The team with exceptional performance is essentially its own organism, as Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski pointed out when he said, “To me, teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless.” Building a strong organization with scalable success requires building a great team. It can mean the difference between outstanding success and crashing failure.
You can’t just bring the pieces to the table. You have to work to put them together.
Yet while most of us work in some form of a team, we don’t spend much time thinking about what makes the team click. Most of us assume that if the team has someone fulfilling each of the critical roles, we’re good, but that’s not necessarily so. Sure, you need your metaphorical point guard, wings, and post players, but that’s just the start. Teams, whether they’ve existed for a week or for years, face challenges that can prevent them from excelling. Transforming them isn’t just possible, however, it’s likely if you understand the characteristics that make a good team into a great one. Let’s look at some examples.
The Team in a Transformative Stage
The team that is on the verge of transformation may be a brand new team, a team with new leadership, or a team that has been moved wholesale perhaps due to a merger or acquisition. The opportunities are almost limitless for the team in a transformative stage, but if team culture isn’t shaped or directed properly, the result can be a marginally productive group of people who don’t trust each other or are clueless as to their roles in moving the team (and the organization) forward. The key to getting great results with the team in a transformative stage is setting the conditions for the right people to do the right things as a team consistently.
The Team That Needs to Turn Itself Around
Sometimes teams go off-track. Nobody wants it to happen, but complacency, lack of accountability, or lack of initiative can cause a team to sputter and stop moving forward. Often you’ll see people who are supposed to be collaborating and working in harmony working only for themselves in a divided group that is too busy battling itself to get good results. These teams can be turned around, and it starts with evaluating team objectives and reviewing team member roles. Points of conflict must be identified before team expectations can be reset and the team can transform. When this happens, however, a faltering team can turn around and transform into an exceptional team.
The Good Team That Could Be Exceptionally Good
Good to great: how can a team make that transition?
You have a good team made up of good people, but everyone has this suspicion that this team could be not just good, but amazing – a Team of Distinction. How do you get from here to there? Often it’s a matter of focusing on small adjustments to roles and responsibilities within the existing team structure. How could the team culture be stronger? How can team members rally around team objectives? The introduction of research-backed elements of successful teams can revitalize a good team, improving decision-making and building positive momentum. Recognizing, “we’re a good team, with the potential for greatness” is monumentally empowering.
When a Team is Greater Than the Sum of its Parts
Sometimes a team as a whole is somehow greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe you’ve sung in a choir where otherwise ordinary voices resonate and raise the roof. Or perhaps you’ve been on a sports team where everything clicks almost as if the team had a shared consciousness. It’s hard to explain, but when you’ve experienced it, there’s nothing like it. Fulfilling roles is only the start. Learning to communicate and resolve issues that hold a team back get it moving in the right direction. Strengthening team culture with proven techniques can transform group of people with something in common into a cohesive team that gets results that otherwise might not be possible.
Bringing Coaching and Team Building into the Open
Teams of Distinction brings coaching and team building into the open. We believe that successfully coaching leaders requires a 360-degree view that takes in the perspectives of team members, clients, and others who interact with leaders. We also understand the immense power contained in a team that shares fundamental objectives, works past internal conflicts, and builds a cohesive, powerful culture. How well is your team doing? We encourage you to contact us at any time to discuss your team needs or ask questions.