launch a new team
9 TEAM MOMENTS THAT MATTER
This series of short posts explores more deeply the Nine Team Moments that Matter when you, as a team leader, may need to pay extra attention to the needs and performance of your team. We identified these moments by blending our review of the research into high performing teams and our more than two decades of working with teams as internal and external consultants / coaches.
Moment 6: The Team is Underperfoming
It is unfortunate that it is at this ‘Team Moment That Matters’ when many team coaches are invited to work with a team.
Teams, and especially team leaders, know when the team is not delivering or underperforming. Any of the following should be cause for concern:
- Targets are being missed
- The team receives poor feedback
- There are dissatisfied customers or stakeholders
- Low engagement scores for those who report to the team
- Infighting and exhibiting of poor behaviours
- Feelings of dissatisfaction
- Possibly people leaving the team
All these signals that the team is not delivering, and there are others, are usually symptoms of the 6 Team Conditions not being in place. In particular the essentials. Rather than simply addressing symptoms, it is important to go back and look at the potential causes.
Shouldn't we start by addressing poor behaviours?
A note of caution: very often leaders ask me to help their team by addressing poor behaviours using personality assessments. Whilst these have a place in strengthening team processes, poor behaviours are usually a symptom of misalignment. When there is misalignment there are often too many assumptions being made about how the team needs to work together.
By starting with the 6 Team Conditions, much of the misalignment can be addressed. As a second step we follow up with understanding the diversity of personalities and and how to harness these. A range of assessments can be used such as Hogan Assessment, Team Dynamics Profile or Team Emotional Intelligence Survey.
what do we mean by team effectiveness and can it be measured?
So what do we mean by ‘team effectiveness’ and how can you measure it?
Most team frameworks when reporting on team effectiveness focus on the inputs. That is, if you team has, for example, high trust, quality norms and behaviours and good group processes then it must be effective. The problem with this is that these attributes do not measure or make comment about the deliverables or work of the team.
The Team Diagnostic Survey (TDS) is one of the few team assessment tools that specifically measures three output based criteria of team effectiveness.
To be a high performing teams means that the team scores excellent across the three TDS Criteria of Team Effectiveness.
Task Performance – means the main clients or users of the team’s work are satisfied with the quality, quantity, and timeliness of the team’s work.
Quality of Group Process – means the group is becoming increasingly effective over time, not just for a one-time good performance.
Member Satisfaction – means that the team contributes to the learning, growth and satisfaction of its members.
There are trade-offs among these three outcomes in the short run (e.g., sometimes a team has to put task performance ahead of member learning), but great teams are able to make those trade-offs and build positive outcomes on all three over time.
To be a high performing teams means that the team scores excellent across the three TDS Criteria of Team Effectiveness.
Task Performance – means the main clients or users of the team’s work are satisfied with the quality, quantity, and timeliness of the team’s work.
Quality of Group Process – means the group is becoming increasingly effective over time, not just for a one-time good performance.
Member Satisfaction – means that the team contributes to the learning, growth and satisfaction of its members.
There are trade-offs among these three outcomes in the short run (e.g., sometimes a team has to put task performance ahead of member learning), but great teams are able to make those trade-offs and build positive outcomes on all three over time.
Interviews are also a powerful way to determine whether the team is underperforming and can add further insights into the data provided in the Team Diagnostic Survey. As part of the process of working with a team I will often interview:
- Team Leader
- Team members
- A few key stakeholders
Sometimes it takes measuring in an objective way to align a team around the need to work on itself. After developing clarity and shared acceptance that a team is underperforming, steps can be taken to turn things around.
Teams and changes in context mater.
do you have a sense that your team is underperforming?
Reach out and we would be happy to explore how you can leverage the opportunity that this creates.
[…] we look closely at what is often happening, the team dysfunction we observe mirrors that which we might see within a single team. By taking a ‘team of teams’ […]