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Working in a team can be hard work, filled with conflict, tedious discussions, and frustrating deadlocks… but it can also be absolutely amazingly wonderful! Let’s explore the secret of team success and the essentials.
A successful team is one in which the individual members contribute and give. They are not there to compete with each other but to collaborate and set each other up to succeed. They are there to make their teammate the star! Great, but…how?
There are three main attributes for this to happen, to create the conditions where the team members contribute and set each other up to succeed:
The team knows why they are there, why what they do is important – they have a benevolent intent
The team is well lead. They work for their boss because they want to, not because they have to – we call this legitimate power
The team members treat each other with generosity and courage – with transactional correctness.
Let’s explore these three attributes one by one.
To understand benevolent intent, we have a thought experiment:
You work at a medical company producing the COVID-19 vaccine. One day, your boss comes to your workplace and says, “Don’t forget we are here to make money! The more vaccine, the better profit for this company!” I’ve worked in a place where this was stated almost daily, “Don’t forget we are here to make money!”, and I can tell you, it certainly didn’t make me want to work any harder.
On the other hand, what if your boss came to your workplace and said, “Please work very hard at producing as much COVID-19 vaccine as possible—with every dose, we save a life”—now THAT would clearly motivate me to work extra hours!
Knowing why what you do is important and how it contributes to the world and to your customers, having a benevolent intent, is important for a good growth ground for successful teams.
When we have asked people around the globe, in different lines of work, who their dream boss is and who they would work for because they want to, long lists of traits come up. It sounds like a superhuman described as no one could ever aspire to become a want-to-boss if all that is required! We usually find things like trusting, trustworthiness, good listening, honesty, empathy and giving feedback on the list. You find two themes in the list at closer examination: a softer one and a harder one. In the softer theme, we find words like ga ood listener and empathetic. Then there is also the more complex theme, with words like honest and trusting. Clearly, with a boss that is honest and trusting, it will not all be sweet and nice – sometimes you will be faced with some tough music regarding your performance, or you will be given a task outside your comfort zone! But that is the case, we actually want both from our want-to-boss, both the softer and the harder theme. At Schuitema, we summarize them to Care (softer) and Growth (harder), and between the two, true empowerment emerges.
When the boss understands that this is their job to care for and grow their people, and when they create conditions where the teams collaborate instead of compete, they have really created conditions for team success.
We can see how Care and Growth from the boss gives him or her legitimate power, where we want to follow and want to work. This is also accurate for a team, for example, in an Agile setup. The criteria for the want-to-boss are just as valid for a want-to-team mate; we also want a teammate to be trusting, trustworthy, a good listener, honest, empathetic, and to give feedback! When we care for and help each other to grow in the team, we treat each other with transactional correctness. It means that we provide each situation, which is due to the interactions with our teammates, acting with generosity or courage. It means that we both hold each other accountable and are happy for each other’s successes, sharing and celebrating them. When we do that, we mature as individuals and as a team.
People treating each other with transactional correctness develop excellent teams.
Working in benevolent teams develops excellent people – that’s the bottom-line job: team success!
Organisations are healthy to the degree to which the teams within the organisation collaborate towards producing a surplus. Teams produce surpluses based on the degree to which each individual within the team is there to make a discretionary contribution in pursuit of the objectives of the team. This intent to make a contribution manifests within the team as a genuine collaboration between team members. Collaborative contribution amongst teams is the essence of organisational excellence.
Our approach is holistic and can assist you in understanding what is going on within your organisation and how this is translating into the customers brand experience. We assist you in finding the What, Where, Why and the consequences of these variables.
The tools that we use to do this include the following:
We run workshops for those in leadership positions to establish a deep understanding of the Care & Growth Model and its effective application in the workplace. We use both Introductory Workshops and Application Modules to train leaders within your organisation.
By adhering to a formalised coaching process for individuals and groups, we can work on three levels – addressing immediate concerns, developing competence and finally, transformational change.
We coach both individuals and teams based on what your organisation requires.
Schuitema Group has a variety of consulting services available to assist client organisations to establish better the organisational context in which Care & Growth Thematic can flourish and the organisation can produce exceptional people who do exceptional work.
We work collaboratively with you to create the right programme to address your internal and external requirements, enabling your organisation to flourish.