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TALKING TEAMS: PRODUCTIVE PATTERNS

by | Nov 2, 2018 | Articles, Talking Teams | 0 comments

To achieve team psychological safety, organisations must influence not only how people work, but how they work together, argues Georgina Woudstra

 

Teams are the building blocks of organisations. They have the potential to be more innovative, to find the best solutions, to discover mistakes faster and to make better decisions than any one member operating on their own.

But just because you put a bunch of people together and call them a team it doesn’t guarantee you’ll release this potential.Teams can also be rife with interpersonal issues, friction and interference, which can see that potential go to waste.

Recently, researchers from Google’s Project Aristotle (named after the philosopher for his quote “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts”) sought to discover the secrets of effective Google teams. They studied more than 180 teams over two years and examined how both team composition and team dynamics impact team effectiveness.

What they found might seem surprising. What really mattered was not who is on the team, but how that team works together.

The researchers identified five key dynamics relating to effectiveness: Psychological safety, Dependability, Structure and clarity, and Meaning and impact (http://bit.ly/2RAEeDb)

The most important was Psychological safety – the belief you won’t be punished when you speak up or make a mistake. When there are bad team dynamics people worry their boss or colleagues won’t like what they have to say and they may be seen as incompetent or negative. Indeed, the research recounts a vignette from a senior executive who recalls withholding serious reservations about a planned takeover in the face of others’ enthusiasm. He didn’t want to be “the skunk at the picnic”.

This kind of interpersonal risk is a barrier to collaboration and good decision making. In a climate of high psychological safety, people speak up, share ideas, admit mistakes and respond with respect to others. When none of this is allowed, the team simply can’t reach its potential.

In a TEDx talk, organisational behavioural scientist Amy Edmondson defines psychological safety as “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking”. In her 2012 book, Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate and Compete in the Knowledge Economy, she explains that team leaders are responsible for creating that psychological safety by explicitly articulating their expected norms and encouraging their teams to adhere to them.

Of course, this is easier said than done, and team leaders can benefit from working with a coach to ensure this happens.

Edmondson identifies three pillars that leaders can apply to foster psychological safety and collaboration:

  1. Curiosity (learn from the people around you)
  2. Passion (care enough to work your hardest)
  3. Empathy (see things from other people’s points of view)

 

As a coach, these pillars are likely to resonate. Indeed, curiosity is one of the most impactful traits of our profession.

Gottman’s model, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, identifies potential obstacles to psychological safety: Criticism, Defensiveness, Contempt and Stonewalling.

To combat the four horsemen, team leaders should identify them in team discussions and replace unhealthy patterns with productive ones. And that’s where team coaching can be highly effective. As we’ve learned, it’s not just who’s involved, but how they work together, that drives teams to success.

 

References

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