Purposely create turnover in your team to generate new ideas, novel perspectives, and refreshing attitudes

Posted: December 2, 2013 in Leadership
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We need to shuffle our teams every once in a while. Everyone gets used to working together, and this is a good thing. But it’s also salutary to bring in new blood and shake up existing patterns and habits. We don’t need to be drastic in this regard. New recruits bring in new ways of doing things and novel perspectives. People can be promoted and shifted laterally between jobs. When someone is promoted in the military, they try to post them to a new unit or division within their current organization. For instance, a soldier promoted to master corporal is shifted to another platoon within the company so he doesn’t have to be in charge of his buddies. The higher the rank, the more likely a complete change of organization is called for. Naturally, many companies can’t afford that because they are simple too small. When that is the case, you should try to at least create new configurations of teams to facilitate the task of newly promoted leaders and to break up well worn patterns and cliques.

Food for Thought
If you don’t create teams deliberately according to your goals, then they will still form, but not necessarily in the way you want or with the attitudes and skillsets you need.

Richard Martin is a consultant, speaker, and executive coach. He brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to exploit change, maximize opportunity, and minimize risk.

© 2013 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes are permitted with proper attribution.

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