Understand the team

Characteristics

• Maintain a structured way of sharing information, ensuring that everyone understands their roles and responsibilities clearly, streamlining decision-making.
• Decision-making is top-down, with leaders quickly setting the direction and expectations, enabling fast responses to changing conditions.
• Despite their structured approach, OLAS teams are known for their flexibility in execution, ready to adjust plans spontaneously as new information becomes available.

Strengths

Their ordered communication style ensures that information is shared clearly and efficiently, reducing misunderstandings.

These teams can quickly process new information and respond immediately. Their ability to pivot without hesitation is a key advantage in high-stress or fast-changing situations.

OLAS teams avoid the delays that often accompany consensus-building, enabling them to implement new strategies swiftly.

Potential blind spots

The speed at which OLAS teams operate can sometimes result in insufficient analysis or consideration of long-term impacts, leading to decisions that solve immediate issues but create future problems. Their bias to action can also mean that creativity–which isn’t always efficient!–is sometimes overlooked.

Frequent and spontaneous adjustments of plans can undermine consistency and reliability, especially on projects that require long-term development or stability. Rapid changes in direction can also cause whiplash and burnout.

Because decisions are typically made in a top-down fashion, OLAS teams can alienate team members who feel their opinions are undervalued.

Ways to grow

Encourage creativity and innovation. The team is too focused on day-to-day execution to take the time for unstructured brainstorming and creative thinking, unless there is an external forcing function.

Before finalizing decisions, build in a checkpoint to examine what the team’s pace may have left out. Ask what has not yet been considered and whether solving the immediate problem could create a longer-term one. This is especially useful in complex or unfamiliar situations, where a quick answer may rest on an incomplete understanding.

Make sure there is enough investment in feedback, coaching, and career growth for team members, in addition to the focus on day-to-day execution.

Choose one of these growth areas and turn it into a practical experiment.