Turning a Team of Experts into an Expert Team

Being on a team seems exciting for most of us.  The excitement comes from achieving something together, the emotional connections that are made helps to give our best towards a purpose.  In a good team there is a common vibe – “we are in this together for the common good”.

A team is a way of organizing people with different skills, backgrounds, experience and personality around a common goal. When these individuals join hands to form a team – their unique perspectives merge, new dynamics are formed, synergy is created and the team becomes stronger and more creative to approach the task at hand.  The synergy that is created is the catalyst for success. Organizations are looking at ways to develop this synergy.

This concept of teamwork is timeless – as a means of achieving success.  Its value is so critical as digital technology shapes the modern workplace and teams are dispersed and work gets done remotely.

Let’s look at how to get the best results from a team.

• Clarify the purpose of the team

The purpose is important for everyone, it’s the reason why each of us does what we do, why we stay in the ring when it’s hard and why we jump high hoops to achieve what we want. From an organizational perspective, teams must buy into the mission and why it is important to achieve it. Each individual must understand what is the value proposition to the customer – What is your service? or product? And why must you do what you do?  Though every person serves in a different role it is important to see how your role fits in with the larger purpose of the organization. This will ignite your passion and engagement and bring fulfillment in what you do. Therefore, it is important to clarify the Why and What of your vision, goal or cause.

• Identify the roles and skills required

Every vision or goal requires skill and competence to achieve it. An effective team requires different people in various roles with diverse skills and competencies to make things happen.  So, selecting team members is an important task – if it is not done properly you will fail to achieve the intended results. Each role must be defined well in terms of skills and competencies so that the right person can be recruited.  A critical issue that impedes the success of the team is the lack of clarity on the roles, responsibilities, and expectations of each member of the team. While the formal or functional roles are easy to define, a good team must also include informal roles like – the producer, the entrepreneur, the collaborator, the devil’s advocate, the catalyst and the communicator.

The Team leader is a critical role and identifying the right person is key to the success of the team. Unlocking the team’s synergy is the responsibility of the team leader.     Therefore, they must possess some natural leadership and management qualities like integrity, focus on results, big picture perspective, effective interpersonal and communication skills.

• Shaping a Team Culture – Clarify the values and non-negotiables

Culture is shaped by the values and behaviors of the leaders as well as the business environment.  It is powerful because it develops over time and can be difficult to change.  The leader must take ownership of it and be fully engaged in shaping the values and non-negotiables. An old axiom may help to understand how to shape culture – “If you can’t define it you cannot create it.”

Teams need structure to thrive – objectives, measures, responsibilities, accountabilities, and feedback. The team must have a compelling purpose with a strong business rationale supported by the allocation of resources and a plan for execution.

Creating Synergy

The combination of a compelling purpose shared values and complementary roles define the potential for team synergy.  Team dynamics can predict synergy – for greatness or mediocre performance.  Synergy can be best understood through an example in chemistry.

The chemical behaviors of isolated hydrogen (H₂) and isolated oxygen (O₂) do not offer any kind of information about the chemical behavior of water (H₂O).  If we add sulfur (S₈) to a controlled environment already containing water (H₂O), given the right temperature and pressure conditions we can turn the said water into sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄). In other words, we can transform a life-giving substance like water into a destructive one – sulfuric acid. This is a metaphor to show how positive synergy can be turned into negative synergy by adding the “wrong” element. In teamwork, the same can happen if you add a “wrong” person into the team (Forbes 2015).

To achieve and sustain positive energy and performance in teams, we require good leadership and people management processes. In short, hiring the wrong person is riskier than not hiring the right person. As Stephen Covey says – “Synergy is better than my way or your way. It’s our way.”

Building an effective team is tough. Research findings reveal 3 key dimensions of an effective team – there is an alignment of direction towards a common goal and how to achieve it, high level of trust, open communication and interaction and a high energy environment that is conducive to learning, taking challenges and achieving a shared purpose.

What ingredients make an expert team into a great team;

• Leave your ego at the door. As a team member give and receive help. This will help the team to plug the weak links arising out of our weaknesses. When we give and receive help, we create a connection – a bond that helps both of us – it creates synergy. Today’s business environment requires the formation of cross-functional and interdisciplinary teams. Diversity is key but individual experts do not make a team unless they learn to work together.
• Inspiring a “We” mindset – Somehow, we have all been conditioned to see winning as something mutually exclusive. This thinking is so insidious and pervasive through our actions – “For me to win, you must lose”. Good leaders think differently – they believe in the “We”.   They capitalize on the strengths of the team members for mutual benefit and share the wins.
• Great teams thrive on social interactions and how they communicate. The level of engagement and energy strengthens their commitment and fosters creativity in achieving results. Synergy is created and fostered through interdependence.

So great teams promote synergy, learning and achievement of results – but these things don’t just happen, you have to consciously invest in your teams.