How many committees have you served on in your company or your community? If you have spent anytime on a working committee within the last many years, there were likely a lot of people joining you. Most of the time this large group is working on an initiative that is important to them, to their business, to their purpose etc. Within this massive group there are often people who do not seem that connected with the initiative, could care less and/or do nothing more than just attend the meetings. While you will certainly deal with spectators(slackers) instead of participators on committees, often times, the size of your committee is the problem.
Too often we will invite everyone we can think of on a committee. We do it for various reasons: We want to include them (trust me, this does not always work - I struggle here) just to include them, they asked to be on it because they knew someone else was on it, they are a manager. You might have even passed them in the hall on the way to a committee meeting and asked them to join - well you got em' on there now.
When a committee gets too large, input only comes from a select few, ideas get diluted and effectiveness is reduced significantly. This reality leaves the leader discouraged, overwhelmed and the few participators actually have more work on their plate than they would in a smaller group. Sounds contradictory, but it's the truth.
Recently we dissolved a several year old committee that had a track record of accomplishing some really good victories and sticking together for a very long time. However, it was beginning to take a lot longer to work on one idea and we have many ideas that need attention.
Do what we are doing and formulate small elite teams to move important initiatives to the recommendation and subsequent (hopefully) action stage. Your teams should not contain more than 6 people. Everyone on the team should be a good thinker and a good activator with a record of getting things done. Have 3-4 Players, One Coach and One Senior Level Mentor to guide you. If you would like further guidelines on this, email me and I will send you some information how to structure this.
Smaller Elite teams for many reasons are becoming more popular in the workplace. Some of the worlds most effective organizations (Google, WL Gore, Whole Foods) do nearly everything via small teams.It is so much better than the hoard of management layers as well. My College professors would get a laugh at me writing this nearly 10 years since my graduation - Business schools require nearly all projects be done with small teams since it was preparing us for what companies are doing. I hope to give ROI on this one...
For an excellent article that really stimulated my thinking last year: Break Free by Gary Hamel.
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