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Role-Based TeamabiIity" Leads to New Future of Work

By Nancy Pekala
Ask any manager or any leader in today's marketing organizations and they'll tell you just how
important it is to have "the right people in the right seats. t's critical to determine not just whether
you have the right people but whether you have the right seats.
There's no question today that whoever is filling those important seats within your organization must
possess the ability to "team. Whether working with external
agencies or consultants or internal stakeholders, marketers
must master teaming behavior.
In 1984, two behavioral scientists Dr. Janice Presser and Dr.
Jack Gerber began a 25-year journey of research and
testing to identify and organize the ways in which people
interact in teams.
The result was a new "technology of teaming derived from a
set of practical teaming metrics including:
x Role: a person's affinity for specific modes of service to
the needs of a team
x Coherence: expressed as positive, flexible, constructive
teaming behaviors
x Teaming Characteristics: individual styles of responding
and relating to others, subject to situational context
x Role-respect: the unique manner in which people of different roles experience appreciation and
respect
x Role-pairing: known, replicable synergies between specific roles
x Role-fit: an appropriate match between a person's role and their assigned set of job
responsibilities
x Team-fit: structuring a team to include the roles that are best-fit to the team's mission
This 'new way to know' about teaming behavior has morphed into the single, simple concept called
Teamability. t is a set of predictive metrics encompassing one's Role, Coherence and Teaming
Characteristics.
Presser, who is CEO of the Gabriel Institute, explained during a recent presentation that "Everyone
has a specific way they want to serve their team. This is their role.
There are 10 essential roles that need to be filled in order for all of an organization's needs to be
met. They include:

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x Envision
x Realize
x Plan
x Execute
x Organize
x Discover
x Provide
x Maintain
x Preserve
x Connect

"Different roles have different ways of experiencing respect and trust, Presser said. "Respect is not
generic. Organizations need to have the power of knowing how to pair people and put them in
teams.
She added that until now, "People have been
regarded as a conglomeration of their skillsets, IQs
or resume. That's changing.

"The valuation of teams and teaming will supersede
the longstanding focus on talents, experience and
leadership," she suggested. "There will be a new
emphasis on promoting from within and casting a
wider net on opportunities for nontraditional paths to
advancement.

As a result, Presser predicts a gradual decline in the use of traditional talent management metrics
and an increased focus on role fit and team fit as essential elements of workforce planning.
"Engagement and retention depend on them, she said.

For example, sales will no longer regarded as just one kind of job category. Instead, there will be
profound differences to team with different customers, sales cycles, products and value propositions.

New language that is role-based will find its way into job postings for desired roles, resulting in an
increase in quality of new hires.

"Organizations need to stop thinking of the resume as a true reflection of a person's worth, Presser
suggested. "A teaming approach will allow employees to be treated as "who and not "what.
Without question, teamability is the future of work.




Nancy Pekala is the AMA's Senior Director of Online Content and Editor of Marketing Thought
Leaders. Join the conversation in AMAConnect, the AMA's online community specifically for
marketing professionals. Follow us on Twitter @marketing_power.





'Organizations need to stop
thinking of the resume as a true
reflection of a person's worth. A
new teaming approach will allow
employees to be treated as `who'
and not `what'."