A Better Way To Structure A Team
The term “leadership” has become overrated in this day and age. We are living in an era where the traditional pyramid hierarchy no longer works because of interdisciplinary knowledge and abundance of technologies and methodologies that simplifies many organization’s operations.
One of the things I noticed is that people have become first-level leaders, AKA Positional Leaders, as described in The Five Levels of Leadership book, by J. Maxwell.
Based on my experience in the projects I’ve worked on in the past, my team leveraged our skill sets to push the development of the projects forward. Instead of focusing on our titles and job descriptions, we focused and leveraged the skills and talents of each of our members.
Because of the mental shift, collaboration, and passion of each member, we were able to build and deliver the projects on time and in high quality. Everyone feels rewarded for their contributions. We encouraged each other to maximize our potential. It is an even playing field where everyone is driven to contribute.
I have led a few groups where I served as the president or a member of the core team. What I’ve learned is that there are a lot of skills and resources within the whole group that we could have leveraged.
I concluded that instead of having a traditional pyramid leadership tier, it is much more ideal to have a flat structure which is based on aspirations and talents through committees. This way, everyone is encouraged to be more engaged and connected with the development of the entity.
This structure is based on the member’s aspirations and competency.
Each committee will have a representative to inform the rest of the members in a form of methodology like SCRUM.
A few generic committees I recommend that applies to any entity of all size:
Events / Marketing Committee - Sets up events and activities.
Creates strategies to reach the entity’s target demographics or audience. Creates branding strategy, identifies and executes social media strategy, and organizes any internal or external events to spread brand awareness.Business Development Committee - Handles the financial data of the entity. Conducts research and identifies ways to increase revenue or fund. Performs risk analysis and identifies growth potential of the organization.
Technology Committee - Sets up the technology resources for the organization. Conducts research of technology methodology and tools to optimize the operations.
Since the technology advances exponentially, the committee is responsible to keep up with the latest technology trends to adapt, implement, and educate the whole organization.
Operations Committee - Strategic planning to help the group function effectively. The committee is responsible for implementing project management methodology to oversee the working committees and to keep them all in sync.
They assess the severity of all bottlenecks in the operation and formulate solutions through tools and processes. They also set the priority and define the RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) chart for the project.
Think of every committee as a motor in a computer system. Since everything needs to stay in synch, the Operations Committee will need to organize all the data and oversee the project as a whole.
One of the project management tools I highly recommend to organize tasks and requirements is called, Basecamp. It is a very intuitive and effective tool to manage projects. They help keep track of all the activities happening within the organization.
By having this committee structure, any entity can boost collaboration and growth by enabling people who have similar interests to collaborate and maximize their potentials to push the development of any project. Every member is encouraged to maximize their contribution and eventually climb up to the highest level of leadership where they leave legacy contributions in the field.