In January's article, I addressed the topic of independent thinking... I invite you to the perspective of joint thinking, goal building, common objectives, and common actions in a team.
In many organizations, teams are not real teams, that is, they are often under the administrative umbrella of a leader, but they do not feel that they act on the principles of a real team, with a common goal, with interdependent activities.
In reality, even though many of their activities are independent and do not appear to be directly dependent on each other to achieve results, there are many areas of interdependence where common thinking and a common purpose could make a difference. I'm thinking, for example, about how it relates to people and their careers, and how it could create multidisciplinarity and increase retention. Another common area is team brand within organizations, especially in large and very large companies where you need visibility, especially if you're in a support role. Another common goal could be growth as an entity concerning more abstract indicators such as the clarity or speed with which they can deliver information to the higher level on which each individual's work depends and finding a way to coordinate, measure of joint performance, and feedback.
Very many of the teams I work with are in "action" mode: without much reflection on the causes of the lack of effectiveness or understanding of how the support processes between team members can be adjusted, they approach every problem that arises with the question "how to do …?”. Before "doing" there are still several steps to go where the cumulative perspectives of the members could lead to much better-developed and effective courses of action. Because the pressure of business makes us obsessed with efficiency and we lose sight of effectiveness.
In terms of team effectiveness, there are a few models of structuring the approach when setting out with a team on the road in team coaching that I like. In the initial diagnosis stage, when I talk and get to know each member of the team I'm going to work with, I try to understand what would be the most appropriate way for them to approach the topics that concern them.
An important thing to know when you choose to work with an executive coach in the process of transforming your team into a real team is that it is not the coach who sets the goals of the development process, but the team. It's a surprising part for many teams because they feel like they're hiring an expert to tell them what to do, based on the fact that in our job we meet a lot of teams and work in a lot of organizations and as a result, we definitely know what would be appropriate. But developing a team to become a real team doesn't need an expert. It needs a thinking space to learn to develop and maintain and then translate into current practice, making explicit their interdependencies and how they rely on each other to achieve better results. Sometimes the team doesn't see a reason to share more information or ask each other's opinion on how they can handle certain challenges. I can say, based on observations and experiences with different teams, that their leaders see this need, and feel it when they work on the board team or present in front of clients. They are also caught in the trap of "doing!", and do not create that space where "we sit and think together!".
Team meetings are most often seen as a time-limited moment where team members inform each other about the status of certain issues, sometimes they find the right arena to highlight all the blockages they have, to point out that "someone else it's to blame' or to do a bit of politics and influence to get some more resources and visibility. What would it be like if team meetings became a thinking space where independent thinking, which I talked about in the last article, would work and build step-by-step new solutions to which everyone feels they have a contribution?
I defined independent thinking as the ability to analyze situations through one's own set of criteria and values, to make decisions using one's judgment thus avoiding the need for compliance and validation from public opinion (team, bosses, etc.) even if sometimes it needs to take the risk of being unpopular, going against the majority or being seen as different.
The existence of independent thinking in a thinking space turns any debate into a search for the best solution, turns any interpersonal conflict into a debate of the problem and the ideas around it, turns any influential action for resources into a solution to use synergies and eliminate process losses, whether they are waste of time, work done twice, emotions wasted in internal conflicts and tensions or even waste of materials...
For each member of a team, essentially in leading teams, it is healthy for everyone to go through a process of questioning their beliefs and the usual way of making decisions, at the level of a team to become effective, with the help of an executive coach, it is important to review all the assumptions and assumptions under which this team operates.
For example, in many teams, it is assumed that if you are not a specialist and an expert in the area of action of a colleague in the management team, you have no reason to contribute or make an observation to the way things are done in that part of the business. It's just that it's a statement that holds in very few cases, perhaps only where highly specific decisions have to be made or based on highly rigorous detailed information, but these are more technical decisions. The team comes together to look to the future together and find solutions for the company to work more easily and with better results, facing the constraints. So he needs some space to think.
How to create a thinking space for our team?
The need for the presence of a coach is precisely to support the team in learning to form this space and maintain it. This collective thinking space and the creation of collective thinking time are put under a lot of pressure by the day-to-day dynamics of a business and a leader very often finds himself in a position to compromise the longer-term objective of effectiveness and creation of a strong team in the face of short-term pressures and priorities, arising from putting out various fires or ad hoc change or the desire to achieve often unrealistic results. So someone outside the system who can be objective and firm in generating that context greatly accelerates the steps to a real team.
An amazing author who has studied a multitude of teams that have succeeded in creating this collective thinking space is Nancy Klein. His book "Time to Think" shows us the 10 characteristics of a team that knows how to benefit from a thinking space:
1. Attention – people learn and manage to hear each other and listen without interruption, constantly showing interest in what their teammate has to say.
2. Equality – an aspect often violated in teams that consider some roles more important than others and that some members are superior to others. A real team believes that every member of the team has equal thinking capacity and wants to benefit from it.
3. Relaxed approach – detaching from that sense of pressure that exists in everyday life when we are in this thinking space so that we allow creativity and multiple perspectives to build on each other. We put the emergency vehicles in the parking lot for about an hour and a half, maybe half a day.
4. Appreciation – people think and are encouraged to think when they know they are appreciated.
5. Encouragement – avoiding competition between thinkers in the team. In a real team, it's important to put our thoughts and ideas together and not constantly compare them.
6. Capturing emotions – in a safe thinking space people know that they can express their emotions in a way that they can remain authentic and vulnerable, i.e. say what they think.
7. Seeking relevant information – the more we bring into the thinking space the information that is necessary for a good decision, the more people will feel encouraged to build and not defend or look for blame.
8. Using diversity – in every team, there is a wealth of life experiences that are not visible but that bring a wealth of perspectives and create a group identity that leads to ownership.
9. The incisive questions – the questions that allow us to question existing assumptions and assumptions and bring to light either the elephants in the room or the elements that reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of the team.
10. A place that encourages thinking - a place where you don't worry about your place at the table and the chair you occupy. A place where the imposing meeting table is not a physical anchor fueling defensiveness. A place to inspire team members to contribute and not prove something. A place that allows equality.
Source: https://www.prwave.ro/coaching-executiv-spatiul-de-gandire-al-echipei-responsabilitàa-leaderului/