The Elevare Edge · Issue 18 · June 24, 2026
You got promoted to lead a broken team.
No resources. No support structure. Just a mandate to turn it around.
A VP asked me last month: "Rene, do I fire people? Do I wait it out?"
Neither.
I've coached dozens of leaders stepping into broken teams. The ones who turn it around in months, not years, don't start with performance reviews or terminations. They don't reorganize.
They start with a playbook.
Here's what I mean by that.
A playbook is the written agreement between you and your team on what great looks like and how you'll get there together. It's not a mission statement. It's not HR language. It's the North Star that guides every single decision you make as a leader. Who gets stretch assignments. Who gets your coaching time. Who gets performance managed.
The playbook has five parts.
First, create the vision. Not what your team is today. What it could be. High-performing. Collaborative. Client-obsessed. Write it down. This becomes the filter for everything else.
Second, define the non-negotiable behaviors. What does good look like on this team? Real behaviors you can see and call out. The team member who asks "how can I help?" instead of "not my job." The one who brings solutions, not complaints. Clarity is kindness. When people know exactly what you expect, half your people will rise to it.
Third, name the critical skills. What separates high performers from the rest? Team player. Client-focused. Proactive. Growth mindset. Now you have the tool to assess who has it and who can develop it.
Fourth, share it with your team. Don't keep it a secret. Walk through it together. "This is who we're becoming. This is what I expect. This is what success looks like here." Some people will self-select out. That's not failure. That's clarity.
Fifth, make decisions aligned to the playbook. Every decision—stretch assignments, coaching time, performance management—flows from the playbook. No more guessing.
Why this works.
Your team doesn't need you to have all the answers. They need you to have a clear direction. When you define what great looks like, you give people permission to either step up or step out. Both are progress.
The leaders I've worked with who restructure teams successfully don't wing it. They get specific on vision, behaviors, and skills. Then they build toward it systematically.
Next step.
I've created a sample playbook framework that walks you through each of these five steps. It takes 20 minutes to work through. Use it to get specific on your North Star, then decide if you want to talk through how it looks for your situation.https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/183n58qt5rA9fpsh8j4h4o4aHwS7Mj0rp?usp=drive_link
Want to dig deeper on what this looks like in a real team? Let's talk.
To your success,
Rene
Elevare Dynamics LLC
https://www.elevaredynamics.com/
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