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Is your team functioning as well as you would like? Les McKeown in The Synergist. How to Lead Your Team to Predictable Success has advice for us. Keep in mind that organizations do not achieve success-people do through working individually and in groups or teams. Generally people fall into three types.

• Visionaries who are bold dreamers that think big, generate creative ideas, and are willing to take risks.  They become irritated by detail and can disengage easily when bored. Who on your staff are these individuals?
• Operators who are the pragmatic realists that get things done.  These people take the Visionary’s big ideas and translate them into actionable tasks.  They like to be left to work alone and will do whatever is necessary to complete the task they’re given even if it means breaking a few rules. Who does this well?
• Processors who devise and monitor the systems and procedures necessary to enable an organization to deliver consistent results in a complex environment.  They think linearly and objectively and are averse to undue risk. Perhaps most of your pharmacists.

The combination of Visionary, Operator and Processor is an inherently unstable one, which leads to gridlock instead of a performing team.  Getting them to work together is the challenge the leader has so having a fourth type is key.

• Synergists puts aside their own agendas and interpret the language of difficult personalities, capturing the best from each person and putting the good of the organization ahead of their own egos.  Their detached perspective-not focusing reflexively on his or her own concerns give the Synergist a high-level perspective of the group’s mission. They serve as the bridge between the other three types.

It is important to remember that each type is valuable when working together so as you put together teams or groups have each represented. This book contains additional ideas worth considering.

Think about which type each of your people are and how you can maximize their skills.  Are there others besides yourself as the leader that could function as the Synergist? Please comment so we can all benefit from your experiences.