When working with you to improve your team’s performance, it is important to understand what is driving current team performance. Often I have had leaders suggest that their team issues are due to interpersonal misalignment. Before jumping to any conclusions, I have found that an assessment of the team, using a robust and well researched framework, usually uncovers other factors at play.
There are many tools on the market to assess teams and team performance. Some have been developed based on management experience, whilst others are steeped in deep research. Our preference is to use assessment tools and methodologies that are well researched and backed up by evidence.
The 6 Conditions for Team Effectiveness framework comes from decades of research and is the best validated model for predicting performance in real world teams. The framework identifies the 3 essentials and 3 enablers that can be deliberately designed into a team and that together create an environment where great teamwork will emerge. Their research has found that the 6 Conditions account for up to 80% of a team’s effectiveness.
3 Essentials
3 enablers
To have a great team, first and foremost you have to create a real team: one that is bounded so that members know who is on the team (and who is not), they need to work together to accomplish their work, and they are stable in membership long enough to accomplish something meaningful together.
Teams need a purpose that engages their commitment and orients them in a shared direction. The purpose needs to focus on the unique role of the team, be clear, challenging and consequential.
A team with the right people has the range of perspectives needed to do the work, and the skills–including teamwork skills–to bring those perspectives to the work.
Every team benefits from a few elements of healthy structure: keeping the team small enough, tackling tasks together that make sense to be done as a team, and identifying a handful of explicit norms about what they should and should not do when they work together.
Every team operates in a larger context, and the structures and systems in that context (such as rewards and information) can either promote great teamwork, or create obstacles to excellent collaboration.
Well-designed teams benefit from an expert coach who can help the team make excellent use of its resources.
As well as using the 6 Team Conditions assessment, we always interview each member of the team. This provides an opportunity for all members to share their current experience and hopes for being a better team. When combined these provide a rich insights into the performance of your team and where efforts should be focused to improve performance.
Price: Our standard price for a team assessment is circa EUR 12,500. This includes:
- Initial discussion with you to learn more about your team, its work and challenges faced
- Interviews with each team member
- Deployment of the 6 Team Conditions Questionnaire
- Debrief with you, as team leader, and align on areas to focus during the team workshop
- Team workshop (virtual or face to face) to review, reflect and work on specific areas that will improve team performance.
Alternative Tools
If you would prefer a more “do it yourself” assessment, we recommend The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team assessment by the Table Group. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team outlines the root causes of politics and dysfunction on the teams where you work, and the keys to overcoming them. Counter to conventional wisdom, the causes of dysfunction are both identifiable and curable. However, they don’t die easily. Making a team functional and cohesive requires levels of courage and discipline that many groups cannot seem to muster.
There is no accreditation process required and the reports are easily accessible. If you need help, just reach out.
