Your team lacks structural integrity

Your team lacks structural integrity

In my experience, the number one thing that most teams lack is structure.

This is a problem because high-performance relies on structural integrity.

An F1 racing car without structural integrity disintegrates on take-off.

The Burj Khalifa without structural integrity tumbles with the first gust of wind.

A team without structural integrity crumbles under pressure and fails to reach full potential.

Structural Integrity

What does structural integrity look like for a team?

It's:

- a unified way of showing up.

- shared mental models for accountability and feedback.

- a narrowed focus on what's important.

- clear filters for quick decision-making.

- guidelines for collaboration.

In short, it's knowing what it means to be a member of the team and explicitly knowing the team's operating system.

When we create structure, we create something tangible that can be improved upon.

Building Team Structure

Let's look at this practically.

Imagine you are leading a team and the team is on autopilot not sure of what it should be accomplishing.

By providing this team with a goal you start creating structure.

The team organizes itself in a way to start accomplishing the goal.

By making clear the roles and responsibilities of those on the team you create even more structure.

Team members become more effective.

By introducing a system for feedback, you create even more structure.

Now the team is giving and receiving feedback in a meaningful way that leads to growth and provides people with the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

Next you:

• implement a mechanism for accountability;
• or create tangible targets and performance metrics;
• or workshop the values of the team.

You get the idea.

More structure = better performance.

High-Performance Teams Are Built

Dream teams are not established organically.

You cannot simply place a bunch of people in a room together and expect them to create magic.

It won't happen.

You need to gather the right people and then provide them with the right structure if you want peak performance and inspired collaboration.

Here's to building better teams,

Erik//