What a team can achieve, an individual can never achieve…while we all know this, not all working groups are teams. What differentiates a high performing team from any working group is their cohesiveness, collaboration, complimenting each other effortlessly and commitment to a common goal.
Commitment to a Common Goal: All members of a high performing team are committed to a common goal. Each of the team member is invested in the common goal and finds something personally meaningful in the goal. In order to achieve this common goal, they can go to any lengths, give up personal egos and preferences.
Cohesiveness: There is a sense of togetherness and bonding amongst the team members. They are invested in each other as people and staying together matters to them. Even when there are differences, they are taken up with each other and confronted. This transparency ensures that issues are sorted immediately thereby maintaining togetherness.
Collaboration: Different members of the team understand their own roles and the roles of others. They feel mutual respect and value what the others bring in. They understand the boundaries of their own as well as other’s roles and do not violate them. This role clarity and differentiation helps them see and utilise the different strengths and skill sets people bring.
Complimenting each other: Members make efforts to listen to each other actively. This develops an understanding over time which is very useful as it makes communication very simple, easy and fast. Especially during difficult conversation, this mutual understanding helps members to know where the other person is coming from.
Not all working groups have all the above characteristics to begin with. Some may be there naturally but others might be missing. What happens unfortunately is that when a working group does not turn into a team, there can be a lot of wastage and loss of individual energies due to gaps in communication, negativity and lack of synergy. This many times, leads to demotivating employees and could lead to loss of important employees as well as decrease in the team efficiency.
In order that a working group develops into a high performing team, we run an intervention with this group in form of a series of workshops. These workshops systematically help people
This intervention is designed in a way that builds cohesion and brings about a real connection between members. We facilitate forming of close working relationships during the workshops. Groups or pairs of people work together on exercises which bring about team bonding. We use the theoretical framework of Transactional Analysis for people to understand their own work styles, interaction styles and comfort with confrontation as well as crisis management. By the end of these workshops, teams come out not only with heightened awareness about themselves and their team members but also with a lot of synergy at the team level.
For us to facilitate high performing teams in your organisation and take them to the next level, please contact us at info@maanastis.com