Archive for April, 2010

Great individuals do not make great teams. Well, not always. Teams with great potential can often be very ineffective.

There are many reasons for this anomaly – interpersonal problems between team members, lack of communication or even egoism. This usually results in low retention rates or significant workload imbalances, which in turn leads to frustration and inefficiency.

The most effective way to resolve these issues is team coaching.

Team coaching involves treating the team as an entity – a set unit with a vision, goal and focus. Team coaching improves team morale by allowing open and frank conversations, creating an agreed vision and setting the rules of engagement. This creates a sense of “I’m valued” / “Part of the team”, and we all know that “valued” team members will always outperform frustrated, neglected and de-motivated individuals.

In our previous article (Putting the TEAM into teamwork) several principles were suggested that will change the quality of a team’s performance. The central theme in this article was that teams should be empowered to take responsibility for the life of the specific team. This means that all the team members should have mutual accountability for addressing issues within the team. For team coaching to be effective, it should thus really be done by the team. Team members need to be empowered so that they are able to coach themselves towards greater unity, satisfaction and increased performance. In order to empower teams to do this a practical system is needed that will enable teams to:

• Assess and evaluate their current situation
• Address relationships within the team
• Ensure clear and effective communication and strategies
• Set appropriate goals for the team
• Ensure that the team remains true to their vision, mission and strategy, and
• Review their progress regularly

That is exactly what the Gears of Life™ team coaching system does. All these aspects can be implemented into any team quickly and effectively if you follow a clear system. This unique system empowers team members to become mutually accountable for the successful functioning of the team, by actively participating in the discovery and creation of solutions to potential problems within the team.

All team members are in effect turned into owners of the team entity and thus empowered to ensure best possible performance.

This innovative system for team coaching is designed to address the team’s needs and help the team to perform at a higher level and thus has the following benefits:

• Saving money. Increasing team productivity and effectiveness will eliminate the need for resource ramp-ups and can even drive out current excesses which can be reduced.
• Saving time. Reducing bureaucracy and team politics allows for quicker decision making, less red tape and much less team spent on conflict resolution.
• Being pro-active instead of reactive. Teams are assisted to address potential issues before they even become problems.
• Increased staff morale. “Valued” and enthusiastic team members make for a more pleasant working environment for all.
• Reduced staff turn-over. When a team’s morale is good, staff are less likely to resign, which will save the organisation money in recruitment and training new members of staff.
• Increased team performance. This is self-explanatory – effective happy teams perform better. Period.
• Immediate implementation. This system can be implemented immediately. No massive roll-outs of theoretical multiple-day training programmes. It is designed to be very practical and straight-forward.
• Regular review. This system enables teams to measure their progress on a regular basis, by using a visual model of their teamwork during team meetings. This will ensure that the team remains true to their corporate vision, mission, strategy, values and rules while regularly designing and implementing appropriate action plans.

The unique Gears of Life™ team coaching system will ensure that a team will continue to develop as an entity and ultimately unlock their true synergistic potential.

“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!