To be a highly productive team is a choice

 

We have been talking about highly productive teams all spring within our team Samoa Osk. The core question in everybody’s mind is: What does it mean and how can we achieve it?

A blog post written by Candice Frazer on TTI Success Insights’ website shares 5 secrets to building a highly productive team. Frazer mentions that organizations rely heavily on teams to get work done (Frazer 2018). 2021 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends have also listed teamwork as one of the leading trends this year. A term “superteam” has been brought to light. The artickle states that by amplifying humans’ contributions to new and better outcomes, superteams can play an integral part in an organization’s ability to grow and thrive (Deloitte 2020).

Secret #3 in Candice Frazer’s blog post caught my eye: Ensure your training aligns with the biggest challenges for the teams in your organizations. If we acknowledge what the biggest struggles are in the team, we can build a stronger foundation for it. In the study mentioned by Frazer it says that there are three common challenges for teams: lack of accountability, difficulty making decisions and lack of participation (Frazer 2018). I laughed a little, since I feel like these are the same core challenges that our team faces at the moment. According to the study a whopping 71 % of development efforts are focused on communication (Frazer 2018). No wonder we feel like we are struggling with the same things as other teams are. But how can we overcome these challenges?

I felt a sense of relief – I no longer have to focus solely on the results, I can focus on our team instead!

I was introduced to Patrick Lencioni’s Trust pyramid a while back. I feel like that was the first concrete thing I had come across regarding teams and team leading. The Trust pyramid shows 5 steps: Trust, Conflict, Commitment, Accountability and Results (Suidman 2020). We had the pleasure of hearing Mika Aittamäki tell us more about this pyramid in one of our training sessions. He told us that if the 4 base levels (Trust, Conflict, Commitment & Accountability) work, the results will come to us naturally. I felt a sense of relief – I no longer have to focus solely on the results, I can focus on our team instead! Hugo Suidman has listed bullet points in his blog post on what high-performance teams do. One of the points was “Embrace conflict, by challenging people to apply radical candor and fight with each other for the same goals” (Suidman 2020).

If we know our weaknesses as a team, we also know our strengths. If we work towards a common goal, the results will show. If we tackle our challenges through dialogue and understanding, a bright future will be ahead of us as teampreneurs. When we keep ourselves and our teammates accountable, we will be more committed. I challenge you to think about these things, too. Are you showing up in your team? Are you bringing something to the table as well? Mika Aittamäki said that to be a high-performance team is a choice. It’s a choice you don’t have to make – that’s fine. I normally wouldn’t recommend “what if”-thinking but in this case, I’m warmly encouraging you to think “what if?” What is the worst thing that could happen if you and your team tried to implement these tips into your team culture?

 

Sources

Frazer, C. 2018. 5 Secrets to Create Highly Productive Teams in 2018. TTI SUCCESS INSIGHTS. Read on the 28^th of April 2021. https://blog.ttisi.com/5-secrets-to-create-highly-productive-teams-in-2018

Multiple authors. 2021 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends. 2021. Superteams. Read on the 28^th of April 2021. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/human-capital-trends/2021/workforce-trends-2020.html/#superteams

Suidman, H. 2020. The Lencioni Method. ForChiefs. Read on the 28^th of April 2021. https://forchiefs.com/leadership/the-lencioni-method/