Page 165 - The Bible On Leadership

Team Development 151

on you because you are young . . . Watch your life and your doctrine
closely . . .’’ (1 Tim. 4)
Modern leaders (young or old) also put a large priority on developing
their teams. Rosenbluth Travel has an Associate of the Day program.
Any employee who is interested in a particular area can ‘‘shadow’’ an
executive for the day. Over 100 employees have chosen to spend the
day with Rosenbluth himself, learning new skills and observing how an
executive conducts himself, structures his day, and works with the team.
At Trilogy Software, each new recruit (‘‘young man or woman’’ in
Paul’s terms) is given a sponsor. If the recruit ‘‘makes the grade,’’ the
sponsor gets a $1,000 bonus. If the recruit fails, the sponsor is fined
$4,000. (Paul did not give cash rewards to his young prote ´ge ´s, but
rather gave intrinsic rewards for developing their teams, and more au-
thority.)
At Home Depot, store managers are constantly encouraged to em-
power and develop themselves and their teams. They are given a large
amount of leeway in ordering products, setting prices, and hiring peo-
ple, with a minimum of interference from ‘‘corporate.’’
Bill O’Brien, CEO of Hanover Insurance, one of the top-performing
insurance companies of the past decade, realizes that the word team rings
false if people are not empowered to make increasingly complex deci-
sions or given the skills to do so: ‘‘In the type of organization we seek
to build, the fullest development of people is on a plane with financial
success.’’ 29
Like Paul, all these organizations realize that a team is only as strong
as its individual members, that members must be constantly developed,
and that financial rewards can motivate a group but it takes deeper in-
trinsic rewards to create and empower a true team.

BIBLICAL LESSONS ON TEAM DEVELOPMENT

A team is a group of individuals who may have different needs
but are pursuing a common, unifying goal.