By Jean Miner, MD
In all aspects of our lives, we are members of a “team”. We are members of our family “team” first and then head to school at a young age and are paired off on the playground. Many of us joined teams throughout our lives for sports, debate, math, dance, etc… As we get older, we start to value the importance of teamwork to accomplish goals or projects. Think about the college chemistry lab partners or the members of a committee who helped (or hindered) meet deadlines or complete tasks. As surgeons, we are always members of a team- in the operating room, clinic, and patient wards. Ultimately, in life we belong to numerous teams.Recently, the members of the AWS Clinical Practice Committee (CPC) held a book club discussion using The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni. Our lively discussion quickly turned into a focus on leadership and building the ideal team. Based on the importance of this topic, we will be hosting a tweetchat on November 27th focused on Leadership and The Ideal Team Player. Three virtues, humility, hunger, and people smarts, are what we look for in those alongside of us taking care of patients, in our office, on a committee and even at home.
- Humility: Characterized by lack of excessive ego or concerns about status. Humble team players share credit and emphasize team over self.
- Hunger: Defined by self motivation and diligence. Hungry team players are always looking for more things to do and learn.
- People Smarts: Depicted by possessing common sense about people. Smart team players are intuitive around the subtleties of group dynamics and the impact of their words and actions.
What do we do when we lead a team with members deficient in one, two or maybe all three areas? Should we give up on them? Are we able to teach these qualities or is it nature vs nurture? If we want to be good and effective leaders, we need to try and help our team members before kicking them to the curb. First, we should assess our colleagues to establish where they rank on the three traits. As both team leaders and members, we should do this ourselves. Other key members of the team can (and should) also be included. Next, we meet with the teammate to discuss our findings and develop a game plan. Often when there are deficiencies identified, people are unaware and improvements can be made just by bringing it to their attention. For more challenging situations, we need to set small achievable goals paired with frequent feedback. Finally, after a set period of time, we must reassess the situation and determine if we now have a set of ideal team players. If not, just like in professional sports, we must consider trading members to other teams where they would be a better fit and acquiring new players that fit the project.
Most importantly, we also need to turn the microscope on ourselves. Are we good team players? Most of us would like to think we are, but it is definitely worth a few minutes of self-reflection or use of a self-assessment tool in determining if we are indeed good team members. Or just like we did with our own team, we can ask a leader or mentor to evaluate us. After identifying areas to improve, we need to set our own goals based on the three virtues. If humility or people smarts are issues, we need to make a point to listen and learn more about our team members. This allows us to exercise humility but also gain insight into our counterparts as we take the time to hear their opinions. Hunger can be more difficult to achieve without an interest in the project. If this is a deficient area, we must consider alternative methods for achieving the same outcomes with a process that will motivate us. Or we may need to request off of a project in exchange for one which inspires us to do our best work.
Ultimately, for the development of a high performing team ALL members should embody the virtues of humility, hunger and people smarts and the process of building our team can be as enlightening as what we accomplish together.
Please join the CPC on November 27 at 8pm EST for a tweetchat on “The Ideal Team Player” to discuss your own strategies and experience as a leader and ideal team player.
https://www.tablegroup.com/books/ideal-team-player
Jean Mi
ner is Assistant DIO at Guthrie Hospital in Sayre, PA and a Surgical Attending with Guthrie’s General Surgery Residency. She also has a Masters in Medical Education Leadership from the University of New England. Her work life is in equilibrium with her personal life as a mother of three girls who loves spending time with her husband and family traveling the country and world. In her “spare time” she loves to cook, be outdoors and read as many books as she can.
Our blog is a forum for our members to speak, and as such, statements made here represent the opinions of the author, and are not necessarily the opinion of the Association of Women Surgeons.