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• Think and Act Understand and • Integration of members who ha Strategically Demonstrate the basic technical, interpersonal, a Elements of decision-making competence. 1111 A council's primary re- 51 Teams and • A commitment to team success and sponsibility is not just to make policy Teamwork performance excellence. or to do its "Roman emperor" routine • A climate of trust,openness,and mu- (thumbs down or thumbs up) on By law,councils exist and have authority tual respect. agenda items at public meetings. It is only when their members convene as • Clear standards of success and per- to determine and achieve the citizens' bodies to do business. They also are formance excellence. desires for the community's future. components of corporate beings that • The support, resources, and recogni- Councils and their administrative must speak,act,and fulfill their commit- tion to achieve success. teams must accept responsibility for merits with one voice and in a mature, • Principled and disciplined leader- shaping the future of their communi- effective, and reliable manner. Councils ship. ties by expanding their mental hori- are collections of diverse individuals who zons to identify and meet the chal- come together to constitute and act as an Highly effective councils spend time lenges that must be addressed through entity, and only when operating as an building their sense of being a team and decisive leadership and through shared entity can they exercise authority and enhancing their skills in productive goals for the attainment of that future. perform in fulfillment of their purpose. teamwork. A strategic leader always comes This is a classic definition of"team." from the future and takes you "back Carl Larson and Frank LaFasto,two pre- Master Small- to the future" from the present. This eminent authorities on teams and team- Group Decision leadership adventure starts with a vi- work, define a team as an entity corn- im Making sion and evolves into a definition of prising two or more people working the strategic issues that must be mas- together to accomplish a specific pur- Most councils are classic small groups, tered to achieve the vision. The next pose that can be attained only through with fewer than a dozen people. Sma step is the development of long-range coordinated activity among the team groups demonstrate certain skills a goals that address these strategic is- members. In short, a team exists to ful- behaviors that link their members t sues and that provide a decision-mak- 'fill a specific function or purpose and is gether.They also have knowledge of the ing and budgetary basis for the suc- made up of disparate, interdependent processes they must follow to make de- cessful implementation of these goals. people who collectively achieve a capac- cisions in fulfillment of their purpose. Living from one annual budget to an- ity that none of its members could Figure 1 summarizes the skill sets essen- other and from one council meeting demonstrate individually. tial to small-group effectiveness. to the next condemns your commu- Teams always have two components pity and its future to happenstance that we might call their S components: Clearly Define and to the type of thinking that often systemicness and synergy. All teams are Roles and befuddles national governance and systemic by definition,being made up of • Relationships policy. interdependent parts (people) who af- For this reason, polls show that an feet each other's performance and that Each team member, whether mayor or overwhelming majority of citizens of the team. Synergy is the ability to councilmember, makes a contribution want important issues affecting their achieve an effect, when working to- to and has a relationship with the team. lives to be decided at the local, home gether as a team, that is more than the Contributions and relationships must town level. Here, they expect leader- sum of the team members'individual ef- be defined in terms of the role to be as- ship, sound thinking, and decisive ac- forts.While all teams are systemic, rela- sumed and how that role is to be carried tion. In spite of this citizen expecta- tively few are genuinely synergistic un- out through the behavior of the person don, a 1996 survey conducted by the less their members understand,•master, in the role. International City/County Manage- and demonstrate the fundamentals of A role has two elements:function, the ment Association (ICMA), "Survey of teamwork,which are: specific responsibilities of that role, re- Current Practice in Council-Manager gardless of incumbency; and perfor- Governments," indicates that fewer • A clear sense of purpose. mance,the behavior of the person occu- than 40 percent of all councils set • A clear definition of the roles and re- pying the role in fulfilling his or h long-term strategic goals to guide their lationships that unite individual tal- responsibilities.Councils,through ch semimonthly forays into decision ents and capacities to achieve team ter, statute, or ordinance, have a clear making. performance. definition of their function.The perfor- PUBLIC MANAGEMENT 5