A team-centered approach to organisational development

Ten years ago, the CEOs and HRDs who approached us with organisational leadership problems wanted one thing: Collaboration. That was important and still is, but something else has been on their minds for the last few years: How to lead in complexity. How can our leaders understand a world that makes little sense, that they have never seen before and that – when they do understand it – morphs again?

As is often the case, it’s the question that’s wrong. This paper will set out why it is teams, not individual leaders that will help the organisation to thrive in this new world. And, more than it, how the active membership of those teams will solve the workplace loneliness issues that have sadly become prevalent as teams have fragmented. It will also set out a pragmatic approach – Team Acceleration – to make that happen.

Teams: The unsung heroes

• Almost 6 out of 10 teams are under-perfoming

• 75% of cross-functional teams are under-performing

• 90% of teams claim to be high-performing, but only 17% met the high-performance criteria

We also know that teams are under-performing – almost 59% rising to 75% for cross functional teams, so something needs to be done. According to the Centre for High Performance, of 90% of teams that claimed to be high performing, only 17% met the high performance criteria (which included bringing new product or services to market or making long-term increasing returns). So, not only do many teams underperform, they are under the false impression that they are doing well.

Our work over 25 years with hundreds of organisations around the globe and nearly one million professionals has enabled us to codify the conditions required for the success of teams. What we observe is that there are three levels of performance within organisations and they need to be aligned and balanced to deliver outstanding business results. These are organisation, teams, and individuals.

Typically, we find that businesses have great metrics for performance, customer satisfaction and employee wellbeing at the ‘system’ level and no shortage of companywide initiatives to boost outcomes. These measures are often cascaded to clear KPIs and engagement metrics, supported by training for the individual. But where is most of the work done? In teams – the missing middle of most leadership models. Teams might have clear objectives but do they have a way to optimise their performance together? To really accelerate how they get work done?

What the research tells us about accelerating teams

Research showed us that using our approach resulted in sustained motivation and autonomy in teams

1. Creating the conditions for team success

Team performance relies on a broad set of conditions to be in place. A simple way to organise these conditions is in three categories known as the 3Cs:

• Clarity (what the team is trying to achieve and why as well as how it will achieve it)

• Climate (including the ‘hard climate’ such as resources and processes and the ‘soft climate’ including culture and stakeholder relationships)

• Competence (the skills, knowledge, behaviour and attitude of the team members)

The London School of Economics has shown that these conditions all correlate with self-reported team performance. Of the three conditions, it is Clarity and Climate that actually drive performance, which backs the belief that a ‘star team beats a team of stars'. Further research by the University of Sydney showed the use of the 3Cs led to sustained motivation and increased autonomy in teams.

Capable teams can align themselves to the organisational intent while setting up the conditions that they require in their own specific context: Their task, environment, team members etc.

A final key element of creating these conditions is the support the team receives. This can be from a manager, a mentor or a coach but the key here – as for development described below – is that this coaching is received by an intact team.

The ‘executive coaching’ of a team leader is expensive and relies on that team leader taking the learning from their sessions back to the team. Sports teams would not neglect group training in favour of coaching individuals and expect to win. Why do we expect that of teams in the workplace?

3/5 Americans classify themselves as lonely, up 7% since the previous year

2. Connect to perform

There’s another advantage of teams too: With more people working remotely than ever, we are seeing new challenges of isolation and disconnection.

The global health insurance company, Cigna, issues a Loneliness in the Workplace report each year. Their 2019 report found 3/5 Americans classified themselves on this scale as lonely, up 7% since the previous year; and this is a pre-COVID study! In particular, 58% respondents said they sometimes or always feel like no one knows them well at work.

Teams can step into this void – strong teams connect people together in a shared task, provide mutual support and a learning community.

Self-Determination Theory tells us that people are motivated to work well when three needs are met:

• Autonomy – control over their own work and decisions

• Mastery – the skills and knowledge to do their work well

• Relatedness – a sense of a shared objective and connection with others

This last need is particularly relevant for teams which might have been dislocated by Covid-19.

Recent research by Gartner found that employees who felt well connected to their teams were 25% more productive than disconnected colleagues.

Yet data from Squadify shows that the element most commonly rated lowest in importance for team performance is ‘strong personal connections’. Now more than ever, connection is key for both personal performance and for teams to overcome the distances they must work across. Safeguarding the mental health of its employees is not only the duty of the organisation, but an opportunity.

Healthy, happy, connected employees will repay this investment in engagement and performance. Why not leverage the power of teams to meet these needs?

The closer a team’s mental model, the better their team performance

3. Learn together, perform together

Team mental models are a way of describing the degree to which team members have a shared understanding of different team tasks and processes. The concept was defined in the early 1990s and has become a powerful measure of how effectively a team works together.

Research shows that the closer a team’s mental model, the better the team performs. The team mental model captures both the what (vision, objectives, KPIs) and the how (processes, behaviours, culture) for the team.

Team mental models are not in conflict with diversity. Diversity is key to teams to ensure ideas are challenged and different perspectives are brought to business challenges in order to arrive at the best solution. Shared team mental models enable teams to determine what success looks like and then to agree processes, activities and behaviours to get there together.

Research by a team from the London School of Economics Masters in HR & Organisations program found that teams who focused on creating the right conditions for their success and used Squadify (a platform that provides the same data to all members on team conditions) to measure their progress over time strengthened their shared mental models which in turn, drives performance

Highly data-driven organisations are 3x more likely to report significant improvements in decision making

4. Focus on data-driven development

Research by PwC found that highly data-driven organisations are three times more likely to report significant improvements in decision making compared with other organisations. HBR takes this a step further by defining two clear benefits for leaders of data-driven decision making confidence and the ability to be more proactive.

The Cynefin framework defined by an ex IBM-er, Dave Snowden, is helpful in making sense of an ever changing world. In this framework, many new challenges are not easily defined so teams need to take an experimental approach to try out strategies and solutions quickly and learn or pivot when appropriate.

In these situations, data is the only certainty and provides an anchor for experiments and a solid basis for decision making. Our experience is that team conditions change frequently with Tuckman’s Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing steps happening simultaneously and repeatedly. Frequent data collection is the key to understanding the bewilderingly dynamic situation.

However, data alone is not the answer. It is an enabler to inspire effective dialogue to help the team learn. Team members need to understand and agree to a clear set of activities in order to build the optimum environment:

1. Shared mental models
2. Competence in having high quality conversations
3. Fact-based decision-making
4. Performance enhancing habits

Building a team-based organisation

A ‘network of teams’ is how many successful companies are already working

In 2004 General McChrystal was the commander of the US Joint Special Operations Task force to address the growing threat of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Traditional warfare couldn’t compete against the unstructured operations of Al Qaeda and the highly complex environments.

The task force had to change the way it operated from a hierarchical structured model to a networked team of teams approach.

Creating shared meaning, connection and a broad understanding of the bigger picture accelerated empowered execution and the ability to achieve success in a challenging context.

This approach – called ‘team of teams’ or 'network of teams' is how many successful companies are already working, even if they look like hierarchical or matrix structures.

In this approach, teams share the common overarching goal and proactively connect in achieving it, changing course together as needed.

The old way was to build an organisation of functions and then devote energy to break down those same silos. The new way is to build organisations of teams, supported by function as required.

Individuals in a team-based world

While the focus for many years has been on individual talent, research shows that performance is delivered by ‘star teams’ more than ‘teams of stars’. This means that when selecting, promoting and developing people, our focus should now be on their ability to contribute to teams.

Beyond the tired requirement to be a ‘team player’, organisations should be seeking a specific set of capabilities. Research by Dave Winsborough and Tomas ChamorroPremuzic revealed that the key attributes for team members are to be:

• Results-oriented
• Relationship-focused
• Process and rule followers
• Innovative and disruptive thinkers
• Pragmatic

Team members should be able to contribute to the team’s conditions of success: create and maintain Clarity; build a supportive Climate for all; and demonstrate the behaviours that are required to further the collective effort and the best way for them to learn to do this is by proactively practicing while they do real work, together.

At the heart of this is the shift from ‘me to we’. What is the primary viewpoint of the individual: themselves or the group around them?