Condoleezza Rice’s Tips for Building a Team

Throughout her career, Secretary Condoleezza Rice has served as a special assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a member of the National Security Council, and a special assistant to the president for national security affairs. She was the first Black American woman to serve as a national security advisor, as well as the first to serve as secretary of state.

During her time in the George W. Bush administration, Secretary Rice oversaw foreign policy in the Middle East, particularly in regard to the war in Iraq. She also aimed to curtail the continued rise of nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran. After her time in the White House, she split her time primarily between academic work and continued public advocacy.

For team leaders to achieve the goals they set for their organizations, they need effective, hard-working, and innovative team members. The people who make up your team will be the ones to make or break initiatives as you all work together to strive for success. Good teams use their innate camaraderie, complementarity, and communication skills for the sort of innovation necessary for an organization to achieve its full potential.

When you have a great team, your organization can do great work. Here are three benefits you can expect from building a team well:

• Better communication: By bringing the right group of people together around a common goal, you give them the opportunity to communicate as effectively as possible.After an initial introductory icebreaker, new in-person and remote teams alike can hit the ground running to communicate and learn from each other with minimal oversight. This sort of communication is the bedrock of effective teamwork.
• Greater expertise: Different people can fulfill different roles on a team due to their unique skill sets and knowledge bases. Each individual member will help contribute to the overall know-how of your team in a unique way. This way, your whole team can work together as a well-oiled machine.
• Increased productivity: A healthy company culture and high-performing team is the sort of winning combination you can rely on to increase productivity for your organization as a whole. Good teams work effectively and efficiently together to follow through on their assignments.

When you build a strong team, you lay the groundwork for your organization to succeed. Learn from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice how to bring the right people together:

1. 1. Balance out your talent. Bring together a wide array of people with complementary skill sets. “I also always wanted to have a couple of generalists on my team,” Secretary Rice says. “Experts are terrific, but they can become too expert.” Your team’s success hinges on this sort of organizational balance.
2. 2. Be open to constructive feedback. When setting new team goals, leave the door open for all types of honest feedback. “I wanted to test for honesty,” Secretary Rice says, “and not honesty in the sense of people who lie, but people who don't want to give you bad news. You want people who will do that.” Adapt your leadership style to receive constructive criticism if necessary.
3. 3. Build trust. At the end of the day, leaders are part of the team as well—and it’s essential for all team members to trust one another. “Everybody has to build a team that you can trust,” she says, “because you can't know it all.” A work environment with trust at its base enables everyone to achieve their full potential.
4. 4. Clarify responsibilities. Establish ground rules about both distinct and shared responsibilities for each of your team members. “Most organizational people would say you want clear responsibilities,” Secretary Rice says. “I think that's right, but sometimes you have to have shared responsibilities.” Clear expectations help everyone work together to achieve their shared goals.
5. 5. Define what you need. Figure out what your organization needs and find a group of people who can help you achieve these initiatives. "What expertise do you need, and what do you need those people to be able to do?" she asks. If you can answer these questions, you’re well on the way to effective team development.
6. 6. Foster leadership skills. Empower each team member to develop their own capabilities as leaders and facilitators. “Make sure that you see leadership characteristics in others,” Secretary Rice says. “They are your force multiplier.” Everyone can help with the problem-solving and decision-making process in a unique way.
7. 7. Recalibrate if necessary. If a member of the team doesn’t seem like a good fit, try to talk with them about ways to improve. “You do owe them the opportunity to get better,” Secretary Rice says, “but if after even a little while, it's not getting better, then I think it's time to have that conversation.” Give people every opportunity you can to do the hard work necessary before parting ways.

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