Trevor E. S. Smith | Be you or be different - Team dynamics for success

Could missed targets and low engagement be traced back to team issues?

Can teams be misaligned to their task and general environment?

Are there square peg/round hole teams with dissatisfied members?

Organisations and their teams tend to develop a persona. There is an entrenched culture that defines them.

What is the culture of your group? How satisfied are you? If you could use three words to describe your team or group culture, what would they be?

FIT FOR PURPOSE?

We spend a fair bit of time helping organisations determine whether a candidate or existing employee is an ideal fit for a position.

The underlying concept asks the question whether the battle-hardness and toughness that you would like to see in an army sergeant is the same profile that you would use in selecting a guidance counsellor in a girls’ school.

You are likely to think that there should be a difference. Increasingly, organisations seek our assistance in developing ideal behavioural templates for each role as one guide to effectively managing their talent.

WHAT ABOUT TEAMS?

While the focus is on getting the right person for each role, that level of care is not escalated to teams!

Typically, people are recruited on the basis of their qualifications and experience.

Few organisations are seemingly bothered by how they will fit into the team to which they will be added, and how the team will be impacted by them.

Have you ever witnessed how one individual can negatively impact the vibe and dynamics of a team?

Yet, the composition of teams is central to performance, employee engagement, and satisfaction, as well as to the retention of talent.

- Who wants to spend the majority of their waking hours in a toxic environment?

- Who wants to invest their energies in a space that suffocates them behaviourally and frustrates their ability to thrive?

- Who wants to be constantly on high alert in a low-trust environment?

These issues are not independent of the individuals in the team. Now, it might not always be feasible to change the composition of the team. However, there is great value in helping members to better understand their differences, and to learn how best to relate effectively and harmoniously with each other.

Peace of mind is a boon to productivity and goal attainment. Happy cows give more milk.

MISFIT

The easiest aspect of our work with teams is to overlay their agreed priorities on top of the Extended DISC/FinxS Team Maps that we use as part of our behavioural diagnostics.

There, graphically displayed before their eyes, are the areas in which they will be challenged. Frequently, they see priorities that fall outside of the natural capacity of the team.

They excel at delivering on certain objectives, but others appear as blind spots to them.

A typical example is a team that is heavily packed with individuals that are great at complying with rules and procedures. They follow through on plans and meet deadlines. They show respect for others, and there is a professional air permeating the team environment.

Such a team is worth its weight in gold!

BUT!

A new competitor comes into the market with a slew of scary, disruptive strategies.

The golden team is blindsided. The constantly declining results testify to their ineffectiveness in this new environment.

The team is not well equipped to respond swiftly and decisively to change. Their decision-making is mired in layers of procedure and approvals. Their focus on harmony denies them the opportunity to aggressively challenge colleagues, as well as the systems and strategies that are being deployed.

That is a prescription for failure, in the absence of expert guidance under the tutelage of forensic behavioural diagnostics.

ANSWERS

As usual, I like to examine solutions to the problems that I discuss.

1. Know yourself

The team needs to know itself, at the individual and collective levels. Members will spend more waking time with each other than with their family. Transfer some of the money from the outings, motivational talks, and the glitzy events into providing behavioural compasses for their use in navigating the internal and external environment.

2. Mimic your national teams

Every one of the teams that represent your country has a coach. Team members are the very best, and yet they see the value in having a coach.

Is there a lesson in that for us?

3. Focus during transitions

Transitions provide an opportunity to adjust the composition and fit-for-purpose status of teams.

Hire solely on the basis of the behavioural requirements of the role and the existing structure of the receiving team!

You do not think of hiring a structural engineer to fill an accounting vacancy. Yet, it is just as counterproductive to hire ‘followership’ when you need ‘leadership’, or risk aversion when a disruptive mindset is demanded.

4. Go the extra mile with HR and talent-management decisions.

This can be your competitive advantage. Competitors may replicate technology, raise capital, shave prices, and spend more on promotion.

However, high-performance teams are not easily duplicated. That can be your sweet sauce!

We see so many issues with teams that we have developed a 90-day high-performance boost for teams. More here: https://successwithpeople.org/teambuliding.

- Trevor E. S. Smith with the Success with People Academy. We guide the development of high performance teams. We are interpersonal relations, group dynamics and performance enhancement specialists. We provide learning and productivity enhancement technology solutions. We offer behavioural assessments from Extended DISC, sales and sports competence assessments on the FinxS platform and e-competency frameworks and e-onboarding solutions in our SPIKE technology platform. Email: info@successwithpeople.org