The Other 50%: Unlocking the True Potential of Your Team

Often, I am asked to help leadership teams become high performing. And I use the usual frameworks help the teams- the Tuckman five stages model (forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning), or Lencioni’s five dysfunctions of a team (lack of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results). These tools and techniques help no doubt, but I have concluded that they answer only half the equation. The balance half of a high-performing team has nothing to do with the tasks on hand, but an entirely different set of dynamics that, while present in the above models, often gets buried or even overlooked.

Through experience, I look, and focus on, at a few other indicators of a high performing team. These include:

a)????? Observing what happens during breaks? Do all the team members quickly pull up their computers or phones and start working? Or are they bantering with each other? For me peeling of to attend to one’s work a couple of times is OK- but if all the team members do it all the time, it is an alert that the team is still not comfortable with each other socially. Their engagement with each other is primarily on tasks, and not as individuals.

b)????? If there is banter, I observe for the content of their ‘banter’? Is it about work, or is it about general topics or is it about hobbies and family? The more they talk about work, the less they are comfortable with each other- the more they talk about their hobbies, including sports, or about their family, the more at ease they are with each other. Recently, I had a group, which during the break, were making fun of each other’s Golf handicap, displaying a level of comfort with each other that showed a deeper relationship that the team members enjoyed.

c)????? Do the teams create space and time to just focus on a bit of fun? Do they spontaneously go to the bar in the evening, or sneak off to a movie or a game? Again, an indication of their level of comfort with each other? ?The time the group spends on non-work-related events (say volunteering collectively, sports, etc.) help in building bonds and trust. Sometimes I feel that the degree of hangover experienced by the team members when they reluctantly return to class the next day is a good thing. These days, I try and flex timings of the session whenever I feel that the team members have gone on till the wee hours of the morning. I am not advocating for teams to get sozzled, but for me, it is an indication of essential camaraderie and reconnection.

d)????? Do I see evidence of people sharing joy in other people’s joys or sorrow in other people’s sorrows? This is again an indication of the empathy in relationships. In one meeting a few days ago, a few of the participants were egging another participant to share something his son had accomplished to the larger group. And as he did that, the whole group seemed to be enveloped with pride!

e)????? Is there any evidence of members of the team helping each other? In one instance, one of the participants, who was living by himself, had a tree fall on his garage while he was at my workshop, prompting his neighbor to send a text about the disaster. Another colleague, who was also in the workshop and lived in the same area, called her husband to go and checkout colleague’s home and standby while the workmen cleared the tree and ensure the home was safe.

The dynamics described above, which extend beyond traditional task-oriented models to include social cohesion and mutual support among team members, can be termed as the "Team Capital" of high-performing teams. This is distinct from ‘Social Capital’, which in an organizational context, refers to the value derived from an individual's relationships and networks within and outside the organization. Social Capital is about leveraging interpersonal and intergroup relationships to achieve goals, often emphasizing the benefits of networking, collaboration across teams, departments, or even organizations, and the flow of information and support through these networks.

Team capital, on the other hand, is specifically focused on the internal dynamics and resources of a single team, aiming to optimize its performance and well-being. t's a measure of a team's internal strength and cohesion, highlighting how well team members work together, support each other, and create a positive, productive environment. The five dysfunctions are washed away because the foundation of the work relationship is personal relationship, i.e., personal relationships come first and that creates the environment for healthy work relationships. Trust is a given, conflicts are plenty, but still result in respect, commitment is to each other not just to the goal, sense of accountability is about not wanting to let each other down, and the collective results are a joy shared by everyone.

Of course, there are dangers to team capital as well. Group think is perhaps the biggest issue, where the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Likewise, Teams with high Team Capital may become too insular, focusing inwardly on their dynamics and success to the extent that they isolate themselves from the rest of the organization. Finally, it can also inadvertently create a situation where new members or those who are different in some way (e.g., demographically, ideologically) feel excluded or marginalized.

Leaders need to foster the right team capital, yet be very vigilant for what the negatives are. Nevertheless, when the team capital is high, and there are also checks and balances, high performance is virtually guaranteed.

The crux of building a truly high-performing team lies not just in task-focused strategies but in fostering high engagement and internal dynamics first. Only then can a team truly unlock its full potential.