| | OCTOBER 20198CIOReviewIN MY OPINIONBy Douglas Duncan, CIO, Columbia Insurance GroupCIOs are all faced with challenges in building the best possible team to get the job done. You might be new in your role, or well-seasoned, but the question is the samehow do you make the best out of your imperfect situation?Very few of us are successful because we individually can do everything. We all rely on our teams. We all want our teams to be the best they can be. And we all know our teams can be better than they are.There are many ways to make our teams better. Hire new talent. Bring in expert consulting. Steal that genius from the other department. Send your people to training. Get rid of the dead weight. Start an employee engagement program. Increase pay or bonuses. However, these approaches are all tactical and often not successful. The problem is not the tactic, but the strategic context within which it is executed.Strategy is in understanding the nature of the work environmentA strategic way to make your team better is to understand the nature of your work environment and create the right conditions for improvement. Plan your actions in the light of how your organization operates and what is considered important. Be realistic about the shortcomings as well as the strengths. Create a framework to organize your thoughts and how to assess your particular situation.First, think about the key elements are that will impact your team-building exercise. What makes your situation unique? Is the urgency for change high or low? Are the resources limited or plentiful? Is the organization supportive of your leadership or resistive? Second, realize you can only control the framework you use. The actual facts on the ground are what they are; you simply need to make a bad situation better or a good situation great!Your unique challenges and interactions will inform your optimal approachWhen I started my current role last year I was the "new kid". I knew this would play into how my ideas were viewed and how my team would function. There is high interaction between the newness of the leader and the culture of the organization. I created a 4-block view comparing these two factors to help me think through the optimal strategy.LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK FOR BUILDING ELITE TEAMS
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