Based on the book “Committed Teams” that Mario Moussa co-authored, he explains in an interview with Wharten School of Business the development of his work and the key empirical findings about high performing teams [1]. Interestingly, one key aspect of the field work was to engage social scientists to observe the participants of a leadership development training. One of the key findings according to Moussa was that teams would work on a 3x3 framework:
Goals
Roles
Norms
But really compelling was that high performing teams would always come back to the fundamental ground asking themselves again and again: Do we know why we do what we do? Does it still make sense that we do what we do? How are we going to do the work? Hence, Moussa and his team would add two more important steps:
Checking In (time by time depending on the team)
Closing the gap (between assumptions and real requirements/goals/roles)
Key to that process was always communication within the team as a whole and between team members. Here Moussa even emphasizes the importance of one on ones dialogue because it set the basis for building trust. Furthermore, it was very central to pay attention to what was going on in the team during the project. The utmost criterion was listening. People listened to each other.
The ratio of working time to checking in time varies from team to team. Some need more time to talk about the process to get aligned and some teams focus on the work and align very quickly. But this merely depends on the team and its members.
In conclusion, Moussa describes that high performing teams need an environment of psychological safety. That means that everybody in the team feels safe to express their opinion, feelings or concerns without being punished. Only if an environment of psychological safety is build up people can open up and be creative.
How to build psychological safety
In her HBR article “High-Performing Teams Need Psychological Safety. Here’s How to Create It” Laura Delizonna quotes some guidelines based on the study of Google about team performance and experience of Paul Santagata [2]:
1. Approach conflict as a collaborator, not an adversary.
2. Speak human to human.
3. Anticipate reactions and plan countermoves.
4. Replace blame with curiosity.
5. Ask for feedback on delivery.
6. Measure psychological safety.
Teams and personalities
In their HBR article “Great Teams Are About Personalities, Not Just Skills” Dave Winsborough and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic present how personalities influence performance in teams. They differentiate several team roles that might be even more important than the functional role of individuals [3]:
Results-oriented (organize work, take charge, self-confident, competitive,…)
Relationship-focused (attuned to others’ feelings, good at building cohesion)
Process and rule followers (pay attention to details, reliable, conscientious)
Innovative and disruptive thinkers (innovative, imaginative, curious)
Pragmatic (practical, hard-headed challengers of ideas, prudent)
According to Winsborough´s and Chamorro-Premuzic´ experience high performing teams show the right mixture of personalities in order to achieve goals.
Sources:
[1] Mario Moussa about his co-authored book: “Commited Teams” on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ed7hNj8qOY 18.05.2018
[2] Taken from: https://hbr.org/2017/08/high-performing-teams-need-psychological-safety-heres-how-to-create-it 19.05.2018
[3] Taken from: https://hbr.org/2017/01/great-teams-are-about-personalities-not-just-skills?referral=03758&cm_vc=rr_item_page.top_right 19.05.2018
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