Donuts and Other Insights on Teaming from the Latest Leadership Caffeine Jam Session

Our March Leadership Caffeine Jam Session (recording here) was all about finding the magic with teams. As usual, the chat stream commentary from our attendees was fabulous. I’m sharing some insights from this 50-minute session.

(Note: If you’ve not heard of or attended a Leadership Caffeine Jam Session, this is a second-Friday event each month where we get together online with hundreds of people for 50 minutes and share ideas on critical leadership and management topics. These are no slides/no sales pitches events, with a lot of interaction via chat with an enthusiastic crowd. I strive to make this the most fun and productive 50-minutes of professional development all month! Check out the upcoming events and register for the series here. And, here’s a link to the archive for all prior events.)

Key Insights On Teaming

80% of participants view teaming as “very important” to the success of their organizations.
64% of participants viewed working on a team as important to their role.
Process improvement was identified as the primary reason for teaming (32%) of respondents.
A stunning 82% of respondents indicated they had been a part of a high-performing team at some point in their careers. (I love this!)

When asked to describe their high-performance teaming experience in one word, just a few of the responses included:

Thrilling/Results/Dynamic/Synergy/Energizing/Exhilarating/Excitement/Efficient/Achievement/Passionate/MONEY/ and one that used two words: Kick A@@!

I asked a follow on question: “Thinking about that same great teaming experience: what words describe the environment on that team?”

Responses included:

Trust/Focused/Caring/Pride/Collaborative/Shared Vision/Open Communication/Cohesive/Encouraging/Peaceful/Respect/Cohesive/Tough/Energized/Fearless Conversations/Tough Love/Catered and a creative one: Donuts. (OK, teams march on their stomachs, so donuts count!)

Raise your hand if you hear some common themes about high-performing teams!

A Focus on Deliberate Work to Create High Performance

The balance of our session was all about sharing ideas for cultivating high performance.

The premise is that it takes hard work and deliberate effort around the correct issues for high performance to emerge. I referenced a quote from the late team researcher, J. Richard Hackman (HBR, tiered paywall) that sums it up nicely: “I have no question that when you have a team, the possibility exists that it will generate magic, producing something extraordinary…but don’t count on it.”

Leigh Thompson at Kellogg builds on Hackman’s quote and underscores the need for deliberate work developing and coaching teams with: “Good teams are not a matter of luck; they result from hard work, careful planning, and commitment from the sponsoring organization.”

Three Big Ideas for Sowing the Seeds of High Performance With Teams

We emphasized three big ideas for sowing the seeds of high performance with teams:

1. Mix the right ingredients

Work relentlessly to create the “enabling conditions” for a team, citing research from Thompson, Hackman, Haas & Mortensen and Google.

The enabling conditions: real team, clear and compelling purpose, supportive organization, enabling structure, and coaching, must all be present to support high performance.

In particular, we focused on the issues of creating a clear and compelling purpose with your teams and fomenting psychological safety in the environment.

2. Form the norms

Instead of leaving the emergence of team values and working norms to chance, I encourage you to “Write the Rules for Success” with your team. Work with members to identify how work will occur and expectations for communication, feedback, problem-solving, decision-making, and others.

3. Teach your team how to talk and how to decide

Coaching is one of Hackman’s Five Enabling Conditions and an area that too many don’t pay attention to in our teaming work. I shared ideas for coaching teams to develop effective group discussion practices for problem-solving and decision-making.

5 Critical Points:

We capped off with the guidance:

Teaming is important; learning to lead and coach high-performance teams is critical to your career and your organization.
Always strive to create a high-performance team. This takes deliberate work and focus.
Mix the right ingredients in the form of the critical enabling conditions.
Form the norms—don’t leave them to chance.
Teach your teams how to talk and decide.

All of that and some great fun in 50-minutes!

The Bottom-Line for Now

Join us next month on April 8 at noon central for our focus on “Building Clean Power to Scale Your Impact.” You have my commitment this will be the most productive and enjoyable 50-minutes of professional development all month. Bring your colleagues and ample ideas to share!