What stage is your team in? ( Team Composition Series 3/3)

May 17, 2022 Regina Zafonte

Teams go through different phases and stages. Dr. Bruce Tuckman published his 4-stage model in 1965 – Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing and added a fifth stage, Adjourning in the 1970s. The theory explains the predictable and evolving formative periods most teams experience. As a leader, your job is to recognize what stage your team is at and think about the right interventions to move them along the team development continuum to reach peak performance and achieve more than they thought possible.

Let’s jump into Tuckman’s five stages:

Stage 1: Forming. When a team first assembles, there can be excitement, they may not be sure how things will turn out but some know it can be a great experience. People spend time getting to know each other and understanding each other’s best attributes. Respect is granted where you listen to others and share your thoughts, some may offer some goodwill and trust.

There should be a high dependence on the leader for guidance and direction during this phase. Instead of being reactive to problems that come your way, the leader has the responsibility to be proactive and help their team think about what systems and processes are needed to build a foundation for their best performance.

Here are some crucial questions the leader should reflect on and be able to answer to some degree before getting input from the team and co-creating the collective culture and structure:

· What is the team’s purpose? Why are we here and what are we meant to do? What is the vision that inspires people to jump out of bed every day to partake? What have our stakeholders commissioned us to do? What value are we depositing into the world?

· What are the team goals, objectives, and KPIs? How can we turn the purpose and vision into a quarterly roadmap?

· What are everybody’s roles and responsibilities, and how can we best contribute? How can we share that information so everybody knows other people’s job descriptions and so they know who to turn to for assistance?

· What are the expectations and agreements that will govern our best work? What are the ways to weigh in and offer best practices and processes to enhance communication and coordination? How do we want to create psychological safety so we can take risks and reach peak innovation? You can lay out the best way to handle conflict and the process for decision-making get feedback and collectively agree on what would be best for the team.

· What are the style differences? How can we improve our understanding of individual preferences, strengths, and weaknesses, and increase our knowledge of working with different types of people? This one does not need to be fully developed and can unfold as the team moves through the stages.

Stage 2: Storming. In this phase, team members begin to show their entire colors, and conflict typically arises as there are clashes between work styles, beliefs, values, relationships, and personalities. Decision-making is more complicated as people become more comfortable challenging each other and the leader. As team members vie for positions to establish themselves in relation to other team members, they second guess coworkers and wonder, "I thought I trusted you, but now I'm not so sure." If progress is not being made, they have more questions and concerns, assert their opinions and compete for power and attention. If the team is too big, subgroups and cliques form, and there may be power struggles and blaming of others. If not handled well, many teams do not move beyond this stage; they stay underperforming, and it turns out to be a relatively disappointing experience.

Leaders can play an essential role in pushing the team forward. They can normalize conflict and seek to resolve it productively instead of shying away from it. For example, when a co-worker says or does something that's not aligned with the team culture, step in and ask them to explain their approach and how it matches with the team’s purpose or culture. You can revisit the original agreements about having an open and safe forum to exchange and pressure test ideas, even if not in alignment with others. Leaders can then allow team members the space to express different opinions and “clear the air.” If you do not put ideas on the table, you cannot do anything about them. They can establish and reinforce processes for effective communication, efficient meetings, solving team issues, and building trust to get teams to see that solving these interpersonal challenges is worth the investment. Leaders can coach members to take ownership of the success of the team and help them design the changes they want to see. Leaders can ask how each member wants to be a resource for others’ development. They can reconfirm the vision and get people excited to focus on critical collective goals where the intensity of the emotional and relationship issues is overshadowed by something way more meaningful that will have a substantial impact.

Stage 3: Norming. When you understand that conflicts can arise and resolve issues amicably, you get rewarded with a genuinely healthy working relationship in the norming stage. Roles and responsibilities are clear, accepted, and appreciated. The team builds on processes and understands effective working styles. Big decisions are made by group consensus or another more effective method agreed upon by the group. More minor decisions may be delegated to individuals or small, self-organizing teams within the larger group as responsibility and ownership are distributed. There is a rhythm of addressing issues and appreciating differences and strengths as people work toward a common goal. The impact is that morale and productivity increase, trust builds, commitment and unity strengthen and care for each other, and the work grows. There is general respect for each other and the leader. The team may engage in fun social activities and people are generally set up to do the work that everybody agreed upon.

Leaders can create success in this stage by empowering behaviors that allow people to be on the same page, giving and receiving feedback for development, sharing leadership responsibilities, and managing change collaboratively. At this stage, groupthink can seep in; there could be the temptation that members could feel that they need to get along to go along because there is the fear of going back to the conflict stage when things were not fabulous. The leader can be on the lookout for this unhelpful development and invoke processes to draw out multiple perspectives and normalize productive disagreement, leverage the strengths of each, take quick action, settle conflicts, and maintain a positive, productive climate.

Stage 4: Performing. This is an incredible work experience where you are thriving on multiple levels producing excellent results, and having great relationships; it is a 1 + 1 = 3 type of equation; it's an intoxicating feeling. The team is more strategically aware; knows clearly why it is doing what it is doing. They have a high degree of autonomy as they go after the shared vision; they tend to overachieve and collaboratively make decisions with the leader. Even with a high degree of freedom, they know they can depend on each other at any point. Disagreements are resolved within the team positively, and necessary changes to processes and structures are made by the team regularly to serve the evolving needs best. They are comfortable asking for help and offering it because it is about the team-first approach, and there is a level of safety where people can bring their authentic selves, both their successes and struggles.

A leader can foster this successful stage by allowing even more flexibility in team roles, so people feel like they are being challenged. Leaders can create future leadership opportunities, offer development and support to help people achieve their career aspirations. Leaders can leverage the learning and spark additional team creativity to attain new heights as they collectively advance. Leaders can also pay attention to momentum building and stalling moments. Daniel Pink also offers some interesting research about midpoints, which is the phenomenon of how teams tend to lose steam mid-project. With this knowledge, leaders can offer galvanizing interventions to work with this dynamic to keep the momentum unbroken.

Stage 5: Adjourning. This was added by Tuckman two years after his initial research. Adjourning is the team’s break-up, hopefully when the task is completed successfully, its purpose fulfilled; everyone can move on to new things, feeling good about what's been achieved and ready to contribute elevated skills to their next body of work. From an organizational perspective, recognition of and sensitivity to people's vulnerabilities is helpful, particularly if members have been closely bonded and feel a sense of insecurity or threat from this change.

Leaders can mark the occasion and adequately reflect on all the excellent work capturing each person’s contributions and making them feel proud for being a part of a memorable experience. They can create hope for the future that they have skills and abilities and effective work practices that they can transfer to their next project.

As a leader joining a new team, it is useful to find out what stage your team is in because if you enter their high-performing stage and treat them like they are in the forming or storming stage, they will be unhappy. It’s helpful to begin with a lot of listening and observation so you can spot where they are. You can ask questions such as - what’s happening on the team, where is everybody, what are the best aspects of this team that you want to leverage going forward, what tweaks would you like to make, if any, to do even better work, how can I be most helpful to advance the team? Instead of thinking you have the right diagnosis, they can tell you what they want without knowing the details and history. Once having a deeper understanding, you can co-create the work together so all parties have a stake.

These five stages can progress and regress depending on team makeup, leadership, and client work changes. When that happens, it is helpful to revisit the forming stage, even briefly, so you can put together a clear roadmap that will add eventual speed to the process. Knowing where your team is and how to support them will allow them to do their best work.

Quotes of the day: Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is a success." – Henry Ford

Q: What stage is your team in? As a leader, how would you like to support your team? As a team member, how would you like to contribute? Comment and share with us; we would love to hear!

As a Leadership and Team Coach, I partner with leaders and teams to cultivate a flourishing team culture, contact me to learn more.

team types -which ones are needed? ( Team Composition Series 2/3)

May 3, 2022 Regina Zafonte

In the last blog, we talked about the definition of a team. This blog will focus on the types of teams depending on the degree of interconnectedness – ranging from independent on one side to dependent on the other, and all the shades in between. Identifying the kind of team you have can help better nurture it in an intentional way to achieve maximum value.

Let’s jump into 3 kinds of teams:

1. Independent Team. A mainly independent team is where all members can perform the same basic tasks independently. They may be able to help each other, perhaps by offering advice or providing moral support, but everyone’s success is primarily due to their efforts. It is about getting what you need by yourself. In the workplace, it could be teams who work independently and get their job done, and at times they can collaborate to enhance their performance, but they do not necessarily have to in order to complete their tasks.

Some sports examples include bowling and track and field. In bowling, each person is responsible for knocking down their pins, all contributing to the team’s score and purpose of winning, but essentially individuals do not need to be collaborating at the moment to get their job done. Similarly, in track and field, players can do different events, and while their efforts contribute to the overall result, they do not need to coordinate to do their job.

Similarly, teachers do not need to collaborate with their coworkers to conduct their lessons and maximize student potential. Of course, closer teamwork can be beneficial because they can share the most effective pedagogical approaches, build stronger lessons that make connections between subjects, and discuss how each student learns best for a customized approach. It is also helpful to be aligned with coworkers and have similar norms for students to help build a robust school culture, but they can still teach their classes without depending on coworkers.

2. Dependent Team. This is when the work of one teammate depends on the work of the others. It’s like putting together a puzzle, each person has a piece, so they need to problem solve and make decisions together, or the puzzle cannot be completed.

In sports, relay and rowing teams are good examples. If you are running a 4-person relay race and one person decides not to participate, the whole team suffers and likely would not even be able to compete. Instead, the way for the team to win is for everybody to perform at their best. In rowing, members are usually at the same skill level and can move at the same pace because of the high degree of coordination and dependability.

In corporate, I see this a lot with leadership teams. They need to come together to align on a vision and commit to getting their teams to carry out the mission and vision to meet the needs of the stakeholders.

3. Interdependent Team. This is when team members work together to fulfill a goal, have defined tasks and roles, and depend on each other’s efforts to achieve outcomes. There can be a range of interdependence with dependence on one side of the spectrum and independence on the other. Some of their work at specific points can require working individually, and other parts can mean working collaboratively. For high interdependent teams, the work is integrated; none of the members have separate work.

In sports, baseball and football are common examples. When playing defense in baseball, there is a higher degree of interdependence; the fielders need to coordinate their positions, catches, and throws to prevent baserunners from advancing. They share information about batter tendencies and adjust their field position in response to that data. When on offense, if you are first at-bat with nobody on base, there is some independence. But, that can quickly transform into interdependence when more baserunners hop aboard as there is a degree of unspoken coordination; the trailing runner cannot advance more than the lead runner. Football is similar; when on offense, there is a high degree of interdependence. The quarterback connects with receivers by throwing the ball to where the player should be, while the other players will run routes to draw out the defense. When everybody does their jobs, it works well. On defense, teammates depend on each other to be in the right spots and make the right moves to stop the opponent from advancing.

This is common in cross-functional teams. For example, developing a new product requires input from the researchers who need to understand the customer’s needs, the engineer who builds the product, the designer who makes the product look good, the marketer who knows how to brand the product, and the salesperson who knows how to sell it. Getting those people on the same page initially can make a big difference because they each have knowledge that can enhance the overall product. While they may work independently a good portion of their time, they know how to quickly come together, exchange information, and accomplish a collective purpose. If you have departments who do not talk to each other, you get disunity and subpar products, you get a dysfunctional team.

So, Which Kinds of Teams Are Best?

While all teams should understand their roles, responsibilities, norms, and agreements, it is helpful to know what the situation demands and the types of teams you may need as they each offer strengths and weaknesses.

Faced with an interdependent task, you need to have a cohesive and highly communicative team that understands that the team goal is primary and trumps any individual agendas. They know their impact on each other, the actions that build trust, and how to have harmony. Interconnectedness requires a higher level of coordination, cooperation, knowledge sharing, and quality time to extract each person’s best. They will have to meet more frequently because one person’s work impacts another’s. Interdependence is the invisible glue that engages the team and holds them together. It sparks motivation and energy as they sync up for efficiency and innovation. As Keith Sawyer describes in Group Genius, “there is a sort of group flow – a state of peak performance that comes from close work, shared commitment to the goals, and pride in the team.” Moreover, in today’s VUCA world marked by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, teams see new challenges pop up all the time so they need the creativity, imagination, complexity of knowledge, and skills that no one individual can bring to the team. The interdependent team coordination is crucial to solving today’s most complex challenges.

If it is a job that does not require close coordination and knowledge sharing because there are independent goals, then independent teams could be the best way to get the work done in the initial stages and then come together at the end to collaborate. They still operate in a team environment and can check in with each other at any point to gain assistance and offer support, but do not need to be in daily communication because it could distract from their deep work initiatives. Teams can fail when you give them tasks that could be a better fit for the individual, no need to force blanket collaboration all the time on all functions, which can be counterproductive. It all depends on defining those crucial moments of collision for peak collaboration and then a divide and conquer approach with opportunities to check in with each other along the way to make sure there is the same drive for alignment.

Author Susan Gerke believes that while some teams think that they are independent or interdependent, most teams are dependent because each person’s work is tied to overall outcomes and pay performance. And if you’re focusing on goals at a team level and rewarding that, teams should understand how to work as a more dependent unit since there is significant reliance on one another. At times, individual goals can be met as long as it is in service and aligned with the team. For example, you may have a running back in football who is just 100 yards away from a lifetime record. Sure, you would like to get the ball to them as much as possible, but if the opposition gains strength and has double coverage on the player, the team would abort that goal of helping that individual and do what is best for the entire team to secure the win, and if it happens that he gets the ball and achieves his personal victory, so be it, it is still a win-win.

When you know the mission and vision of the team, you can design the team with the right level of interdependence so you can combine the individual resources into a collective pool that could be allocated strategically to offer the best and most innovative results. Tapping into the resources of many will position you to solve the hardest challenges better.

Quote of the day: "It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed." -Napoleon Hill

Q: What kind of team are you? What do you look for to do your best work? What level of interdependence do you need? Comment and share with us, we would love to hear!

[The next blog in this series 3/3 will focus on the stages of teams]

As a Leadership and Team Coach, I partner with leaders and teams to cultivate a flourishing team culture, contact me to learn more.

What Is A Team? (Team Composition Series 1/3)

April 20, 2022 Regina Zafonte

The word team is frequently used to describe any group of people loosely working together. The term is often evoked even when there are divergent agendas and little reliance on each other. There are leadership teams, management teams, work teams, cross-functional teams, and more. Depending on the kind of team you are, you can make decisions to determine how to run it for maximum success and to meet the complex business demands in the modern workplace.

A team is not a bunch – a group of people who coexist. If we find ourselves on the subway with a bunch of people, we are merely occupying the same space; each person is independent of everybody else, some traveling in the same direction and some not, but there is no kind of coordination. We may not have much in common and are just in the same place at the same time using the same resource. Of course, if the subway broke down in between platforms for an extensive period, there could be the potential for a team to form as more coordination would have to occur for all people to reach the same goal of getting out safely.

A team is not a group – a collection of people who can have some common interests but are not aligned toward the same goal. For example, maybe a leadership coach is working with a group of lawyers in different industries or companies, which can have many overlaps in their practice such as in their experiences, skills, and challenges. Still, they are not working together to achieve an outcome so there is no need to align.

A team is not a pseudo team, described by Michael West and Joanne Lyubovnikova as “A group of people working in an organization who call themselves or are called by others a team; who have differing accounts of team objectives; whose typical tasks require team members to work alone or in separate dyads towards disparate goals.” There is usually an inability to collaborate effectively and the sum of the team is less than the parts; they could be performing even better independently.

A team, defined by Jon Katzenback, a recognized expert on teams is “A small number of people with complementary skills, who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals and shared approach for which they hold each other mutually accountable.” Peter Hawkins, author and expert on teams adds “and which has ways of effectively meeting and communicating that raise morale and alignment, effectively engaging with all the team’s key stakeholder groups and ways that individuals and the team can continually learn and develop.” In other words, real teams consist of a group of people working toward a common purpose and have a degree of interdependence in a shared context. There is defined membership where they combine resources, competencies, and bandwidth as they carry out their collective mission and achieve outcomes. They accomplish tasks that are too large or complex to be done by anyone. A team only forms in response to a purpose and to stakeholder needs and usually operates within a system.

The best teams synergize; they know that the output of a team will be greater than the sum of individual contributions. They complement each other, collaborate, coordinate, communicate effectively, have team spirit, and subordinate their personal goals to the larger objectives if they are at odds. There are clear roles, well-defined outcomes, and norms or working agreements for peak performance. They know why the team exists and have aligned that purpose with the organization, and to a degree, their own. Ideally, they can connect that mission with having a meaningful and positive impact on others. Author David Burkus argues that the definition of a great team has three qualities – intellectual diversity (diverse thinkers), psychological safety (the comfort in expressing your ideas), and a purpose or noble cause. While each team includes different ingredients that make up their success, there are underlining commonalities. To read more about successful team ingredients, feel free to read my blog on the topic.

Leaders play a tremendous part in the success of a team. While they have their vision, they know how to collect meaningful input from the members to shape it collectively. Great teams do not just happen; there has to be a degree of intentionality and thought in the design, purpose, values, and contribution of individual strengths. Doc Rivers, NBA championship-winning coach and recipient of the NBA Coach of the Year award uses the South African concept Ubuntu to drive and define his team, which means “I am because we are.” It is the idea that there are no solitary humans because a person is who they are as a result of their interactions with others. He says, “the better you are, the better I am.” The best leaders strike a balance in coaching teams for who they are today and who they will be someday and extracting the best from each to advance the team unit as a whole.

When you are building a team, there are many considerations to design the best kinds of teams, which look very different than groups and bunches. What type of team do you intend to build? What will be the philosophy that governs your team? How will you learn the stakeholders’ needs for you to be successful? How will you incentivize your team to collaborate? These are the kinds of questions that pop up in the formative stages of a team.

Quote of the day: "None of us is as smart as all of us." -Ken Blanchard

Q: What does a team mean to you? Comment and share with us; we would love to hear!

[The next blog in this series 2/3 will focus on the types of teams]

As a Leadership and Team Coach, I partner with leaders and teams to cultivate a flourishing team culture, contact me to learn more.

Have you mastered the art of working with a difficult Teammate? (Workplace Conflict Series 1/3)

January 5, 2021 Regina Zafonte

There is always that one person you work with whose job is to make everybody’s life just a little more difficult. They show nuanced passive-aggressiveness by hinting at what they dislike instead of having clear communication, they take credit for wins they have not contributed to, they dole out blame unfairly, they provide misleading or incomplete information to make your work more cumbersome than it has to be. They can also display their difficulty in more obvious ways – raising their voices, ridiculing, complaining, and showing an overall foul attitude. This person may behave this way either because they are unaware of their actions or because they know exactly what they are doing and simply do not care or cannot control it. Do you know who I am talking about?

If you find yourself working with somebody who is making your job more stressful and you do not have the power to separate from that person, there are still actions you can take to ameliorate the situation.

It all begins with a clear conversation to increase understanding. Here are helpful tips when approaching your discussion:

1. Assume you do not know instead of jumping to conclusions. Management Professor at Babson College Allan Cohen says that it is human nature to make assumptions about other people’s motives, even when we lack real evidence. It is how our brains work, but this shortcut does not always lead to the right conclusions. Instead of assuming that somebody is trying to make your life more arduous, you can ask: “I don’t know what is going on, but whatever it is, would you like to figure it out together?” “I noticed when I share my opinion, you talk over me, and I’m unable to finish my thoughts, I’d love to learn more about that behavior and how we can work together more effectively.” When you are curious and sincere, you can uncover information for the best resolution.

2. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. It is usually true that each person will think the other is being a jerk and that they are trying to hurt, embarrass, or upset one another. But what if this was not true? In that case, it is best to apply curiosity and turn the discussion into a learning conversation so you can get to the root of the behavior. When you assume the best intentions, you are more likely to approach the situation with an open mind and be receptive to the information for real change to occur. There is something important about entering a conversation and putting aside your frustrations and emotions at the moment to think about how you can serve the other person while also handling yourself well.

3. Understand the person’s motives. Asking empowering questions can help you understand your teammates’ motives so you know how to work best with them. Questions such as, what else is going on for you right now or what is motivating you, can be illuminating. When you inquire about their interests, motivations, and priorities, you get a better sense of their perspective and can learn about what causes their behavior and how you can work with their style and intentions.

4. Label the person’s behavior. Neil Rackman, President of Huthwaite Inc. examined the difference between an expert and an average negotiator and found that experts are more likely to label other people’s behavior and confirm their understanding. If somebody starts yelling during the conversation, you can take a step back and call out their behavior. “It seems like yelling is one of your favorite motivational strategies. Do you think that is going to be effective here?” This approach puts them in a logical frame of mind so they can recognize the behavior and adjust. You can also take a break by saying, “It seems like we may need a minute (in a calm, monotone voice), I’m going to get a cup of coffee, would you like one?” Taking those few minutes will allow each of you to regroup and reenter the conversation in a more productive way.

5. Adjust your expectations. It can be helpful to know that sometimes people are not going to behave well either because they are having a bad day or maybe they have never been given the tools to learn how to handle themselves well in a professional context or as human begins in general. For whatever reason people do not show up as their best selves or maybe their best is not good enough, it is helpful to adjust your expectations. You cannot assume that somebody has the same experience, tools, training to handle situations well or in the way that you would.

6. Provide choice. If you find yourself in a tough conflict, you can offer a choice by saying the following, “We arrived at this moment because we may have had different expectations, and now that we have run into the issue, here are some options I can think of to resolve the dilemma, which one do you think is best?” When you present them with a series of options that you are comfortable with, you give them some control over the process and it makes a difference because people love choices.

The key to dealing with conflict on the team is to retrace the steps to see how you got here, see each other’s perspective, build understanding, and move forward together on a more productive note. When you are curious and approach people positively, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Quote of the day: “Show respect even to people that don’t deserve it; not as a reflection of their character, but as a reflection of yours.” – Author Dave Willis

Q: How have you handled a tough teammate? What’s your favorite strategy for achieving peace with them? Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to have difficult conversations, contact me to explore this topic further.

[The next blog in this series 2/3 will focus on dealing with a difficult boss]