Collaborative effort from part of an Ascent cohort.

It’s a rare warm spring day here in New England, and I’m sitting outside with my laptop, thinking about teams. To be fair, I often think about teams – if we at Ascent are focused on developing leaders, we are equally passionate about teams. At their best, teams are a wonderful opportunity to develop capacity at multiple levels in an organization, while also driving results. And highly effective teams are an especially good place to find and cultivate emerging leaders. What’s not to love?

On my left, a robin is pecking at the dirt, hoping to catch a worm. The worm is busily aerating the soil, to the appreciation of the plants’ roots, and the benefit of any nearby seeds. The rabbits and voles nibble shoots and fertilize the soil. Altogether, their interactions contribute to my little garden, improving the soil in which I grow my herbs and veggies. And yet, should we applaud their collective efforts? Are they, by default, a team?

Hardly.

All too often, people are simply shown a room and a task, and told to work together. The idea is that, when we put smart, committed people together and give them a clear task, they will produce. This is more or less true - but it doesn’t make them a team. It simply makes them what team authority and Harvard professor J. Richard Hackman called a working group , or people whose work happens to align for a period of time.[i] Working groups lack the connective tissues - the shared agreement, structures and collaborative culture that powers a strong team. And, while both can drive results, only the team is uniquely poised to drive culture, collaboration, learning and innovation – not to mention, better results. And, like so much else, building your team’s capacity means both powering your organization –and – growing your people. Again, what’s not to love?

So, how do you help your working groups become teams? There are three key strategies:

· Set expectations: internal and external to the team, and calibrate them, to make sure the goals are both challenging and manageable.

o Externally, make sure the team is clear on their objectives and the need.

o Internally, have the team set their expectations for themselves and the way they will work. By shaping the process, the team will also shape the team culture.

· Accountability and feedback: hold the team accountable for both their goals and the way they’ve chosen to do the work. Use developmental feedback to help the team understand what’s working well and what needs work in their process.

· Don’t just start, launch. Have a deliberate, planned kick-off process to get your team on track. Refresh or repeat as needed.

Teams are a balance between internal function, and the external guidance and support that leadership provides. With that balance, teams can do transformative work. Without it, they’re likely to falter at the starting line. In a results-driven culture, the risk is that the expectation to produce results will outweigh the need to set norms and processes that will enable collaborative, effective work. These norms will differ, depending on the task, and should lead to a challenging, energizing and mutually supportive environment.

For example, when Steve Kelner studied small-team assembly groups at LEGO, he was struck by how the team culture worked to protect the team’s function. These teams work with each member of the team taking turns as supervisor. It’s a clever way to boost engagement, grow individual capacity, and improve ownership of the rules and regulations. But it’s risky; yesterday’s supervisor might feel empowered to micromanage or second-guess today’s supervisor. (You can imagine the drama that follows.) To avoid this, when the teams chose new members, they opted for individuals whom they felt would both contribute performance and would harmonize with the rest of the team. Team process relies on team culture, and empowered, committed teams will adapt to protect what works.

To get to this level of self-regulating, engaged effort, you have to do something incredibly unintuitive; stand still. Got a task? Most of us will race to start work, rather than carving out the time to reach agreement on how they will approach their work, and each other. After all, who wants to linger by the starting line? When we resist our own momentum long enough for a team launch, the group produces team-oriented processes which enable and reinforce collaborative, mutually supportive behaviors. The team can also agree on the values, or touchstones that will reinforce mindset and nudge a collaborative, energizing culture of shared work and mutual accountability. These values can guide teams in handle different opinions and perspectives. Values help the team embrace the processes, the processes reinforce the values. And both are reinforced by the team’s results.

So, how do you get the team off the ground? It’s simple: make the internal and external expectations match. A deft leader can steer their teams towards cooperation by requiring the team to launch properly, before they begin work, including the documentation of the roles, processes and shared values that will shape their culture – and their work – in the team’s expected deliverables. The leader merely has to hold the team accountable for holding to those shared agreements, offering feedback that helps the team understand what’s working – and what needs work.

It’s actually quite elegant. Balance the expectations, and you fuel the work. Hold the team accountable and help them learn, and you guide their increasing efficacy.

Above all, expect success. A team launch isn’t like a space shuttle – it's more like the growth of a plant in my garden. Newly launched teams need to learn how to implement their own processes, to experience what highly engaged, highly effective work looks like for their group (and then raise their standards), and to use their values to adjust and adapt, as needed. Give them time to learn, and support them with developmental feedback, helping the team understand what’s working – and what needs work. When leaders hold teams accountable for their own processes and values, they go beyond balancing expectations – they become the catalyst for their teams’ trajectory of growth.

Perhaps, then, we should rethink our teams. Yes, they can drive results and shape culture, grow emerging leaders. But they can only do it with the support of leaders who are willing to tie outcomes to a strong, engaged, collaborative culture. In your organization’s biome, both are needed.

References

[i] For example, see Leading Teams: Setting the stage for great performances. Hackman, 2002.

Teaming Up