Building a team

At CUA on my very first day, I learned that there were 90–100 resources assigned to the transformation program, which included contractors and permanent staff. When I asked, “How many of them are my staff?” I was told that only a handful had taken this on. It was very clear that there was much spectator behavior, and this project, which had just started, was doomed to fail.

I held a town hall meeting on that first day, and my IT team and the transformation team joined the session. In that introductory session, I did not pretend that this was going to be easy and that getting this completed successfully would challenge each of us. Indeed, I noted that the journey would require us to all get “comfortable being uncomfortable,” and perhaps some should self-select and leave rather than endure it. I did also encourage the team, and I was committed to their development of new skills, and this was part of the transformation that we needed...