One of the reasons teams struggle to define their purpose is that they can’t work out at which level of aspiration the purpose should be. At a very basic level, pragmatic purpose is about relatively short-term accomplishments and survival. For example: “We’ve got to attract enough customers to stay in business”. Grounded purpose takes a (more…)
Once trust is broken in a team, it is hard to recover. Yet the requirement to collaborate remains as strongly as ever. Mistrust between two individuals affects all the team, with other members either taking sides or suffering the discomfort of trying hard to stay neutral. Mediation or conflict resolution can hammer out a compromise (more…)
The questionnaire How Effective Are your Team Meetings? provides a useful resource for assessing how effective (or not) your team meetings really are. Score each statement from 5 (this describes our meetings accurately) to 1 (they are not like this at all). The results within a team may show significant differences. Sharing these with the team (more…)
Teamwork is much easier to coordinate when everyone is clear about the three levels of Purpose, Goals and Tasks. Purpose acts as a compass, proving a broad general direction for the team’s work. Goals are like waypoints on the journey — achievements that take the team towards delivering its purpose. Tasks are the steps taken (more…)
The concept of stretch-exploit-coast (for North Americans, Coast = Freewheel) is a simple but highly effective way of assessing what someone’s current job gives them. When we start a new role, we are usually in high “positive stretch” mode – there is a lot to learn, and we relish the excitement and challenge. (“Negative stretch” (more…)
Courage is something that everybody wants – an attribute of good character that makes us worthy of respect. From the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz who finds the courage to face the witch, to David battling Goliath, to Star Wars or Harry Potter, we are raised on a diet of heroic and inspirational (more…)
Thinking, Fast and Slow is a book written by Daniel Kahneman which concerns a few major questions: how do we make decisions? And in what ways do we make decisions poorly? The book covers three areas of Daniel Kahneman’s research: cognitive biases, prospect theory, and happiness. Kahneman defines two systems of the mind. System 1: (more…)
The principles of retro-engineered learning are simple. The facilitator or team coach helps the old hand explain the history of the team, in terms of its original and evolving purpose, the key decisions and choices that had to be made, and the thinking behind those decisions and choices. And so on until the present day. (more…)
Here are some cases of team situations. The table below illustrates how an outsider might see the teams’ issues from linear, systems or complex, adaptive systems perspectives. The tired team “If I’m honest”, says the team leader Flavian, “I’d say that pretty much the whole team demonstrates the Peter Principle. They have been promoted to (more…)
Innovation Risk Define the problem Why is this an issue? What are the benefits of tackling it? What are the benefits of not tackling it? Who are the stakeholders? How would each stakeholder group define the problem? Why do we need to deal with this now? Define the boundaries Is this part of a larger (more…)