When defining "What is a team," the business dictionary says a team is
A group of people with a full set of complementary skills required to complete a task, job, or project.
Team members:
- operate with a high degree of interdependence
- share authority and responsibility for self-management
- are accountable for the collective performance
- work toward a common goal and shared rewards(s).
A team becomes more than just a collection of people when a strong sense of mutual commitment creates synergy, thus generating performance greater than the sum of the performance of its individual members.
Teams are not simple!
Gosh, that above definition sounds simple(ish) and seems to suggest “so come on what is your problem, this is all obvious and easy”.
When you look at teams there are functional to dysfunctional teams. There are once-was-functional to almost-there-functional. And there is everything in between.
So how do you assist teams to move into functional, whether they are new or old teams?
We will be discussing teams over the coming weeks, developing the four stages below in a more detailed manner.
A foundational theory of Teams
This theory is an old one and a good one - Tuckman’s theory of teams.
There are many others but this theory is practical. What I mostly love is that you can see it. And I know how valuable it is to go through each step with the advantage of not lingering in any of the early stages identified by Tuckman.
The first stage is forming when people are orienting themselves to one another, getting to know one another.
The second stage of storming is when people tend to become a little fractious
The third stage is when the team build roles and rules to bring great functionality to the team.
The ultimate stage in Tuckman’s work is the team is performing where people have defined their purpose, understand the presence of chaos, and are willing to embrace the edge of chaos because they understand the individuals in the team and what they bring.
What are the components of Performance?
I now appreciate that there is great value gained by understanding the components of the team stages. This understanding will provide movement of the team through the lower stages and seek the performing stage.
Forming, when done well, as the team above has done, allows people to get to know one another, to find common ground and understanding. Storming, if understood and identified, will ensure that a team sees it’s vulnerabilities, passions and sharp edges.
If, in the first two stages, honesty and openness have been confirmed and reinforced then the third stage, norming, will be about developing behaviours and unwritten rules that allow, rather than restrict, the edge of chaos activity that stretches a team into performance. A performance level that is not just doing the “job” but much more.
So to get to performance have a look at our tips below. Or register for the Affectus Teams Intensive Workshop
What about the personality layer?
It is important to see teams and personalities as highly connected. Because they are highly connected!
At Affectus we use the highly valued Big Five Inventory. There is so much discussion about the five big traits and we are pleased to have used this tool in our programs for the last 15 years. Our reading on the Big Five now informs significant portions of our work. In the future, we will be exploring the breadth of understanding this tool will bring to your teams.