Introduction
Peter Cauwelier, an expert in teamwork, wrote the book The Untapped Team Advantage: Building Team Connections as a Leadership Choice in 2020.
The organizing idea: Teamwork drives organizations to success; it depends on the leader but also the group, and the team - not exceptional individuals - is what leads to excellence.
Main topics:
The unglamorous reality of teams in most organizations
Basic tools for team building
Advanced tools for team building
Tools for continued growth
The bonuses: additional advantages of a good team
Whether you agree with the thesis or not, there's no doubt that teamwork can promote performance, and there's room for improvement in almost every organization. In other words, we can all learn and improve thanks to the ideas presented.
Finally, it's worth remembering that teamwork isn't like building a house but more like fitness. It never ends. If we don't continue to strengthen it over time, we'll lose what we've already achieved.
The decision, as leaders, is in our hands.
This summary is just an appetizer - we recommend reading the book.
Reality
The reality regarding team performance in most organizations is not bright. Surveys and research show that while most people spend most of their work time as part of teams, only a minority report their team as having excellent performance. For the sake of discussion, let's define a superb team as one where good decisions are made, innovation is rapid, and challenges are well-handled. In other words, an amazing team, or a team with excellent performance, is not necessarily the most fun team but a team whose combined contribution to organizational performance is at the center of success.
Why aren't team performances excellent? Perhaps because teamwork is taken for granted, we all think we know how to work in a team. It may be because the concept of synergy, where success is greater than the sum of individual activities, is not internalized in the context of the project or activity.
There are indicative signs that team performances are not excellent in many organizations:
Organizations recruit excellent individuals, but their actual performance turns out to be less successful
Team meetings mainly focus on reporting
The focus is on individuals as role-holders rather than on the team as a unified group
When a manager (whom we also refer to as the team leader) is absent, the rest mainly engage in routine tasks and avoid decision-making as much as possible
Team members will each emphasize their perspective as an expert and specific role-holder
Sometimes, there is coordination, collaboration, and knowledge sharing, but there is little joint creation of new knowledge and capabilities. In this context, it's worth remembering: "Collaboration is about co-creating to reach a shared goal or vision. Where the result or outcome is changed by the input of and the interaction between the contributors" (page 39).
Basic Tools for Team Building
First of all - when? Immediately. It's not advisable to wait and engage in team building only when there's tension and problems because while there's always room to enjoy teamwork when facing tension and problems where teamwork is greatly needed, we won't have the enabling conditions for it.
Cauwelier shatters the myth that difficulties and crises must be experienced to achieve good team results. Effective teamwork can develop positively and not out of turmoil.
Recommendations - Basic Tools:
The optimal team size is 6-7 people. If there are more and the organizational structure can't be changed, action teams can be built as functional subgroups that function as a team in every sense. There's no need for official recognition to operate as a team.
Define a clear, measurable goal that the team needs to advance. It's better not to have too many goals (up to 2-3 is preferable). Ensure that the team operates towards the goal and that the goal is updated according to the situation and circumstances.
Routine 1:1 meetings between the team leader and each member occur every two weeks. These meetings help the leader understand difficulties, provide coaching, and build a personal connection with the team members.
A shared meeting routine for the entire team that jointly examines prioritization and meeting metrics (see goal above). The meetings will include mutual updates, sharing, and later, even more - as detailed in the growth chapter below.
Integrate learning processes during action. Continuous learning is mainly internal (learning together, not inviting external factors to teach), dealing with action. It involves learning processes where they get to know each other better, assist each other more to find answers to issues at hand, and draw lessons together to improve for the future.
Advanced Tools for Team Building
Above the basic layer of teamwork, as defined above, an advanced layer of additional tools can be added:
Joint definition of team goals. It is recommended that a business and an organizational goal for advancing the team as a collaborative work unit be included.
Clear definition of team members' roles in terms of contribution to success. Role definition doesn't refer to the official definition known to everyone and part of the organizational structure, but rather where each person can contribute to the team's success, for example, in interfaces with external factors, critical thinking, and more. Role definition can be based on each person's assessment of their contribution and shared dialogue.
Defining team operating norms. Examples include unconditional support for each other, full transparency, innovation, and more.
Involving team members in the recruitment processes for new additional team members. Such activity has a better chance of bringing in more suitable new/additional team members and strengthens the connectivity of current team members.
Tools for Continued Growth
There's room for further growth. According to Cauwelier, there are no limits to team capabilities.
Tools that can assist in continued growth and team maintenance include:
The psychological safety of team members. The confidence to speak up, the confidence to make mistakes. This safety is a critical factor for continued development and learning, and no less for strengthening engagement and motivation.
Mutual support in work. To put this into practice, it's recommended to include discussions on current issues, bottlenecks, and difficulties as part of joint team meetings, offering to help each other.
Asking for help: It's difficult to ask for assistance, but almost always met with a positive response when attempted.
The balance between problem-solving and jointly addressing essential issues (values, strategies).
Proper approach to errors: Containment and learning; patience for mistakes and intolerance for not learning from them.
Repeated practice. Treating some ongoing activities as experimentation and examination, with appropriate tolerance for failure in processes under "trial."
The Bonuses: Additional Advantages of a Good Team
Beyond advancing project tasks, there are several additional advantages to note in a team with outstanding performance:
Deepening connectivity and preserving human capital make it fun to be in an environment of an excellent team.
Better teams can cope better with new conditions of uncertainty (VUCA), a period when one can no longer rely solely on fixed job definitions. The ability to rely on collaborative capabilities and learn from each other allows teams to cope better.
We all occasionally benefit from social connections from other contexts surrounding us. When there's an excellent team that also becomes a cohesive group, this external network of friends grows and gives everyone, at least partially, a much broader response when knowledge or even a favor unrelated to the project or work is needed.
Any group of people can be advanced to a team that excels together. It starts with the leader.
Comments