Teamwork Archives - Leadership Circle

How To Build Team Cohesion (and Win Christmas)

Sarah Stall — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 00:40:11 +0000

Through our work with more than 26,000 teams from around the world, we’ve identified five significant factors that determine a team’s effectiveness. With help from the workplace proximity associates of the Pawnee Department of Parks and Recreation, we dig into the important role of a team’s psychological safety and cohesion.

I may not have read as many historical biographies as Leslie Knope; I may not have her passion for waffles or find Joe Biden as sexy as she does. But I have never identified more with a fictional character than when she talks about her prowess as a gift-giver. “Giving Christmas gifts is like a sport to me,” she says. “Finding or making the perfect something… It’s also like a sport to me because I always win.”

The insight comes at the end of the episode “Citizen Knope,” a holiday entry that sees Leslie on a two-week suspension from work and advised to quit her run for city council by her big-city campaign managers. She’s at a personal low, but true to her glass-half-full disposition, Leslie still manages to give all her co-workers and friends extremely thoughtful and personal gifts, including a leopard-print robe with pink feather cuffs and “You Can Get It” on the back in rhinestones for Donna and motorized office doors that close at the click of a button for Ron.

Leslie’s professional game may be suffering, but she is clearly winning at Christmas gift-giving.

It’s especially satisfying, then, when the team comes together to lift Leslie’s spirits and demonstrate what she means to them with a thoughtful gift of their own. Led by beautiful tropical fish Ann Perkins, the group builds Leslie a miniature replica of City Hall made of gingerbread. But that’s not all. After hearing that her campaign managers dropped her, the team rallies to give her a truly unexpected gift: volunteering to be her new campaign crew.

I’ve watched this episode (and, indeed, the whole of Parks and Recreation) approximately 900 times, and every time Leslie responds to their gesture with tears in her eyes and a hitch in her voice, saying, “I don’t know what to say, except… Let’s go win an election!” I get choked up right along with her. Why? Aside from being a saphead for wholesome Christmas storylines, I tear up because it’s a scene in which Leslie’s co-workers and friends come together to support her in the pursuit of her dreams. Even though we, in the audience, know that they are ill-equipped to do this and greatly anticipate the hilarious mishaps that will arise, in that moment, Leslie is safe to spread her wings, and that’s a feeling we all hope to experience.

Teams Work When They Work Together

The most effective teams create an environment where members feel safe to take personal risks and actively support one another. This is what’s happening when, as each member of the team outlines their new role in Leslie’s campaign, Donna offers rides in her Benz to special events, April offers to lead youth outreach and new media, and Ron simply offers, “Any other damn thing you might need.”

For teams to be productive and effective, members don’t need to be protected or shielded from the potential pain or discomfort of personal risk; they need to feel safe in spite of that potential pain, in spite of that risk. This is what we call psychological safety and cohesion.

Using Psychological Safety and Cohesion To Boost Team Effectiveness

Whether one of your team members is running for city council, giving a pitch to a potential new client, or tossing out a wild idea during a brainstorm session, they will be much more likely to share themselves authentically, to look for common ground, and to be resilient in the face of challenge or disappointment if they know the team has their back. If you’re looking to power up your team’s effectiveness, foster these generative factors to increase camaraderie and mitigate these disruptive factors to reduce siloed thinking:

Generative Factors

1. Welcoming Participation Structure: Teams with explicit group norms and expectations increase active participation. Team members who aren’t sure whether all opinions will be welcome or received without repercussions are much less likely to share ideas or provide constructive criticism.
2. Interconnectedness: When team members get along and genuinely enjoy spending time together, they enjoy better collaboration, manage conflict more successfully, and are more likely to remain optimistic in the face of setbacks.
3. Team Emotional Intelligence: Teams with high team EQ can handle difficult conversations and will seek feedback about their performance to work more effectively together.

Disruptive Factors

1. Distrust: When team members distrust the intentions or integrity of other members, they are less willing to be vulnerable or courageous in their interactions, resulting in decreased energy, poor processes, and lack of cohesion.
2. Political/Pleasing Culture: A political or pleasing culture reduces the likelihood that team members will challenge ideas, even when there are issues or problems that need to be addressed.
3. Destructive Dynamics: Team members who undermine the ideas of others or only interact with or support certain members feed into a “clique” or an “us vs. them” mentality, making it nearly impossible to achieve collective goals.

Camaraderie, Collaboration, and Resilience

In the world of Parks and Recreation, Leslie Knope is used to winning Christmas as the superior gift-giver in Pawnee. But, when her team steps up and makes it clear that she has their support, she concedes. “This year,” she says, “my friends won. In fact, I got my ass handed to me.”

Teams that prioritize establishing a welcoming and inviting culture, creating opportunities for connection, and building team EQ can achieve camaraderie, collaboration, and resilience—much like the crew of the Pawnee parks department. As you navigate your own team dynamics, remember that success often begins with the unwavering support and unity of your team members.

The post How To Build Team Cohesion (and Win Christmas) appeared first on Leadership Circle.

The Impact of Team Mindset

Sarah Stall — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 15:07:23 +0000

Through our work with more than 26,000 teams from around the world, we’ve identified five significant factors that determine a team’s effectiveness. Today, in the first of a five-part series on teams, we take a look at the contribution mindsets make to team effectiveness.

In a recent postgame press conference, Colorado head football coach Deion Sanders voiced his frustration with the way his team performed. “Played like hot garbage,” he said. And this is after his Buffaloes defeated the Arizona State Sun Devils 27-24.

Sanders didn’t take issue with the victory but with how it was won. The Buffaloes fell behind early, committed eight penalties, and gave up five sacks in the game. The final score belies a contest that wasn’t nearly as competitive as it suggests. The Buffs only pulled out the win with the help of clutch play from quarterback Shedeur Sanders (Deion’s son) and a 43-yard field goal with 12 seconds remaining. That may make for a dramatic finish and good TV, but slow starts, sloppy play, and late-game heroics do not lend themselves to building a culture of consistency and excellence.

And excellence is what Sanders is after. After all, this is the man who gave himself the nickname “Prime Time,” reflecting both his ability and versatility as a professional athlete and his flashy and charismatic personality—on and off the field. As a standout cornerback in the NFL, Sanders became a Super Bowl champion with both the 49ers and the Cowboys, and as an MLB outfielder, he played on two World Series-winning teams with the Atlanta Braves. During his career as a player, Sanders embraced the spotlight and was known for his showmanship, confident in his talent and unafraid to shine in the biggest moments and on the biggest stages of the sports world.

Now, as “Coach Prime,” he’s brought that self-assurance and swagger to Colorado. When he joined the team, the Buffs were coming off an abysmal 2022 season in which they finished 1-11. In his first meeting with the players early this year, he signaled a shift in philosophy and a new team mindset, repeatedly telling them, “I’m coming,” meaning he was coming in to turn around the program. “There is not going to be any more mediocrity, period,” he said. “I’m coming.”

Great coaches like Sanders possess a clarity of vision and an unshakable belief that they can produce such results, and they do so by shaping the mindset of their team and inspiring that same belief in their team members. Great leaders do the same.

Defining Your Mindset

Whether you’re a college football coach, a rising business leader, or a CEO, you set the culture and tone for your team; you articulate what the team aims to accomplish; and you instill the belief that the group is capable of achieving those goals. The most effective teams have a shared understanding of who they are and what they are pursuing together. You establish the team mindset.

For the Buffaloes, Sanders laid out the team mindset in that first meeting with his players: no more mediocrity. That’s why the loss to Arizona State was so frustrating. It wasn’t frustration born of a failure to win but of a failure to be more than mediocre.

Using Mindset To Boost Team Effectiveness

The Buffs are currently in what I like to call “the messy middle.” They’re onboard with the vision of being a skilled and disciplined well-oiled machine of a college football team, but not quite executing on that vision just yet. As they work to improve, here are three generative factors they can embrace to help unify and strengthen their mindset and three disruptive factors they should avoid, lest the team fracture:

Generative Factors

1. One Team, One Goal: When members are aligned with a team’s mission and vision, they create a “team identity” and pursue their goals with passion, focus, and creativity.
2. Belief in Team Efficacy: The shared belief that a team is capable of achieving its goals provides motivation that increases both individual and collective effort and productivity.
3. Systemic View: Viewing the team as part of a larger system or organization allows team members to focus on integrating and aligning their goals and processes.

Disruptive Factors

1. Silo Mentality: When team members focus only on themselves and their own work or productivity, they’re likely to miss opportunities for collaboration and teamwork.
2. Negative Affect: Negativity and pessimism are exhausting and drain motivation, enthusiasm, and energy from the team.
3. Blaming Culture: Mistakes and setbacks are bound to happen, but when team members focus on “who” or “what” is to blame for them, they limit the team’s ability to learn, improve, and evolve.

A Team of Achievement

Despite the Buffs’ lackluster performance against Arizona State, the team is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was a year ago. Halfway through the season, and Colorado has a winning record (4-2) and is only two wins away from bowl eligibility. Coach Prime wasn’t kidding when he said, “I’m coming,” and the change he promised is taking hold.

Ultimately, Sanders’ journey with the Buffaloes is not just about college football; it’s a story of leadership, culture change, and the power of mindset in achieving excellence. Like all great coaches and leaders, he understands the critical role mindset plays in shaping team effectiveness. It can be the difference between building a team of potential and one of achievement.

The post The Impact of Team Mindset appeared first on Leadership Circle.