[One Sip of a Book] Wharton School Team Leader Lessons for Clumsy Beginner Leaders

Some sentences encapsulate the entire content of the book itself, while others instantly resonate with the reader’s heart, creating a connection with the book. We introduce such meaningful sentences excerpted from the book. - Editor’s note

The author, who has worked as an executive at several startups and deeply felt the need for systematic team leader training, compiled the curriculum of a management and team leader competency enhancement course offered at Wharton School, considered the world’s top MBA, into a book. It broadly covers team member management (performance management, motivation, meaning of work), team management (hiring and firing, team dynamics), and team leader management. It comprehensively addresses communication, job design and HR management, goal and performance management, core competency development, teamwork and team dynamics management, organizational culture, and ways to manage relationships with superiors.

[One Sip of a Book] Wharton School Team Leader Lessons for Clumsy Beginner Leaders

Once your focus is on a team member’s low performance, you unconsciously seek out examples that confirm your belief that the team member lacks ability. For instance, because Cash’s report contains a few spelling mistakes, you evaluate Cash as a careless person. Then, a week later, you find typos in an email Cash sent. Another week later, Cash prepares fewer meeting materials than the number of attendees. Through this process, your belief that “Cash is careless” becomes more firmly established. Meanwhile, you overlook the fact that the other twelve reports Cash submitted this year were flawless, and that thousands of emails she has sent so far have also been perfect. This is exactly the effect of confirmation bias.

- From “Lecture 5. Measure Performance and Manage Underperformance”

We want to know if a particular candidate is a good person, humble, considerate, and able to harmonize with team members. But how can we recognize such a person? The key, as mentioned earlier, is to ask behavior-based questions. ... When asked to share examples, candidates are much more likely to truthfully describe how they acted. Therefore, through the behavioral examples candidates provide, interviewers can much more accurately judge how the candidate will perform in an actual work environment. In other words, they can evaluate and assess many things, such as whether the candidate can adapt well to the organizational culture while proactively growing and learning, and whether they can quickly prioritize and solve problems in crisis situations.

- From “Lecture 14. Establish an Effective Interview Process for Hiring”

You also need to pay attention to fostering a meeting culture where loud and fast speakers do not dominate the discussion, drowning out the opinions of a few others. Sometimes, there are people who are particularly introverted or need a lot of time to organize their thoughts. When I worked at a startup, there was a colleague named Claire from China who said she grew up hearing, “You must think three times before you say anything.” In our team’s meeting culture, which encourages speaking up whenever a thought arises, it was very difficult for Claire to find opportunities to voice her opinions. Later, the team leader postponed Claire’s speaking turn to the end, giving her enough time to prepare and speak when ready. If it was unavoidable to conduct the meeting quickly, it was also allowed for her to submit her opinions in writing before or after the meeting.

- From “Lecture 19. Create a Culture Where Everyone Freely Voices Their Opinions”