#1: About high performing teams
Who wouldn’t like working in a team in which you feel like you are getting shit done, in which you have fun and joke around and at the same time you’re not afraid of asking challenging questions or discussing risky decisions. In a team in which you can be open and show vulnerability. During the past weeks I had the opportunity to speak to industry leaders who shared their experiences of working in highly efficient teams but also shared their experiences of dysfunctional teams. Combined with my own experience of the past years, I was wondering what the secrets of such unique cultures leading to high performance are.
My research led me to back to the Greek philosophers (what doesn’t start there, right?), to Aristotle to be more specific. Aristotle said “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. With that, Google named a 2-year research project after him, including 180 teams and 37,000 employees, asking: “What makes teams effective at Google?” The study showed that the number one reason for high performing teams was “Psychological Safety”. Amy C. Edmondson, Prof. of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School describes "Psychological Safety" as: "…a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes." If you are vulnerable and if you feel safe to try things and challenge each other, you can outperform other teams. YES! That sounds great but how can a team get there? I found, that there are different practices which help facilitate asking those challenging questions and are further giving space to everyone in the team to speak up. These are practices which I experienced as valuable in my career as well as other industry leaders to whom I spoke. I want to introduce you to one practice for the long-term mission, one for your every-day meetings and one supporting communication in your team. Here we go:
Team Purpose: High performing teams know their goals. Teams train years for the Olympics or the World Cup, knowing exactly why they are waking up at 6 am and knowing why they are putting all their heart, tears and sweat into the practice. In the business environment, we sometimes tend to forget to stop every once in a while to make sure we’re still on the right track. Making sure that your team knows why they are getting up in the morning is essential so that they are also able to connect how their work fit to their personal purpose. Susan Wheelan says: “The group becomes a team when mutual, shared goals have been established and there are efficient methods to achieve these goals.“ In order to create these goals, it is essential to have a team purpose. There are great tools which can be used to define a teams purpose such as the Team Canvas.
Rounds: Rounds is a practice which gives everyone in the room a voice to speak. Sounds easy, right? But think back to your last couple of team meetings. Were you in situations in which everyone felt comfortable to share their thoughts? In which everyone had the same amount of air time (and not only the highest paid person in the room)? Rounds is a simple practice which you can include in your meetings: Choose a Facilitator and agree on a prompt. Afterwards, open up the round. Let everyone speak, on by one, to share their thoughts, ask clarifying questions or raise concerns. There is no interruption, making sure that everyone is heard.
Stop and reflect: Taking time to stop and reflect is essential, either to give each other feedback or to praise your team’s successes! Taking time to celebrate your team’s successes and also failures is key for building a high performing team. Furthermore, make sure to block some time in the calendars of your team to do retrospectives, to learn from the past, so that you can get better in future. It can be as quick as putting a 30 min slot in the calendars of your team, asking these three questions:
What worked?
Where did we get stuck?
What can we do differently next time?
So, let’s just give these practices a try. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Going back to the old state, right? Roll up your sleeves and let’s start. Let’s get shit done!
PS: This was my first blog post on here! I’m happy to get some feedback and also to know what topics you would like to see here in future. Shoot me a message!