Learn the Art and Science of Building Exceptional Teams
How do you create the elusive group dynamics that characterise high-performing teams?
How do you create teams blessed with the energy, creativity, shared understanding and commitment to far surpass other teams?
Teams can be powerful, energizing, creators of value for an organization, and through them a company can enjoy performance no individual could possibly achieve on their own. At the same time, teams can be difficult, dynamic, inefficient centers of frustration that are the opposite of productive and can actually detract from a company’s value.
The latest research from MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory shows that team dynamics are observable, quantifiable, and measurable. And, perhaps most important, teams can be taught how to strengthen them.
The research points to two elements that seem to create the “It Factor” in high performing teams. Since all work done in any team setting is always conversational, communication encompasses both these elements. The first is that high performance did not lie in the content of a team’s discussions but in the manner in which it was communicating. And, the best predictor of productivity were a team’s energy and engagement outside of formal meetings.
The Three E’s of Communication
The three elements that consistently show up in powerfully teams are the levels of Energy and degree of Engagement with which the individuals communicated. The third critical component is Exploration, which involves communication that members engage in outside their team.
One may argue that the points about energy, engagement, and exploration are blindingly obvious, yet it is in the practical application of these points that most teams fall woefully short. These elements are outputs or behaviours by individual team members that ultimately lead to a high performing team. What will be explored in the breakfast talk, is what creates these outputs in the first place and how teams can shift to begin learning and incorporating these key components more consciously.
