The Fantastic Four: Build a Team Beyond the Ordinary
Creating an environment where each member of your team can thrive is an important, albeit challenging, part of being a leader.
How team members work together, interact, and perform for their own roles and their role within a leadership team depends on different factors, not the least of which are personalities, values, dynamics, interpersonal skills, and direction.
It’s the role of a leader to bring the team together, highlight everyone’s strengths, and inspire the best performance possible from the group as a whole. I find this to be a daily task – one that takes a deep understanding of how different people work, think, act, and interact.
So, if you want to truly elevate your team’s performance and provide an environment for success, it’s best to first get to the root of cultivating a cohesive, high-performing team.
According to Shirzad Chamine’s “Positive Intelligence®” there are 4 main pillars that lay the framework for successful team dynamics – triple purpose, earned trust, healthy conflict, and mutual accountability.
Let’s explore each of these pillars and how to practically weave them into your daily leadership decisions and team-building efforts to inspire optimal performance and results from both future and existing teams.
The 4 pillars for optimal team dynamics and success
#1: Triple purpose
The first of Shirzad Chamine’s pillars is pretty much the core of how a team bonds together and works towards three shared goals – realizing their own potential, helping teammates achieve their goals, and making a positive impact throughout the and beyond the organization.
Acknowledging and striving for all three purposes, teams can reach a balance of individual strengths and support from others – realizing both internal and external results.
It’s the leader’s job to foster an environment where this “triple play” is a part of the team’s work - starting with doing the internal work personally, setting an example, and then inspiring conversations from team members. This can be integrated into regular conversations, one-on-one meetings, performance objective discussions, and year-end reviews. While these topics might feel awkward initially, especially if they are new to the team, it's helpful to inform team members in advance about the questions to be discussed to avoid putting anyone on the spot.
As I said before, this work is about daily action. Don’t expect team transformations overnight, but start to incorporate daily conversations that focus on individual and collaborative growth, as well as external results.
This is part of laying the foundation for what I believe is the most powerful aspect of high-performing teams: balanced perspectives internal and external within the team. High performance is driven not only by the internal dynamics of the team but also by how team members engage with stakeholders throughout the organization.
#2: Earned trust
Every team aims to foster an environment where each member feels supported and able to contribute, but achieving this is challenging, particularly in today's rapidly evolving hybrid work environment.
Trust within a team is essential for engagement, productivity, innovation, and personal growth. Leaders can best establish and reinforce trust through their everyday interactions with the team. Trust can't be commanded; it must be demonstrated and embodied - offering evidence of trustworthiness. The “earned” part.
In my workshops and leadership coaching, I draw on insights from Shirzad Chamine’s Positive Intelligence and Patrick Lencioni’s "Five Dysfunctions of a Team" to guide leaders in creating a safe environment for team members to be their authentic selves, leading to optimal performance.
You are the example your team will look to, so modeling these principles will spread openness and authenticity through the team as a whole.
Try these tips for cultivating trust and openness within your team:
Focus on building solid relationships – get to know each team member and provide a safe environment for them to be honest and open. The goal is to ensure everyone feels like they’re part of a team that cares for one another.
Admit when you make a mistake or don't know an answer. This demonstrates that it's okay to not have all the answers and that innovation and performance rely on collective learning. Creating a safe space for admitting vulnerabilities is fundamental to leveraging each individual's strengths for a high-performing team.
Practice open communication that respects each member’s ideas. This includes being as transparent as possible and ensuring opportunities for all team members to feel heard. Understanding each individual’s communication style is crucial for encouraging the sharing of ideas and concerns.
#3: Healthy conflict
No one desires conflict, but learning how to appreciate and navigate it effectively can lead to more growth and success of a team in the long-run. Because the truth is that conflict will arise, whether you want it to or not. What matters is how your team can resolve issues and reach solutions together.
Healthy conflict can be a good thing, with each team member communicating directly and honestly – and challenging each other when needed – to arrive at the best solution. But seeing the value of conflict and creating an environment that encourages it are two different things.
In my work with leaders and teams, recognizing conflict as a normal element of the team’s characteristics is crucial for high-performing teams. And, with a shared commitment to achieving best results, allows for innovation, development and progress and improving decision making.
Discouraging conflict puts your team members at a disadvantage, robbing them of the opportunity for growth, exposing blind spots and collecting diverse input.
As a leader, your daily actions are vital in fostering healthy conflict. Here are some considerations:
Normalize conflict: Treat conflict as a fundamental part of your team’s dynamic rather than avoiding it. Healthy conflict presents opportunities for growth and development for both you and your team and your organization.
Lead by example: A significant barrier to healthy conflict is the fear of offending or upsetting others. To overcome this, demonstrate the communication style you wish to inspire: direct and respectful, honest and considerate, disclosing and curious. Keep the focus on the issues, not personalities, and intervene if the conflict starts to become destructive.
Set clear expectations: Ensure that team members feel safe expressing their perspectives without fear of judgment or retaliation. Clearly outline your expectations and demonstrate them in your daily interactions. Create opportunities for sharing ideas, ask for feedback and alternatives, and listen without jumping to conclusions or becoming defensive. There are several models your team could utilize here - please reach out if you are interested to hear about these…
#4: Mutual accountability
An atmosphere of mutual accountability comes from respect, trust, and a collective vision for the future. It takes time and daily effort, but a team that shares the same focus, goals, and expectations can accomplish anything they work towards together.
However, kick-ass high-performing team dynamics like these don’t happen by chance.
Embedding accountability, mutually, between team members and with the team as a whole builds on consistency…
clear about expectations,
clear on our impact within the big picture -“Where to Play and How to Win”
how we communicate, share feedback, make decisions,
what we celebrate,
how we respond to mistakes, the unexpected
when we lean in,
how we lift each other up ,
And, actively demonstrating interdependence and trust.
This is a team with momentum! A team that moves forward to deliver the extraordinary for today and tomorrow.
Are you in the process of forming a new team, or simply want to enhance your abilities to optimize your current one? Amplify Strategy is ready to help you achieve your goals and inspire maximum team cohesiveness!
Contact me to learn more about setting up your team for optimal success.
Dawn Garibaldi is the CEO and Founder of Amplify Strategy Group. As an experienced corporate leader and certified executive coach, she’s on a mission to serve leaders to create significant impact, confident performance and powerful relationships -- with stakeholders, teams and peers. She shares powerful strategies and tactics to quickly amplify confidence, success and achievements far beyond what they thought possible.