High-performance team-building in the future of work
benefits of role, identity, and cognitive diversity need to be balanced with the feasibly of team size and any fixed composition requirements.
profound benefits to the team’s ability to incubate and utilize diversity by creating a climate where differences of thinking are valued, and individual team members feel safe to share their views (something we will explore in more detail next). While it is clear that successful teams have effective practices, there are no objective rights or wrongs when it comes to what these practices are. A practice that is effective and enables success for one team might not be appropriate for another. For example, a regular sales conference call at 8 a.m. on Monday might help a team organize itself at the start of a busy week, but could disenfranchise team members who have family responsibilities such as school drop-off. Similarly, a daily stand-up meeting can be effective for a cycling team (or a project team) preparing to head off for the day, but might cause problems for a leadership team dealing with significant business travel. Even for similar types of teams, a practice that is effective for one team may not suit the working styles or cultural preferences of individuals in another. 28 It’s important here to distinguish between practices —tacit and context-specific approaches to finding solutions to particular problems, the way that work is actually done—and processes , which are standardized series of tasks that provide well- defined outcomes for idealized problems. For teams that are responsible for work of a sequential and tried and tested nature, orchestrated processes will organize and optimize tasks for efficacy. A frontline execution team—for example, a team within a call center—will benefit from processes that standardize the management of queries to create efficacy and ensure an appropriate standard of service. However, in a world where challenges are more ambiguous, and solutions less certain, teams are increasingly asked to deliver in a more spontaneous way, in shifting and unpredictable environments.
Installing effective practices Practices are the actions that glue a team together and facilitate high performance. 25 They are the actions, large or small, that teams undertake either regularly and consistently (the team’s “habits” or “rituals”) or occasionally. They are the unspoken norms that team members default to both consciously and unconsciously to regulate their behavior. In many cases, a team’s practices might be unremarkable, but as a whole and applied consistently by all team members, their influence on the way that the team performs is significant. 26 Sir Dave Brailsford, the head of British Cycling from 1997 to 2014, is credited for turning the struggling team around through tiny improvements across every aspect of the team; for example, by ensuring that the team undertook the practice of properly washing their hands like a surgeon would, the team would reduce the risk of illness during a competition. 27 Successful teams develop practices that allow them to effectively interact with their environment, including collaboration with other teams. This might involve regularly showcasing work to other teams, giving team members the opportunity to spend time with and learn from other teams or building stakeholder confidence and support with regular communication of risks, issues, and progress. Practices that a team undertakes to facilitate the setting of direction and tracking toward goals may help set the team up for success by cultivating shared commitment and driving accountability. A team’s practices can also have
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