Team members make two common mistakes:
Mistake #1: Thinking it’s the team leader’s responsibility to pull the team together and waiting passively for that to happen.
Mistake #2: Accepting mediocrity because they assume there is nothing they can do.
Ultimately a team’s success depends on the team members, not the team leader. In fact, over-dependence on the team leader can prevent a team from reaching its full potential.
What you can do as a team member to support your team on its journey to high performance.
Teams move through predictable stages of development, but how quickly and easily they progress depends on whether the needs of the team are being met during each stage. And sometimes teams can get stuck. Here’s what you can do, depending on what stage your team is in:
Stage 1: Setting the Foundation
Before jumping into the work, teams need to first lay the foundation by creating a common understanding of the team’s purpose and how they will accomplish the work. They need clarify how they will make decisions, share information, and approach the work.
If they don’t understand the importance of laying the foundation, or if they are impatient with process, or if they are too eager to begin, they will jump into the work prematurely. Ultimately they will need to clarify all these things. It’s much easier to do it on the front-end instead of making mistakes and having to backtrack.
What you can do:
- Don’t assume it is up to the leader to ensure you team is successful.
- Be aware of what teams need to clarify during this stage. See “Setup Your Team for Success” for more information.
- Ask for a discussion to gain agreement and clarity if your team does not have a common understanding of their purpose and how they will work together to achieve it.
Stage 2: Dealing With What’s Under the Table
As work gets underway, tension arises as the discrepancy between initial hopes and the realities surface. There is a growing sense of dissatisfaction or impatience, which might be directed toward the goals, leadership or other team members.
This is an important stage. It is where trust develops because by successfully resolving conflict, the team members develop a deeper understanding and appreciation for each other. And it is where collectively the team calibrates to develop a believable shared vision of what they will accomplish and how they will work together to achieve it. Think of it as the grain of sand in the oyster that creates the pearl.
Denying and avoiding dealing with the issues during this stage lengthens this stage. And some teams get stuck here and never move on.
What you can do:
- Put it on the table: identify the issues and what you see happening in a descriptive, non-judgmental way.
- Look at what is happening from a group perspective. If a few people are active (ex. engaged in conflict or pushing their agenda) and others are silent, the group is out of balance. Ask those who are silent to weigh in.
- Describe what you personally are experiencing and how it affects you.
- Suggest that the team review its purpose and operating values.
- Be aware of the team member skills you can use.
Stage 3: Becoming Cohesive
A sense of cohesion arises once the team has developed a collective mindset and has learned to successfully manage conflict. There is a real sense of team identity and a “we” mentality.
But the newly formed trust is fragile, and sometimes team members will avoid conflict because they don’t want to rock the boat. The fact is that avoiding conflict will actually send the team right back to the previous stage.
One of the biggest dangers for the team during this stage is getting into “group think,” where people withhold opinions that are different from the majority.
What you can do:
- Don’t hold back. Present your point of view when it is different from others’.
- Observe how the team functions in areas such as communications, decision making, and problem solving.
- Don’t participate in decision making until the topic has been thoroughly discussed and all viewpoints are on the table.
- When the team makes a mistake, ask, “What can we learn?”
Stage 4: Achieving
At this point, the team has learned to work together, appreciating and utilizing the talents of each team member, and flexibly adapting to circumstances to achieve its goals. Leadership can arise from anywhere depending on what’s needed.
The danger for the team at this point is in resting on its laurels and getting bored or sloppy. The team needs new challenges.
What you can do:
- Be an active participant.
- Set challenging goals.
- Maintain a big picture perspective.
- Model and monitor the team values. Don’t ignore mistakes.
- Recognize others’ contributions and the team’s success.
From what I’ve seen historically, the emphasis has typically been on what the leader can do so this is a great change of perspective on high performance teams. By developing an army of employees versatile enough to be either high performance leader or high performance team member, an organization could create a strong strategic/competitive advantage that would be hard to emulate.
That’s a great point, David. The versatility does create a strategic advantage. And in fact most people in organizations are team members at one time or another. Even team leaders are also team members – in their peer team and/or in task groups. It’s interesting to see how little power team members often think they have when not in an official leadership role. My observation is they are not really powerless, but in fact give their power away because they make the two mistakes listed at the top of my post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and enhancing the conversation.
Jesse,
Thank you so much for sharing this. I couldn’t agree with you more that before jumping into work, groups really need to set the ground foundation with each other. Sharing and being patient with others ideas is the best way to make a functional team a better functioning teams.
Thanks!
Hi Kaitlin, I appreciate your pointing out that this information is helpful for functioning teams. So often we focus on problems (stage 2) and don’t realize that we can take an already functioning team to an even higher level. When I was writing this post, I considered calling stage 4 “The Sky’s the Limit.” Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Hi Jesse,
What I love about your work is the challenge you bring my thinking. I tend to be more leader centric and you seem to be more team centric. Once again this post pushes me. Thank you.
Don’t passively wait for leaders to pull the team together…. The challenge in a leader centric organization is people are trained, even expected to wait. Don’t step on the leaders toes or play on her turf.
I’m still more leader centric than you are, I think. But you keep pulling me to the “dark side” 😉
Best success to you,
Dan
Hi Dan, Delighted to hear that I challenge your thinking. You often challenge mine and I always appreciate it. The subject here is empowerment. Leaders need to share power in order for their organizations to be successful. Even when they know intellectually that it is a good idea, it can still be difficult to do because of personal and organizational habits. The purpose of this post is to provide team members with perspective and tools so they can support leaders to make that shift. Hope I can lure you to the dark side more often. 🙂
Hi Jesse, I appreciate putting this post in terms of empowerment. Now thats a word I am comfortable with.. as long as it’s still in my control..;-)
Seriously, thinking of empowerment as creating a “we” environment helps me.
Best,
Dan
Hi Jesse,
Thank you very much by your post. Actually I would like to comment both sides (your and Dan Rockwell). In my stand point we must have a balance between team empowerment and leader centric org´s.
The leader should lead his/her team to an empowered environment as same time that gives strategic direction and support for that, as you mentioned above
The team should be proactive, as Dan mentioned.
With that both team and leader get success and create a positive swirl of success.
Regards
Luciano de Oliveira
A positive feedback loop! Thanks for weighing in and sharing your thoughts, Luciano.
Great post Jesse. I have seen your two identified common mistakes often to be honest. The phrase “It is easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission” comes to mind. The team is always more effective when the people in it realise that they don’t need to ask for permission to be empowered, they have it!
That is so true, Thabo, not only on teams but in much of our lives. I see so many people who feel disempowered when in fact all they need to do is act.
Jesse, I, too, like your focus on what team members can do to make the team successful. In this regard, I think team members can do more in your “Stage 4” to ensure learning. You write, “the team has learned to work together”, but just because they have accomplished something together doesn’t necessarily mean they have learned how to work together. I would suggest that this learning has to be made explicit by the team. They need to ask themselves, “What have we learned about teamwork and how are we going to use that learning in the future?” I assume you would agree with me on this.
Indeed I do agree with you, Stephen. Your question is an excellent addition to the list.
Teams usually get work done at each stage, but how they accomplish it changes during that stage. It’s not possible to reach stage 4 by only producing, without a sense of team functioning. Working through issues in Stage 2 turns their attention to how they work together. By stage 4, the team has learned how to work together, which is why leadership arises naturally according to what’s needed. It’s exciting to be part of a high performing team and to experience the fluidity and flexibility while in motion.
However, the extent of their consciousness of their functioning and a direct intention to apply learning to improve team functioning can vary greatly during this stage.
To your point, in order to become an exceptional team, team learning must be a central focus, as Peter Senge and others, including yourself, have demonstrated. And it’s the food for innovation and creative thinking that you addressed in your excellent recent post: Can Groups Be Creative?
The opportunity for comments is my favorite part of blogging because it offers further illumination and clarification. I really appreciate your sharing your wisdom here.
Hi Jesse,
I love this article, and may use it as a guide in the future. Thank you!
One thing I’ve always done with teams I’ve had the honor of leading is to make sure that we are building our foundations through also developing strong relationships in the “forming” stage. Particularly when a new team is coming together, or when new members join a team, I like to consistently do a brief exercise (some call them “ice breakers”) that help us to get to know each other at the start of each early meeting (which are often lead by other team members), until there is an intuitive feel that relationships and a better understanding of fellow team members are reached. It takes time. It takes thought. Some people roll their eyes, but most are willing and appreciate it.
Hi Mary Jo,
You’ve highlighted two important points. Part of what’s needed in setting the foundation is getting to know each other. The main issue for new members is “how will I fit in?” and “how will I add value?” When done right, “ice breakers” help build the needed connection and trust that allows the work itself to proceed more smoothly.
The other point you’ve raised is around what happens when new members join an existing team. Teams usually leave it up to new members to figure out how to orient on their own. Integration is much easier and faster for both the new team members and the existing ones when then team takes a little time to review its “charter” (the agreements around the work and how it will be accomplished).
Thanks, MJ, for raising these important issues in team dynamics.
i appreciate what is written about team members. I agree. I do.
So, what can we expect from the Team Leader if the success does not depend on the TL. That gives me a certain kind of immunity from accountability. Authority,
dominance, higher pay, popularity and cannot be blamed. what a relief. in a sense.
wrong way to think that way, though. please illuminate.
In short, the role of the team leader is to help the team move through the stages of development, develop the needed team skills, provide resources, remove roadblocks, and do for the team what it cannot do for itself. As the team develops and leadership begins to emerge from within the team, the best thing the leader can do is get out of the way. However, never confuse delegation and abdication.