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TEAM BUILDING
What
is team vitality?
A collection of people working together
to achieve common and meaningful goals in a way that is enriching and supportive.
This definition gives us an opportunity to diagnose and treat some of the
major ailments in organisations. Take a group of people waiting at a bus stop. Are they a team ? Well, they are certainly a collection of people. They do have shared goals in that they all want the
bus to come and they each hope they themselves will get on it. It could even be said they sometimes 'work together' in the sense that they occasionally obey rules of conduct such as first come first
served. You would hardly however, call it an enriching or supportive experience and certainly not very meaningful!
The bus stop group is alas, typical of teams in organisations. They often
feel disempowered because they are unable to influence the things that really matter to them (like how can we get the bus to come on time around here ?!) This leads to people who are tuned out and
turned off. Furthermore, the cry goes up "if you don't look out for number one, you'll get left behind". This leads to pushing and shoving for position. Competition of the worst kind. And
then we each stand crammed like sardines. We grin and bear it. Like most of us do at work. But OH! for a better life!
Enhancing teamwork is a way of creating an organisational culture that not
only makes working life more enriching but ensures better business performance. For example, in other cultures, the bus is always late. So those waiting have a party - singing and dancing. Great fun.
They change what they can and for the time being accept what they can't. Later on they can try and influence the timetable.
There are three main components to teamwork : Leadership, Competence and
Relationships. These three can be split up into several others :
Leadership: Player, Coach and Visionary.
Competence: Ability to do the job and to think in a Systemic way.
Relationships: Trust, Feedback and Mutual Accountability.
When all these are in place the team can start to 'sing and dance' and
change not just the timetable but the bus too.
LEADERSHIP
Player
Of course it's great if the leader can roll up his sleeves
and do the jobs of the team members. The danger in this however, is that he'll try and get them to do it his way, and they'll tend to become dependent, sit back and let him do it. To avoid this trap,
he should focus more on the process rather than the task. He should cultivate the quality of being a player in the process and a spectator in the task. This sense of 'work' as 'play' is an essential
characteristic of a high performing team - it's fun to be there.
Coach
Building individual confidence is what a good coach does.
It's more than 'walking the job'. It's about inspiring people, celebrating success, reframing failure as learning and being a mentor to improve individual performance.
Vision
Vision and purpose are often unclear in organisations.
People are sold the idea that profit is the overall purpose. Few are really motivated by this. Profit is best seen as one of the many measures of success in moving towards the purpose. And the team
must be involved in helping to create the purpose as a worthwhile vision; something they would all feel proud to tell others about. This vision must then be translated into a working document that
gives meaning to their short term objectives.
COMPETENCE
Whereas Vision is doing the right things, competence is doing things right.
The ability to do the job in an efficient manner. People need to know what is expected of them and how they are measured. This nuts and bolts level of performance is often ignored. In fact, when
people write down what they think their job is and compare it to what the boss thinks, there are often glaring gaps ! And if the boss doesn't know, it's likely that the rest of the team don't know
either.
Systems Thinking
Business is held together by invisible interests
and interrelated actions of which we ourselves are part. It is difficult to disentangle our own views from the context that created them and all too easy to see problems located in say, an individual
or a particular policy. Acquiring a systems view means to value diversity and make use of as many different and conflicting views as possible. A valuable technique for doing this is called
'dialogue'. This is a form of enquiry that captures all sorts of views in an encouraging and supportive manner.
RELATIONSHIPS
Trust
Trust creates a positive working climate. So often fear is
the prevailing climate. This comes from a command and control type of leadership style. It produces either rebelliousness or conformity. Of the two, conformity is the most dangerous. I am reminded of
the millions of words written about Nixon and the Watergate affair. Top politicians knew that it was illegal to bug Watergate, knew that it wouldn't work and yet when the judge asked them 'why in
God's name did you do it?' they said 'to be loyal to the President and a good team member' This was the defence at Nuremberg : conformity of the worst kind. Trust on the contrary encourages truth in
fact demands it. It overcomes the tendency to toe the political line and play safe for the sake of personal advantage.
Feedback
This is the best performance indicator of an effective
team. A good team wants to know how it's doing, is very interested in the effects of its actions on others and on its own members. A vital team is always seeking to improve its response to its
business and organisational demands. This means it must have feedback not only from the results of its activities but also from each member of the team. They should each be willing to give and
receive feedback about those characteristics that are positive and those that could be improved. A really healthy team would look forward with a mixture of challenge and excitement to opportunities
for such feedback where the truth is told in an open and supportive manner and where mistakes are opportunities for learning rather than clobbering and fault-finding. A good team will share and
welcome the truth irrespective of hierarchy and will be constantly shifting itself and adapting itself like an amoeba to respond appropriately to changing circumstances. This is the role of feedback.
Mutual Accountability
In most so called teams, when one member is
falling by the wayside, no one cares. In fact they moan or mock his incompetence making jokes and sarcastic comments. Such teams are not high performing nor is it a joy to work in them. When people
truly have a sense of mutual accountability, they confront issues in a straight forward and supportive way because it's 'all for one and one for all'. No one says 'it's not my job'. Team rewards are
possible precisely because everyone is dependent on everyone else.
Such teams are unstoppable. They are a joy to work in. They release the
highest in us all and produce the best results.
Copyright 2000 Garth Spiers
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