Putting the TEAM Into Teamwork!!

                                 

"There is no "I" in the word "team". More often than not, teams are on the two ends of the performance scale: synergistically exceptional vs. complete disarrayed failure. Working in a team can often be challenging: Different people with various backgrounds, diverse personalities and divergent ideas. But the even bigger challenge is to create teams that consistently perform, irrespective of team member changes.

Most organisations struggle to keep their teams performing during staff changes. These churns usually creates temporary increases in workload, pressure and stress, which in turn fuels a decrease in productivity and performance - creating a downward spiral until the team basically needs to be completely re-engineered and restructured to become effective again.

In ineffective teams, they might be rescued from this trend if there are one or two superstars in the group, picking up all the issues and actually doing most of the work. But this is not a long-term solution, as those individuals will soon become frustrated and de-motivated if the issue is not resolved quickly. So simply allocating one or two strong individuals to a team is no solution either.

The only realistic way to ensure the longevity of a successful team is to ensure that the team as an entity (in it's culture, processes and perception) is stronger than any of the individuals concerned.

The first step to do this is to empower each team as a unit. This is best explained with four basic principles that can be summarised with the acronym TEAM:

T: TALK to each other. Good communication is vital. Unfortunately this is often the hurdle where many teams unravel. Frequently managers or team leaders will make decisions without communicating outcomes clearly, or new information relating to interdependencies is not shared to members of their team. This can cause a lot of frustration within teams. It is therefore important to ensure that decisions and expectations are communicated to all team members and that there is a measure of transparency in what management is planning. Negative communication is just as bad or even worse for team moral. A lack of respect for and understanding of each other's personalities may also cause a breakdown in communication or misunderstandings. As a result many companies use personality profiling as a team building exercise, to help individual team members understand each other better.

To improve teamwork, the first step is to ensure that the communication within the team is clear and appropriate.

E: EMPOWER members to take ownership. Team members must be responsible for resolving internal disputes themselves and to do so quickly and effectively. This has to be included in the team mandate or charter. It needs to be interwoven into the team culture. If the expectation is that managers or outside consultants need to resolve issues and challenges, team members are disempowered. This creates a situation where issues remain unresolved for weeks or even months while everyone plays "hot potato".

The best way to address such challenges is to be proactive. Dig the well before you need the water! Agree responsibilities and roles upfront and have open and frank discussions to agree on team rules. The first rule should be that the team will resolve all issues and challenges quickly and internally.

In the next article, Coaching teams towards greatness, a system for empowering team members in this way, will be revealed.

A: ALLIANCE creates synergy. Western culture is inherently individualistic - each person is first and foremost focussed on their own interests. This worldview often surfaces in teams. Although a group of individuals may be working together or on the same project, they are not necessarily a team. Unless a group of people produce more than the sum of their own inputs, they may just as well be working separately and simply combine their final results.

The key to exceptional teams and organisations is to ensure that the team synergy is unlocked. This starts with the individual's perception and mindset of "teams". To extract maximum performance and benefit the team need to be treated as an entity that has a life of its own. The entity's success should be the common goal to which all of the team members are working towards.

M: MEASURE the team's progress regularly. Successful people and organisations regularly measure their progress and make adjustments until they succeed. This is not always the case in teams. Team deliverables may be discussed at regular team meetings, but whether the team itself is operating or functioning well is often disregarded. Reviewing the development and performance progress the team (entity) is making is crucial to ensure exceptional and consistent performance.

These four basic guidelines will increase and influence the performance of teams immediately when implemented. Therefore, put the TEAM back into teamwork!