Having led and worked in teams for more than 30 years, I thought I’d share a few key ideas that I have learnt that will you get a team of people to work more cohesively and effectively together. It is particularly effective to do some of these with a new team or group that about to embark on a project together. It can really pay dividends in the smooth running of the project.
1. Enable Them To Build trust
In my book The Alchemy of Change I reveal how trust is the glue that holds a business together. It is that unseen factor in business that makes all the difference. In his book on the five dysfunctions of a team Patrick Lencioni explains i it is really important for a team to develop ‘vulnerability-based’ trust. This means that they need to share things and understand more about each other. Personally I love using Talent Dynamics which is an assessment tool which helps team members learn more about themselves and their other team members in a non-threatening way. And of course when you understand the drivers of your other team members communication can be enhanced. Also by every team member focusing on their strengths the group collective is enable to achieve greater productivity and profitability than the sum of the individuals. This is the power of collective teamwork.
Another way to help team members build trust is by allowing them to share stories with each other about when they were younger. Here is a format that I got from Larry Reynolds, which I have used many times to great effect.
- Think of a time when you faced some kind of challenge. It can be a challenge big or small, and it can be something that happened recently or many years ago. Challenges you faced as a child or young adult can make especially powerful stories. The only proviso is that things worked out alright in the end, and that you are happy to share this experience with others.
- How did you feel when you encountered this challenge? It’s probably something on the spectrum between concerned and terrified.
- What unexpected help came your way? Maybe you drew on some inner resources, or maybe someone else helped you.
- How did things work out in the end?
- What did you learn from this experience?
- What does that say about your values and beliefs as a person now
2. Help Them Get Comfortable With Disagreeing
It’s really important, if a team are to make great decisions that they are comfortable with a level of conflict and disagreement in the team. Give them some tasks to do that involve disagreement and negotiation. Set a task where a decision needs to make and carefully facilitate a discussion where when a person states a point of view or puts forward an idea, at least two people must say specifically what they like or agree with and then at least two people must point out potential issues, flaws or reasons that they disagree. When a team can get comfortable separating the ideas and concepts from the person, they will be able to make better decisions. Also if issues are discussed properly, teams are able to commit to decisions that they don’t necessarily fully agree with if they can understand the rationale behind the decision and they feel that they have been fully heard.
3. Help Them Get Comfortable Giving And Receiving Feedback
Giving and receiving feedback effectively will enable the team to grow and develop faster and will also enable them to hold each other accountable for behaviours and results. Enable them to practise giving real face-to-face feedback by doing an activity such as ‘warm seat’:
A ‘warm seat’ is a little bit like a hot seat but cooler! Group members prepare questions to ask the rest of the group about themselves. These questions can be positive e.g. what is great about working with me? Neutral e.g. what is it like working with me? Or negative e.g. in what ways do I sometimes annoy you? Group members take it in turns to sit in the warm seat for a pre-arranged amount of time e.g. five minutes and ask their questions. Group members answer the questions (which can be general or specific) as specifically as possible with examples. They can only answer questions posed and at any time the person is free to vacate the warm seat if they’ve had enough.
4. Set Up A Team Charter
Another practical thing that a team can do is to set up a team charter, which includes agreements about ways of working. Get clarity first on the team’s vision, purpose and values. Then get clear about people’s different roles within the team by defining individual responsibilities and goals through referencing their strengths using Talent Dynamics. They can then get into identifying appropriate behaviours for team members, communication and decision-making processes and agreements about the use of resources. Encourage the team to put forward ‘rules’ that they can all sign up to, for example, ‘we get back to e-mails from each other within 24 hours’ or ‘when we disagree, we express this calmly and openly’ etc. Once this charter is established, team members can be encouraged to hold each other accountable for both behaving in line with what has been agreed and for their responsibility areas. This should happen as part of every team meeting.
5. Practice Being A Real Team By Giving Them A Challenge To Complete
Overcoming obstacles to achieve a goal is something that we typically get all teams engage in during my leadership with horses workshop. In this exercise the team members set the goal they wish to achieve and then build obstacles that could represent things that could prevent them from meet the goal. They then get introduced to a new team member (a horse) and have to all work together to get over the obstacles and achieve the goals. The team get all kinds of insights into how to communicate effectively, the different positions of leadership and how to co-operate and collaborate together to achieve success. The celebrations that occur when the team is successful are incredible and every team has always gone back to the workplace with more confidence and certainty about their capabilities.
Since the team has had an embodied experience of how to work successfully together this physical or ‘muscle’ memory stays with them and also make them want to achieve that feeling of working in harmony and being jointly accountable again!. Once people feel what it’s like to truly work as a team and achieve positive results, they usually want to do it again!
To learn about how to develop your high performance team please connect with me for a complimentary conversation and lets explore what’s possible.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
