

Goals:  Three people to  cross the valley using a long bamboo .

Safe - Both the legs of the person have full support
Half Risky – One leg in the air and the other leg has support
Full risky - Both the legs are in the air without any support
Half risky – One leg is in the air and the other leg has support
Safe - Both the legs have full support

In today’s organizational environment, it is unnatural for teams and individuals to take the same time which athletes, performers and teams do to practice their skills and improve their weaknesses. If organizations are to survive and thrive in the future they must use the creativity and potential of their people at all levels.

There are ten key ingredients, which organizations must incorporate into their work to master the use of teams. Each of these efforts must counteract what is outdated, easy and natural. Actions for leaders to take to facilitate these team ingredients are included.

Team ingredients

1.      Shared vision – What is natural is to have a blurry vision of where the organization is going. The vision is not communicated enough or shared throughout the organization.

What is unnatural yet necessary is to create an inspiring vision for the future that is clear and informs all throughout the organization what the future holds and their role in it. It is shared because it is understood and repeated in numerous ways.

Leaders usually do share the vision but usually not enough or in multiple methods.

Actions: Leaders have to be deliberate and have a plan on how to communicate the vision

·        Leaders need to share the vision and tie it into the daily tasks every day in their conversations. Can they commit to tie it in four times a day. (Kotter, 1996)

·        People need to be clear what needs to be done and why.

·        Leaders have to include what is in it for the employees, use the word “because”.

·        Leaders need to include others for comments, clarifications or additions. This way they get others “fingerprints” are on it.

·        Leaders need to remember involvement = commitment.

2.      Trust among members- What is natural is to rely on your self or your department and not expect much from others.

What is unnatural yet necessary, is to develop an interdependency on others characterized by high trust and risk taking.

Actions: Leaders develop trust by trusting their people.

·        Leaders develop trust by being vulnerable and admitting their mistakes.

·        Leaders make and keep small promises.

·        Leaders set high expectations for their team and encourage risk taking and direct feedback.

3.      Established expectations and guidelines – What is natural is to assume that co-workers are on the same page and that they understand the desired results.

What is unnatural yet necessary is to be very deliberate in clarifying reciprocal expectations and establish guidelines fro how to work together effectively.

Actions: To be a team the individuals need to co-create expectations for themselves and feel their input was heard and valued.

·        Leaders and the team need to decide on how they are going make decisions, i.e. majority, minority a “tell” or content expert, unanimous or consensus.

·        Expectations need to be clarified, leader to the team, team to the leader and team of each other.

·        Meeting and team guidelines are established that flow out of the expectations, such as “One conversation at a time,” “Stay focused”, and “Defer judgment.”

4.      Communication skill and conflict resolution – What is natural is to avoid conflict, jump to rash conclusions and not communicate what you are thinking.

What is unnatural yet necessary is to make your thinking visible, fill in the “white space” for people, identify your assumptions and resolve conflicts.

Actions: The team needs to have specific tools to communicate, otherwise the strongest and most senior voice wins out.

·        Part of the expectations should involve communication guidelines

·        Most teams need some kind of skill training for communication, like how to listen better, inquiry versus advocacy, summarizing what was said, ladder of inference, left hand column.

·        Leaders can assign a devil’s advocate role to enliven the conversations and protect against “group think.”

5.      Systems thinking-What is natural is to focus on our own team to the exclusion of the big team across departmental boundaries. It is easy to think of your team’s action have limited impact on others across the organization.

What is unnatural yet necessary is to see how departmental actions affect and impact each other. Customers, co-workers, vendors and family are intertwined as stakeholders and can unintended consequences upon each other.

Actions: A leader can help the team look at the big picture

·        Leaders can ensure all sides of a situation are looked at, by assigning advocate roles in the conversation for customers, employees, managers and vendors.

·        Leaders can ask the team for the possible unintended consequences before rushing to decisions.

·        Leaders help counteract organizational learning disabilities such as “I am my position” and “the enemy is out there.” (Senge, 1990)

6.      Personal leadership- What is natural is to stay in your comfort zone and only take risks that you are assured of success.

What is unnatural yet necessary is to take risks that are consistent with your values and become a change leader stretching and encouraging others in spite of your own doubts and fears.

Actions: The team is the playing field for the leader to try out their Emotional Intelligence skills and get feedback on their performance.

·        Leaders need to have a developed point of view of their leadership style and know the destination of where they want people to go.

·        Leaders need to be aware of the different styles and preferences of their team and vary their style to meet and challenge the individual.

·        Leaders can be role models for development by sharing with their team, what are their current areas of focus for development and ask for support and feedback from the team.

·        The leader wears many hats on the team and has to know which hat to wear when. Key roles are as an initiator, coach, model, facilitator and negotiator

·        Leaders are the glue in the team, reading individuals and the groups emotional states and being able to help regulate it by attention, humor or empathy

7.      Appreciation of differences- What is natural is to value team members with similar backgrounds and opinions.

What is unnatural yet necessary is to embrace differences and creative tensions to generate better solutions and raise the “Team IQ.”

Actions: The leader is powerful role model to the team for how to deal with differences.

·        Leaders need to embrace differences as they lead to breakthrough ideas. In studies on creativity and innovation holding opposite and contrary ideas long enough leads to breakthrough ideas. IDEO one of the leading design firms encourages “wild ideas” and “build on other ideas” as some of their guidelines.

·        Leaders can help by encouraging the team to stay with the ambiguity, creative tension and dialogue as long as possible versus rushing to a decision.

·        The team IQ is a great metric for the group to evaluate themselves on. The IQ should be higher than the IQ of nay one individual.

·        The differences need to be understood and integrated into new innovations.

8.      Accountability and consequences – What is natural is to be disappointed with the efforts of others on your team, but never hold anyone accountable for the missed “deliverables.”

What is unnatural yet necessary is to discuss accountabilities and consequences upfront, before a project gets underway and review them throughout the project.

Actions: Leaders provide the road map for the team to deal with obstacles before they arise.

·        Leaders help individual define their roles and responsibilities and make sure everyone is clear about them.

·        Defining and clarifying what success looks like will help with clarity and standards for the team.

·        Having a conversation about accountabilities and consequences as part of the team’s formation will help eliminate problems later.

9.      Ongoing learning and recognition- What is natural is to complete a task, take a sigh of relief, possibly congratulate each other and move on to the next item on the “to do list.”

What is unnatural yet necessary is to take some reflection time to discover what worked to be used again, learn what not to do next time, decide who needs to know this information, disseminate it, and design formal and informal celebrations for the win.

Actions: Leaders are looking for every opportunity to learn and improve.

·        Holding lessons learned sessions, will help leaders and their teams to crystallize learning and spread the news to appropriate people.

·        Recognizing individual’s efforts and contributions increases discretionary effort and raise morale.

·        Giving timely and specific feedback keeps performance focused.

·        Leaders take time to develop their team and their team processes.

10. Mentoring others – What is natural is to get caught up with urgent crises of the day and do little mentoring or training of key employees or colleagues.

What is unnatural yet necessary is to take time to train and mentor others to be better performers. Career development, learning and succession planning, keeps skills and motivation high on the team.

Actions: Leaders help others enhance their strengths and develop plans to improve their weaknesses.

·     Leaders hold one on one meetings with their direct reports to coach and mentor them.

·     Leaders help their team share core competencies by cross training.

·     Leaders are sharing their knowledge and developing their successors.

These key ingredients make up the strategy for developing high performing teams. Leaders have specific actions to help their team develop. Each ingredient needs to become a discipline that gets practiced, reinforced and refined. Only then will the unnatural become a habit and the foundation for superior teamwork.