Tips For Improving Team Dynamics
Innovation, productivity, and teamwork lie at the heart of organizational success.
But cultivating cohesive and collaborative teams requires more than just wishful thinking—which believe it or not continues to be a main strategy for tons of teams. This doesn’t mean that teams actually, truly do stuff to get there.
That’s why deliberate strategies and proactive leadership is the key to push teams further in the age of AI.
In this article, we'll explore three essential strategies for improving team dynamics.
So grab a pen and—well never mind, you’re probably reading this on a device.
#1: Reduce Conflict:
Here are some astonishing statistics from a CPP Global study
85% of people will experience conflict in the work center
People spend 2.8 hours per week dealing with conflict
27% of people said conflict morphs into personal attacks
25% of people stated avoiding conflict has resulted in sickness or absence from work
The question then becomes how do we manage conflict?
Conflict is good for growth but the dark side has negative consequences that hurt our teams in significant ways. So here’s a three-part framework you can look to so you can begin reducing conflict.
Here’s where we go:
Understand the triggers of your personality type: Pioneers, behave differently than a Nurterer, for example. And so for pioneers, winning is a massive driver that affects their behavior toward people. For a Nurterer this could cause some relational issues and by proxy, relational issues for a Pioneer. You can take the free assessment here: thebetterplace.giantos.com/store/5-voices
What to do after: Now, the question becomes what you do after you learn this about yourself because this is crucial to your success! If you are indeed a pioneer, what's the point of knowing things about who you are if you are not willing to apply tools that will help you build influence as a leader? This means you’ll understand a little more why winning is a massive driver for you.
Use this information: Knowing the triggers will help you figure out the relational issues with others on your team. Whatever the friction is, address it.
#2: Promote Collaboration:
Collaboration.
What an elusive yet important quality of high-performance teams and I wonder how many of us actually feel like we’re on a collaborative team?
If we have followed the step before this exactly as it is intended then we have arrived at a place where we can finally start to see the pathways to collaboration.
Research conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) found that organizations that prioritize collaboration are five times more likely to be high-performing. I had to make sure that was in bold!
No matter how smart, or savvy our teammates are about the work being done…it won’t get done if the team can’t collaborate.
Kevin Martin, Chief Research Officer at i4cp says “Most talent management systems are designed to reward individual achievement, not team accomplishments.
"We need to be asking ourselves—what are some changes we can make to incentivize working together?
Here are three you can start in the next five days:
When we encourage projects that require multiple people we encourage them to reach out to each other and build better relationships.
We would all benefit from having a dedicated space to imagine and create on our teams. This could be a place where brainstorming happens and people feel they can work together to create and innovate.
Knowledge sharing is also crucial but easily ignored. The issue I've seen with this one is that people are afraid to share their ideas because they will get criticized for trying to hard or for coloring outside of the box or their ideas will get stolen and usurped by someone else.
The next steps are in your hands though.
Now, onto trust and respect!
#3: Build Trust and Respect:
Fostering a sense of psychological safety and camaraderie among team members is where trust and respect begin.
Google's Project Aristotle, (a super cool project) found that the biggest driver of team successful teams was psychological safety. Teams with high levels of trust perform better, are more innovative, and experience less turnover. To build trust and respect within your team recognize and value the contributions of each team member, and create a supportive environment where individuals feel safe to take risks and learn from mistakes. This is at the heart of psychological safety.
Let’s double-click on that:
Inclusion Safety – Members feel safe to belong to the team, are comfortable being present, do not feel excluded, and feel like they are wanted and appreciated.
Learner Safety – Members are able to learn by asking questions. experiment, make (and admit) small mistakes, and ask for help without being shunned.
Contributor Safety – Members feel safe to contribute their own ideas, without fear of embarrassment or ridicule. This is a more challenging state because volunteering your own ideas can increase the psychosocial vulnerability of team members. (Psychosocial Vulnerability will be its own topic one day).
Challenger Safety – Members can question the ideas of others, including those in authority, or suggest significant changes to ideas, plans, or ways of working.
Easy enough? Sure, on paper…but in IRL (in real life)?
The only way to know is to start working at it little by little and remembering that intentionality is the best way to see results in how you lead your teams and how you lead yourself. Remember that success lies not only in the strategies you implement but also in the relationships you nurture and the culture you cultivate within your team.
So, go cultivating!
#leadership #learnleadership #becomeunstuck
References:
https://www.themyersbriggs.com/-/media/f39a8b7fb4fe4daface552d9f485c825.ashx
https://hbr.org/2023/08/what-makes-some-teams-high-performing
https://www.i4cp.com/productivity-blog/top-employers-are-5-5x-more-likely-to-reward-collaboration