A proactive or reactive approach?
Someone I know (let’s call her Liz) hadn’t been to the dentist in years because she hadn’t had any pain or sensitivity, so she assumed that everything was fine. However, a routine dental exam revealed that Liz had decay right to the pulp of her teeth, which required root canal treatment.
Liz’s story isn’t just about teeth. It’s about what happens when we don’t check in. Are we catching small problems before they spiral out of control, or are we only reacting when the damage is already done?
Cracks evolve gradually and then suddenly
We’ve noticed that it is not uncommon for leaders of teams to take Liz’s approach. Some, contact a team development professional long after the appearance of the small cracks in the team. Until small cracks become big cracks, which present as fear, resentment, poor communication, masking of feelings, avoidance of commitment, poor results and a lack of trust amongst the team. By the time contact is made with us, the team often already needs ‘root canal treatment’! The potential to experience the joy of working in a team has been badly damaged.
When Ernest Hemingway was asked how he managed to go bankrupt, he replied, “Gradually and then suddenly!” It's the same way with teams.
Be proactive
We know from history and experience that proactive efforts to improve team communication and collaboration have yielded significant benefits to the team itself and the organisations they belong to. For that reason, we recommend booking regular team ‘check-ups’ with a skilled dentist facilitator.
Aim to be future-ready
Today, we humans are tasked with working together to achieve collective goals in an ever-increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment. Any team not ready to operate in such an environment will rapidly fade into irrelevance, being outshone by the competition that works smart to evolve.
The benefits you might expect to notice from any investment to evolve and become a high performing, future ready team, include: an unlocking of the team potential, team ownership of results, open and direct communication, increased trust and collaboration, respect, inclusion, a psychologically safe environment, welcome constructive abrasion, a greater focus toward individual strengths, empathetic support, true accountability, increased creativity, finding of innovative solutions, an attitude of continuous learning and improvement, more critical thinking, balanced decision-making, a results-oriented approach …and much more!
Make the unconscious conscious
Budding high-performing teams can accelerate towards this utopia by employing tried and tested tools that raise awareness and tap the collective power of their unique team dynamic. What does this mean? Well, all teams operate at various levels of consciousness depending on many external affecting factors. A team may be operating at ‘content’, ‘process’ or ‘dynamic’ awareness level. At content level, they are focused mostly on what is being said. At process level, they are also aware of the order of how tasks are being approached and dealt with. At dynamic level, insightful ground breaking ideas are additionally revealed in answer to the question, “What is really going on here, between the people in this team, and how is it affecting our desired outcomes?” The answer to these questions provides the foundation for the work to be done.
How we can help
At t-three, we help by offering tailored events and employing tried and tested tools to raise awareness and tap the collective power of a teams’ unique team dynamic. We guide teams to become skilled at noticing, categorising and addressing their helpful and unhelpful behaviours. We support this work with individual and team psychometric tools, and interventions such as team coaching sessions, tailored challenge events, team feedback and 1-1 coaching.
To discuss how to strengthen your leadership team and drive success, get in touch with us. Remember, organisations don’t change, people do – one behaviour at a time.
