Building Super Productive Teams

Harnessing human potential has intrigued us for many centuries and will continue to do so for centuries to come. All that we have achieved so far can be attributed to this and all that we will ever achieve will be because of this one single factor. The quest for reaching pinnacle of human potential drives us to think hard and deep. So, what is it that secret sauce that will help teams to be more productive? Happiness?

Humans are designed to be social and work together for mutual benefit but sometimes our understanding of purpose, meaning of what we do, bigger picture, our experiences and innate capacity prevents us from coming together to have a common understanding and creating an impact that's larger than the sum. When you bring in organization context into this mix, then the number of variables just goes up by one notch and adds a degree to an already complex subject. However, there are always simple solutions to complex problems like you have complex solutions to very simple problems, it's up to each one of us who are part of a team to see the right answer from the myriad of correct answers and possibilities and apply our experience to draw out favorable outcomes. 

ENGAGE model has helped teams become productive without burn out. Leaders can help teams use this model to see where they stand and take a journey of excellence. 

Empowered - One of the widely misunderstood concept in today's digital world is this. No other word captures the dilemma, elation and confusion at the same time. Team-think greatly influences their outcomes because of how empowered or otherwise they feel. Empowerment comes when the team takes responsibility for what they want to achieve. Having a communication charter, escalation matrix, hierarchy, authority or impediment remover could be the causes for the team to feel dis-empowered. Empowered teams takes actions which best serves the purpose of why they have come together rather than finding that one person who needs to be informed, mail that needs to be sent, escalation that needs to be done, coloring the report appropriately etc..Unnecessary actions frees up team's capacity and an empowered teams uses their capacity to do real productive work rather than manage consequences of dis empowerment.

I once remember, collating list of approvals that we were waiting from a senior executive and sending a report every other day as a follow up. The mail used to take at least 30 mins to send and one day, our leadership changed and all approvals came in two mins flat. The point is not to change leadership every time you wait for approval but see if you can assume that you are empowered to go and take those decisions. As a leader you can test how empowered your teams feel by taking off more often and leaving the team to decide for themselves, see if they rise above and think like leaders. See how often team reaches out to you while you are on holiday that should tell you either something is wrong with you or how empowered your team feels. Is your team failing to feel empowered?  

Network - Network brings people together to achieve common goals. One of the important factors to consider while measuring team's health is to know how team members interact and whether are they part of a wider network outside the current team. It's important for the members to feel being part of community, this in-turn helps build a go-giver attitude. Team should come forward more to contribute outside their areas of control / influence as such voluntary contributions will help build a sense of belonging to a wider Ecosystem. Team members and the team on the whole should be encouraged to participate in events, be part of larger active community and contribute with their experience for noble causes, this will help them form close bonds with like minded people. Being part of a network gives the team members a sense of pride and open their eyes to experiences that they are not accustomed to.

New experiences accumulated from autonomous networks enhances the solution that the team is building together and helps team change their perspective of possible solutions to existing problems. You can never under-estimate the power of network as sometimes that's all it takes to build tight knit teams and propel them towards greatness. 

Growth Mindset - How open are your team for new ideas? Do they stick to the solution that they are building or take feedback even late during the development process? Do they subscribe to the idea that growth is infinite? Are they constantly looking for getting feedback quickly, working on them and becoming better? Answers to some of these questions will help you determine your team's mindset and how far they have to travel to begin their journey of adopting a growth mindset.

Taking responsibility for their growth in their own hands is a desired state that you want your teams to get into. Retrospective is a good place to start with, looking at the improvements that are being put forward by the team is just a beginning, see if they are able to think through as an objective outsider and think through improvements. In one of the retrospectives that I was facilitating, one team member said "it's good that we have started having retrospectives", some of these will give you a clue that your team is transitioning from one state to another into a path that they have carved out for themselves. Help the teams define what having a growth mindset mean to them and guide them so that they can get there. A sherpa can only go so far and guide a climber, it's the climber who needs to go through the pain and achieve the goals. Be a Sherpa, observe your team struggle but grow. Remember no pain no growth!  

Articulate - A team can do all that is needed to achieve an outcome but when key stakeholders fail to understand the value then it fails to reap the benefits of the good work that it has done. There is a fine line between marketing and advertising, the team should develop this critical skill to create brand for themselves and even help organization reap benefits through customer retention, increased wallet share, revenue growth etc... What use it is for a team to have spent all the time producing something valuable if not creating a rapport with their stakeholders by conveying right messages in customer-centric way.

Sometimes it will pay to train the team on this skill as not everyone will have the skill or even show keen interest in marketing their products and services. Also, asking a team to market their innovative products / services gives them an opportunity to take pride in whatever they have accomplished together and increase the bond that is so critical to build a productive team. Team shouldn't look at marketing as messages but creating wholesome customer experiences, the team should provide the right context for people to understand the product and services and engage with customers at the right place, time, and manner. 

Goal Driven - Goals are an important motivating factor that can help unleash hidden potential of individuals in a team. Goals are the reasons why we have teams coming together and it should be so compelling that the team should whole heatedly give themselves up for this common objective.

The story of three bricklayers comes to my mind - One day in 1671, Christopher Wren observed three bricklayers on a scaffold, one crouched, one half-standing and one standing tall, working very hard and fast. To the first bricklayer, Christopher Wren asked the question, “What are you doing?” to which the bricklayer replied, “I’m a bricklayer. I’m working hard laying bricks to feed my family.” The second bricklayer, responded, “I’m a builder. I’m building a wall.” But the third brick layer, the most productive of the three and the future leader of the group, when asked the question, “What are you doing?” replied with a gleam in his eye, “I’m a cathedral builder. I’m building a great cathedral to The Almighty.”

Big picture thinking, feeling connected with organization's mission and having a strong sense of purpose are key for a team to build a "Cathedral" for themselves. 

Experience through Experiment - How often we ask teams to experiment and then choose the right value for the customer? How often teams are engaged in designing right solutions or picking up the right problems in a customer-centric way? Using tools like Design Thinking will help the team not only do quick prototypes but think about creating exponential value and bring disruption in the way value can be generated or perception of value itself. We are living in a era of abundance and what we can do is only limited by our own thinking. Encouraging teams to involve in activities that opens up their minds, helps them generate different perspectives and see themselves and customers in a new light will only help open new avenues for value creation.

Team not only learns divergent and convergent thinking but learns difference between incremental and exponential value and the role of experiments in this process. More than anything else, they learn how to open up their minds to think this way to benefit customers, stakeholders and more than anything else themselves. 

In my view focusing on these will act as a leading indicator for building "Super Productive Team" instead of focusing on Business Value delivered, Velocity achieved or any other metric to measure what the team has delivered.

Inputs -> Team -> Output / Outcomes. Focusing on output / outcomes is a traditional mindset, the most important component in this ecosystem is the team. Creating an environment which encourages team to continuously learn, helps them to improve and propel them towards excellence to generate meaningful outcomes is of paramount importance.

Do you want to build an engaged team or happy team? What are you using to measure team's health? In my view, happiness can be discovered by teams more often if they feel truly engaged? A truly engaged team will not only stop with happiness but will also find it's true purpose. What's your take?

How ENGAGEd is your team?