How to Develop Team Synergy that Delivers Great Results

While it is a well-established fact that high-performing teams can achieve more and better results as a collective whole than as a collection of individuals, many teams end up performing worse as a team than as individuals.

Leadership in Motion ?(LIM), a leader in Shared Leadership Disciplines (SLD) using Action Reflection Learning, outlined the Shared Leadership Paradigm.?Each of the five disciplines plays a part in sharing leadership with others.?Everyone's voice is heard, teams make better decisions, and everyone feels heard and involved.

These disciplines are:

1. Connect;
2. Contract;
3. Collect;
4. Collaborate; and
5. Challenge

If one is forming a new management or project team, which of these disciplines should the team leader start??This is especially so when the leader "inherits" the team and cannot hire new members.?The team leader may also have to refrain from firing team members in the short term.?Hence I created the following poll on LinkedIn to find out more.?

Around 50% of the respondents chose "Get to know one another deeper" as the top priority.?These will include understanding one another's values, beliefs, team role behaviours, cultural preferences, communication styles etc, which corresponds to the Connect, Collect and Collaborate disciplines.?

Some of the other respondents' comments include the following:

• “Establishing trust.?Engage the members."
• "Get to know one another first... break the ice, build some trust/ emotional safety while dissipating tensions, anxieties, assumptions, and any toxic competitiveness.?The rest will unfold more easily, especially if the people have been selected well."
• "I would work on DISC to gauge the team's behaviour n strengths.?And then spend some time with each of them to have a decent feel of who they are."
• "I will choose what Jim Collins taught in "Good to Great": first who, then what.
• "For me, understanding and connecting is the foundation.?Business is all about people.?People with the same values will bring out the best in each other and collaborate stronger."
• "Building rapport is the first and foremost thing to do - human relationship, building rapport, and trust are the keys to a successful team."

In addition to building rapport, team members must exploit one another’s strengths while containing their weaknesses.?This is recommended by Belbin , a research-based methodology that is used worldwide to help individuals and teams improve business performance.?More than just a theory, Belbin helps people to discover, articulate and refine their behavioral strengths at work.?Tools such as Belbin and Big-5-based Trait Map help collect information to create deeper awareness to foster greater collaboration.??

26% responded that the top priority is to "Set team goals and objectives ."In other words, "having a conversation to define the purpose: why we are here.?Then, I step back to let them define the purpose.?All the other stuff then can be slotted in and rolled out.", as one of the respondents commented.?This corresponds to the Contracting discipline.

As mentioned by some respondents:

• "I would like first to understand how the vision resonates with them, what is compelling them to join the team, what success would look like from their perspective, and what contributions they could make to bring the vision to life."
• "It's "Set team goals and objectives, including challenging goals and reasons why we need to achieve them" for me.?Always start with objectives - the why.?Then focus on the how."
• "Clarify goals/intentions and align expectations.?This would help start creating psychological safety in the group."

17% stated that "Establish ground rules and norms" is the first thing.?In setting norms, it is equally important to hold team members accountable for the norms they set.?Members may periodically review how they measure each norm through a High-Performance Team Instrument.?As a respondent replied"?"I'm not sure if values are part of ground rules and norms.?It's real values like walking the talk.?That anyone who goes against it gets a red card, i.e. no shouting, no backstabbing, no divas..."

In addition, another of the respondents commented, "I did a quick intro and asked them what their expectations was and what they wanted from me.?I acted on the easy ones the next few days and gave them what they wanted.?The following week, I told them my expectations and demanded their commitment.?"?This is similar to the Team-Leader Role Contracting framework outlined by LIM.?The leader will state what the leader can offer to the team, and what the leader expects of the team.?Similarly, the members say what they can offer to the team, and what they expect from their leader.?Then, the leader and team members will discuss and vote on mutual expectations they can count on one another and tabulate into a commitment instrument.?Like the High-Performance Team Instrument, this commitment instrument will be reviewed periodically so that members hold one another (and their leader) accountable for their team commitments.?

Only 8% voted for "Establish key work processes," which in a way, is also a form of Contracting and, to a lesser extent, a structured process of Collaboration.?Most respondents prefer getting to know one another deeper or setting team goals and purposes as the key priority.?

The Challenge discipline has been left out of the poll primarily because team members are more likely to challenge one another's ideas, questions, and solutions when they feel safer psychologically to do so.?To reach this state, though, they would have to connect on a deeper level or have established norms that facilitate challenges on the ideas, not the person.

Some respondents felt that which of these disciplines a leader should start with is contextual, as the dynamics matter a lot.?Others felt that these are all important and recommended a sequence, such as, "The foundation of a strong team is first measured by the level of trust they have at the individual level.?Next comes a common objective to focus energies and align on a greater purpose… the What and Why.?The How follows with establishing cultural norms and the work processes to deliver the value they seek."

In my personal experience as a coach, I start with contracting, establishing trust that the conversation will be confidential.?Then I followed with some connecting by asking what the coachee would like to work on and why it is important to them.?Once I've collected enough contextual information, I'll go into contracting mode by asking what will be one outcome the coachee would like to achieve by the end of the discussion and how they would like to measure that.?Throughout the coaching, I might ask questions to challenge the coachee and work with the coachee (collaborate) to reach their intended outcomes.?

Hence, while we may start with one of the disciplines, we may mix the disciplines according to the context of the situation.?As a respondent added, "In reality, we mix these steps because we're often running after ourselves and the results that we were due yesterday.?We need to pause and slow down to fix the fundamentals to speed up!?Top Team effectiveness takes work and intentional effort to build."

c.j. is a sales performance coach and co-author of Sales Map – the only scenario-based assessment tool to evaluate the sales person’s strengths and weaknesses at every step of the B2B sales cycle.?He is a PCC with ICF, and a IAC Masteries Practitioner?.?c.j. can be reached at?https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/cydj001/ ??

c.j.是一位销售绩效教练，也是“销售地图”（sales Map）的合著者。“销售地图”是唯一一个基于场景的评估工具，用于评估销售人员在B2B销售周期中每一步的优势和不足。他是ICF的PCC，也是IAC? 的Masteries Practitioner。 你可以通过 https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/cydj001/ ?联系到C.j.。