Teamwork, collaboration, and all sorts of clichés relate to the workings of teams.
Over the last 25 years they have invaded and become pervasive in our workplaces, but most often they do not deliver the hoped for outcomes.
On Saturday night, those of us who watch Rugby League saw a display of teamwork we should remember. A busted, down on personnel Cowboys team coming from an unwinnable position on the seasons table, beat the favourites who were full of enthusiasm, confidence and with a full playing roster, to get a shot at the title.
How does that happen?
We all mumble about ‘team culture’ without knowing really what it is, and where it comes from, while working to find it for our teams.
Google uses teams as the core of their operational and development processes, they have not become one of the most successful companies in history by getting it wrong. However, like the rest of us, they did not really know what made a team successful, so set out to find out by deploying their formidable skills and resources to answer the question.
The answer they came up with surprised them, although it should not have, as once seeing it written, it is pretty obvious.
- Psychological safety: Can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed?
- Dependability: Can we count on each other to do high quality work on time?
- Structure & clarity: Are goals, roles, and execution plans on our team clear?
- Meaning of work: Are we working on something that is personally important for each of us?
- Impact of work: Do we fundamentally believe that the work we’re doing matters?
For someone like me who has worked with teams for a very long time, the response on seeing this list, reproduced in summary above, is ‘of course’. However, when constructing teams, how often do we take the easy way, grab who is available, allocate a superstar and expect them to carry the load. Meantime we do not make sure the dynamics of the group are the focus of the construction, give insufficient consideration to the mix of skills and personalities, and then be less than specific about the outcomes required, the plans to get there, available resources for the team to use, and the time frames required.
I am not even a great fan of Rugby League, but the quality of the Cowboys team on Saturday night would indicate that a test along the lines of Googles 5 headline requirements would return a very high score.
It will be fascinating to watch the grand final next week against the Melbourne Storm, a team that has made the culture of the place a core of its success since entering the league in 1998.
Photo credit: AAP Dan Himbrechts
