By Elaine Seale- McKend
Your Team’s Challenge:
One of the consistent challenges with teams is knowing when they are performing at their maximum. How can you tell as a team leader or member? There is a constant niggle that something isn’t quite right. The team is delivering on objectives but like a sports team that just keeps missing goal opportunities you can sense, and so can the team that they are not on their A game. They are not in ‘flow’.
What is lost when this happens? Team members can quickly lose motivation, they start to limit their contribution, relationships get frayed, members do the minimum required to reach their goals but don’t offer improvements or collaboration. They are often meeting their goals but not building the value of the team.
The team is performing but not reaping the benefits of working together as a cohesive unit.
Imagine what they could achieve if they worked together as a team?
One of our clients in this situation let’s call them ‘Techmate’, called Teamery in to understand what was going on under the surface and then partner with the team to find a solution.
Techmate employed highly educated motivated people, each of whom had strong capabilities and the drive to deliver on their individual objectives. What they sensed was missing was connectedness and the translation from the ME to WE.
The team was keen to understand how they could realise the benefit of shared effort but were unsure how to do this. Using a suitable diagnostic, we were able to gather data that supported the need for change in the team which we fed back using clear consistent language that the business could relate to. We framed it specifically for the sector, using scenarios that they would relate to with culturally appropriate references.
Through raising the team’s awareness of the key elements that enable individuals in the team to do their best work together, with the opportunity to benefit from the collective wisdom and experience of their team mates, we worked to maximize relationships through building understanding and trust. Getting to know one another was a basic but critical part of knowing strengths and roles played in the team. Over the subsequent sessions we saw an increase in positivity, productivity and collective growth which supported innovation and collaboration to achieve more than they were required to do.
Techmate now pulls Teamery specialists in regularly to work with new and developing teams where agility to think quickly and embrace new challenges is coupled with cohesiveness of purpose and collective contribution.