Can you afford poor quality teamwork?

In many workplaces, too many resources are tied up in bad or random collaboration. It reduces job satisfaction, it reduces efficiency and effectiveness – and ultimately it reduces profit. How can we change this picture? What does it take to release the energy tied up in poor or inferior collaboration?

It is our assertion that the organisational transformations that are necessary to bring society through i.e. a financial crisis can only be achieved through a conscious effort, focusing on collaboration as a core discipline. Smooth collaboration is a condition for success and development of any company.

In this article, we will demonstrate two levels of team development: A short method that can quickly transform a random group into an effective group, and a longer and more thorough method that can lift the effective group into a team – ”if you want it all”.

Most managers are aware that employees at all levels are the company’s most valuable resource – yet also the most complex one. Every day, when we come to work, we bring many things with us which have no relevance to the work we are about to do. However, they will influence the quality of the work and the contribution we offer the greater whole.

Any encounter with another human being, whether in a private or a professional context, brings everything that we are and everything that we have to offer into play. Our values, attitudes, emotions and experiences affect the relationship at various, often unconscious, levels. This is a challenge – often a major challenge. When working with leadership and developing teams, the art is to cultivate the conditions in order to bring out the best skills. When we succeed in making employees work together towards common goals and in a common spirit, a lot of energy is generated, which in turn makes it possible to achieve great results.

"Mutual recognition makes people whose purpose it is to succeed in workplace relationships rise to the pinnacle, regardless of the given assignment."

Collaboration is a discipline to be practised consciously

In our daily work, we meet numerous dysfunctional groups and teams that do not achieve this level of synergy. Occasionally, a group will actually achieve a negative synergy, accomplishing less than would have been possible individually. The expectation that people will automatically and naturally cooperate is mistaken. When a team is formed, the first emotion that occurs among its members is typically fear. Fear of failing within the group. Only when this fear has been mitigated by concrete plans for the collaboration and a better understanding of each other, the team members begin to look for opportunities.

We can only experience positive recognition from people who truly see us and form an opinion about who we are. The experience that another person is genuinely interested in who we are stimulates us and gives us energy.

Mutual recognition makes people whose purpose it is to succeed in workplace relationships rise to the pinnacle, regardless of the given assignment. We simply have to practise collaboration as a discipline within a specific framework in order to exploit the team’s full potential and ensure that we utilise all team members’ competences most optimally.

The task is not difficult. It does not require a special psychological insight or great empathic abilities in order for each member of the group to contribute to making the collaboration creative and constructive. But it does require a clear understanding and recognition of the importance of collaboration. Using simple tools and a few days’ work, one can easily identify how a group of people can work constructively together. Instead of feeling intimidated or scared by what we do not understand about each other, we can learn to utilise our differences in order to strengthen the group’s overall performance.

High Performance Teams are a rarity

We regularly meet the concept of a ”high performance team”, and we have met many groups who consider themselves as such. However, it is our belief that less than 10% of the teams we know can actually call themselves high performance. It is simply a rarity in the world of business, and only very few of the teams we meet live up to the conditions of a high performance team.

To us, a number of very specific conditions must be met if a group of people working together are to consider themselves a high performance team: A high performance team always has a burning platform on which they work. The members improve their performance, even when they are ahead. They operate with a plan A only. All members take on leadership, and they have a sense of mutual responsibility that goes far beyond their professional relationship.

We do not have to be a high performance team, however, in order for our joint effort to be successful. Our definition of a strong team is simple: We are a strong team when we make each other better. Fundamentally, we must have a common task, a mission, a purpose. If we do not feel that there is a common task, we cannot mobilise the team or ourselves. The task must be concrete: defined, resolved and submitted.

We have often witnessed teams that have been unsure about the task they were expected to perform. The answer to the question ”why are you a team?” has often been ”to fulfil the strategic goals of the company”. If this is the answer, it is a clear sign that the task has not been defined clearly. The task has to be much closer to the individual. Of course, it must be connected to the overall strategic goals, but the team members must be able to relate to it at a more personal level.

Effective team collaboration begins with four simple questions. We call them minimum standards or the team’s hardware. It is a best practice model that we have developed based on the most important studies of teams from the late 60s to the present, combined with the experience gained and observations made during our work with more than 600 teams in the past 12 years.

Why? – The group members must have something to connect their hearts to

We have to define a purpose, maybe a defined mission, but at least establish a sense of meaning, so that everyone knows why we do as we do. As human beings, we are driven by meaning, and if we do not understand the deeper purpose of what we do, we never really invest neither our heart nor our brain in the project.

What? – The group must have a goal to pursue

We must set specific and challenging goals, so that everyone knows what we need to focus on and how we measure it. It brings clarity and common direction. Precise targets are required to create and maintain a high performance level in a group. Demanding and ambitious goals create drive – and drive is a condition for development.

How? – The group must make a common plan

A master plan that ensures the group’s efficiency and common understanding, just as it enables the group to act faster and stronger in case of conflict. By creating an actual framework for our work procedures, we ensure that as a group we solve the tasks correctly.

Who? – Every team member must know exactly who assumes which responsibilities

Unclear roles create frustration. It is both about who is on the team, and what tasks they solve. We must clarify roles and functions to utilise the team’s skills optimally and to be flexible and effective as a team.

Your contribution is more important than you

If we have achieved the above, we are no longer just a random group, but already an effective group. If we want to increase the level of our cooperation further and become a team, we must focus on what we call the team’s software.

Throughout the years, we have witnessed many members of teams who are silent or passive when the team is debating important issues. Such behaviour seriously limits the team’s ability to develop. No member is more important than the other, and the team is always above the individual. Being a member of a team means that we have an obligation to contribute. But we also have an obligation to maintain physical and mental fitness in order to ensure that our contribution is valid.