Building high-performing team skills

Building high-performing teams

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Skills for Building high-performing teams

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Psychological Manager book’s Building High-Performing Teams’ Skills extract. Many thanks to author Pete Storr.

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Developing teams

How will you…

  • ensure excellent communication?
  • instil a sense of team unity?
  • promote excellent communication?
  • ensure everyone feels valued?

Team Exercise Review 

  • How did the group solve the task?
  • What did the group do well?
  • How was any disagreement resolved?
  • What could the group have done differently?
  • What was communication like? What roles emerged?

Psychology of Groups – Implications

  1. Groups just Happen
  2. Some Shine, Some Hide
  3. Resistance is Useless
  4. Beware the Risky Shift

 

How are High performing teams created?

In “The Discipline of Teams (1993), Katzenbach & Smith outlined the key parameters they believed made a team perform at its best – when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The key concept is one of balancing individual and mutual accountability and they suggest five key disciplines of such high performing teams:

  • meaningful common purpose that has not been merely imposed on the team members, but one that they have contributed towards. This helps create a sense of shared ownership. What is this team here for? What has it been brought together to do?
  • specific performance goals that flow out of the common purpose which must be separate from, but complementary to, any individual performance goals that have been agreed. This helps to inspire and motivate working as a group rather than purely as an individual
  • a mix of complementary skills which may include specialist knowledge, problem-solving and interpersonal skills. This is essentially what Belbin argues. The knowledge skills and abilities do not have to present right from the start, however; rather, they may emerge/be developed over time
  • a commitment to how the work gets done; people are clear about their role and place within the team and what responsibilities, knowledge, skills and abilities they have or bring to the table. This may also include effective reviewing and monitoring of team and individual progress and performance
  • mutual accountability. The role of the team leader is to facilitate the creation of an atmosphere of trust and commitment. This is an active, not passive, process; one that is not just automatic and one that cannot be forced.

 

 Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats

The Six Thinking Hats technique of Edward de Bono is a model that can be used for exploring different perspectives towards a complex situation or challenge. Seeing things in various ways is often a good idea in strategy formation or complex decision-making processes.

This technique is designed to help individuals deliberately adopt a variety of perspectives on a subject that may be very different from the one that they might most naturally assume. In wearing a particular Thinking Hat people play roles, or “as if” themselves looking through a particular perspective. For instance, one could play the devil’s advocate, even if only for the sake of generating discussion. The purpose of devil’s advocacy is to deliberately challenge an idea: be critical, look for what is wrong with it. Perhaps its main use in a meeting situation is to encourage all members to put on specific hats jointly to look at the issue from a particular perspective.

Each of the Hats is named for a colour that is mnemonically descriptive of the perspective one adopts when wearing the particular hat. For example the devil’s advocacy is what one engages in when wearing the Black Thinking Hat.

De Bono’s hats are indicative of both emotional states as well as frames of mind. One thinking style (or hat) is not inherently “better” than another. A full, balanced team recognizes the need for all hats in order for the team to consider all aspects of whatever issues they are facing. Individuals need to ensure that they do not automatically wear a particular hat when looking at problems; this can lead to stereotyping.

Main benefits of the Six Thinking Hats method:

  • Allow one to say things without risk
  • Create awareness that there are multiple perspectives on the issue at hand
  • Convenient mechanism for ‘switching gears’
  • Rules for the game of thinking
  • Focuses thinking
  • Lead to more creative thinking
  • Improve decision-making
  • Improve communication

Brown hat benefits

  • Uses intuition, gut reaction & emotion
  • Thinks about how others will react emotionally
  • Tries to understand others’ responses
  • Gives the emotional view

White Hat benefits

  • Focuses on facts and available data
  • Analyses past trends
  • Identifies gaps in the data
  • Neutral and objective

Black Hat benefits

  • The pessimistic viewpoint
  • Why might it NOT work?
  • Highlights the weak points in the plan
  • Sombre and serious, cautious

Yellow Hat benefits

  • The optimistic viewpoint
  • Probes and explores for value and benefit
  • Aims at effectiveness
  • Sunny and positive, constructive

Blue Hat benefits

  • Overview and control
  • Process control, use of other hats
  • Defines the problems and shapes the questions
  • Manages the thinking process

Green hat benefits

  • Creative solutions
  • No criticism of ideas
  • Search for alternatives
  • Generate new concepts and perceptions

 

Further reading and information

  •  “Fish!” SC Lundin, by H Paul & J Christensen, Hodder Morbius
  •  “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, by Patrick Lencioni, Jossey Bass
  •  “The Psychological Manager” by Peter Storr, lulu.com
  •  “The Discipline of Teams” by JR Katzenbach & DK Smith, Harvard Business Press

 

The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team diagnostic

(adapted from Patrick Lencioni)

Instructions: Use the scale below to indicate how each statement applies to your team. Be sure to evaluate the statements honestly and without overthinking your answers.

3 = Usually                           2 = Sometimes                            1 = Rarely

 

Team diagnostic

Score Statement – Team members…
1 … are passionate and unguarded in their discussion of issues
2 … call out one another’s deficiencies or unproductive behaviours
3 … know what their peers are working on and how they contribute to the collective good of the team
4 … quickly and genuinely apologise to one another when they day or do something inappropriate or potentially damaging to the team
5 … willingly make sacrifices in their departments or areas of expertise for the good of the team
6 … openly admit their weaknesses and mistakes

 
7

Team meetings are compelling and not boring
8 … leave meetings confident that their peers are completely committed to the decisions agreed upon during the meeting, even if there was initial disagreement
9 Morale is significantly affected by the failure to achieve team goals
10 During team meetings, the most important and most difficult issues are put on the table to be resolved
11 … are deeply concerned about the prospect of letting down their peers
12 … know about one another’s personal lives and are comfortable discussing them
13 … end discussions with clear and specific resolutions and calls to action
14 … challenge one another about their plans and approaches
15 Team members are slow to seek credit for their own contributions but quick to point out those of others

Scoring

Write the score for each statement number in the corresponding box, then combine your scores for the fifteen statements as indicated below. Note that there is a maximum score of 9 for each Dysfunction – the higher the score, the less this is a Dysfunction.

  Statement Statement Statement Total
Dysfunction 1

Absence of Trust

 4: 6: 12:
Dysfunction 2

Fear of Conflict

 1: 7: 10:
Dysfunction 3

Lack of Commitment

 3: 8: 13:
Dysfunction 4

Avoidance of Accountability

 2: 11: 14:
Dysfunction 5

Inattention to Results

 5: 9: 15:

 

High-performing team analysis

  • What are this team’s strengths?
  • What’s the team’s weaknesses?
  • What actions can we take immediately?
  • … and in the next three months?