Impactful Teams: It is not what they do but who they are.

Impactful Teams:?It is not what they do but who they are.

What is teamwork or more accurately, what do high impact teams with sustained success do differently??When I was asked to write this article I did not realize just how complicated it would be to not just identify these qualities but HOW do successful teams live them??There are countless articles, dissertations and books written on this subject and while there are common threads in most, if not all, there are also vast differences.?To expand my thinking and engage in purposeful professional reflection I posed the question to the full Dodge City administrative team of building and district administrators and directors- What are the characteristics of an impactful team AND how do we become that team?

The conversation was rich, engaging, but as is typically the case, very scattershot.?It became apparent to me that for all our focus on common vocabulary in the instructional lessons for students we do not tend to the same thing with the adults in the district.?The results of our small fire conversation produced a definition with typical results of run-on sentences full of adjectives, catch phrases and overly complex definitions. During this collaborative reflection activity we began to identify the underlying components that our team feels are critical to become a highly efficient and effective team with sustainability over time.

Our commitments to each other, the staff and students of Dodge City USD 443 identified the following essential foundational structures and commitments necessary to be highly impactful and sustainable:

Principle 1:?Successful teams understand the goal with absolute clarity.?It is easy to see this in sports- the goal is to have more points on the scoreboard at the end of the game.?What are those “points” in a school system??Are they clearly understood and identified??To be a truly focused school district or building we must develop our scoreboard with clarity as to what is truly the pinpoint measurement of our purpose and measurement of success.?

Principle 2:?Effective teams have a clear “game plan” for each day, month and future years.?Teams with synergy know these goal with clarity but equally know how to achieve the goal.?Successful teams, companies and schools all share high levels of interconnected processes, working agreements and commitments.?Every single person on the team knows their importance, roles and interconnectivity to the collective.?There is no guessing as this creates confusion and inefficiencies and worst of all disconnect by the team members that results in lack of success.

Principle 3:?Teamwork is not a solo endeavor. This seems like common sense but how often do we think of the interconnectivity of all people on the team rather than our singular roles??Great teams have collective synergy and function as a unit with all parts knowing their roles and contributions to the success of the whole.?The strengths and contributions of the individual are essential for the success of the collective.

Principle 4:?Teams must be nimble.?To be adaptable in the moment an impactful team must be focused on data that constantly monitors the current status of the system.?If we were a basketball team and the opposing team kept applying a half-court press we better change our offence or we will turn the ball over and likely lose.?If our students’ academic, attendance, social-emotional data is not monitored daily AND we do not adjust our offense we will always be on defense and our students will be behind on the scoreboard.

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In the pursuit of a “more perfect team” the principles set forth are foundational structures but by themselves are not enough.?Many, if not most, teams will have some or all of these in place BUT highly impactful teams that have success year after year have these principles in their work culture DNA.?It is not what they do but who they are.?With this firmly in place in a school district all of the structural pieces will be developed and evolve as the current situations demand and not only will they have more “points on the board” at the game their students, staff and community will all be the winners.