“There is no collaboration in my team”. It’s a statement I hear too often in conversations with leaders. Most of the time, their tone reflects disappointment or disillusionment, indicative of a belief that team collaboration should be easy if a leader prompts it.
They often hold one-off team building exercises in the hope of encouraging collaboration. These may be helpful in the short run but as they are not integrated into the team’s routines, they do little to reinforce teamwork over time.
A truly effective team relies upon alignment of its members, which is influenced by a variety of factors, including (but not limited to) individual experiences and opinions, personal values, and the level of trust within the team.
Achieving true alignment is a complex, ongoing and challenging process. Even so, it’s not impossible, and clear objectives can help set the team on the right path.
1. Link Team Objectives To The Company Mission
The first step for addressing the challenge is for leaders to help teams understand how their objectives fit into the organisation’s broader mission.
Simon Sinek’s “The Golden Circle” framework is a good way to clarify the distinction and relationship between team objectives and company mission. In Sinek’s framework, there are three elements, “why”, “what” and “how”. The “why” helps to explain the company’s mission, its goal and reason for existence. The team’s objectives address the “what” – what is it that we do, i.e., we sell a product or service. The “how” can be summed up as the actions, behaviours, strengths, and values that will facilitate achievement of the objectives.
Many leaders miss the mark when they assume all the team needs to know is the “what” and “how” of a goal they may not have chosen, fully understand, or be invested in. As Sinek’s TEDx Talk powerfully shows, great leaders inspire action by starting with the “why”.
Bringing together the “what” and the “why” will allow your team to see how they contribute to the overall goal. You can then use the “how” as a prompt to develop and co-create the “team collaboration blueprint.”
2. Use The Power Of Questions To Create A Blueprint For Team Collaboration
Questions can help clarify objectives, outcomes, and expectations and facilitate effective communication within and between teams.
Here are some questions to consider:
– Do we share a common understanding of the overarching goal? What needs to be clarified?
– What actions do we need to take individually and collectively to achieve the team objectives?
– In what ways do our behaviours need to change?
– What will we do to stay on track? What will happen if we don’t?
– What obstacles can we expect to encounter? How will we deal with those?
At first glance, answering these questions may appear relatively easy.
However, producing answers that support team alignment involves a deeper process that centers on an individual’s values and strengths, and how these relate to the bigger picture.
3. Highlight Each Team Member’s Value As An Indispensable Link
In an effective team, every member is a valuable, indispensable link.
When a link breaks, collaboration suffers. Some might see this as a difficult truth, a fire to manage or put out when it occurs. Successful leaders, however, know that they can often prevent the fire from starting in the first place.
One of the best ways to do this is to help each team member understand the value they bring and how it fits into the team’s objectives. Highlighting each person’s contribution in the collaboration process promotes team cohesion and brings clarity around roles and responsibilities.
There are many practical ways to do this, but my favourites are strengths questionnaires and creative activities.
Shine A Light On Strengths With A Powerful Tool
For many people, even leaders, their true strengths are frequently taken for granted or lie somewhere in their blind spot.
Yet, these very strengths are often the glue that holds teams together and keeps them aligned. They also help strengthen relationships between teams that are otherwise susceptible to silo dynamics, by connecting them to the greater mission.
That is why it’s so important to identify, acknowledge and celebrate individuals’ strengths. Belbin’s individuals and team reports are highly effective tools in this regard.
Engage In A Fun Activity That Connects Individual Strengths To Team Goals
An engaging way to build awareness of individuals’ strengths and how these relate to the collective narrative is through creative activities.
Using LEGO® Serious Play® methodology is one of my favourite ways to accomplish this. Individuals express their strengths through models built from LEGO® bricks (1), and then combine the models to create the bigger picture – the story of their team.
Building team collaboration by literally constructing and visualising these connections can be transformational. Team members can see, in 3-D, how their strengths contribute to the overall goals.
4. Build Sustainable Momentum That Supports Team Collaboration
The journey towards achieving an objective, especially a complex or long-term one, is full of pitfalls and risks. Overwhelm, doubt, and confusion can pose some of the greatest challenges to team building.
To prevent these issues, build sustainable momentum through incremental steps, milestones, and clear accountability. Breaking team objectives into small chunks makes them easier to manage, helps preserve team alignment and motivation, and keeps everyone moving in the same direction without being overwhelmed.
You will be more likely to maintain momentum by reviewing periodically your objectives and addressing honestly key questions such as:
- Are we achieving what we set out to do?
- Are the objectives still clear, engaging or challenging enough?
- Is there a need for us to change our objectives in response to the evolving business environment?
Don’t be afraid to clarify, amend, or even eliminate objectives when they are no longer relevant.
There are many tools to encourage accountability or address an accountability problem. One of my favourite ones is the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) framework.
OKRs For Performance Management And Accountability
The Objectives and Key Results (OKR) framework provides an effective way to manage performance and support accountability as teams work towards a goal.
The Objectives set the scene, provide the big picture, and inspiration. Jason Richmond refers to them as a “rallying cry that tells you where you want to go.” The Key Results serve as the measures of impact and progress towards the objectives. Furthermore, short-term milestones (30, 60, and 90 days) help to sustain focus and momentum.
In order for this process to be successful, team members must hold one another accountable and engage in follow-up activities that foster collaboration, which include effective communication, reflection on lessons learnt, and celebration of achievements.
5. Embrace Milestones As Opportunities For Reflection And Celebration
There are two main reasons why milestones are good for building teamwork. One is that they provide space for reflection and evaluation. Another is that they provide an opportunity for recognition and celebration. Both reflection and celebration are crucial for fostering effective team collaboration.
By determining what worked well and what didn’t, teams can further clarify objectives and make improvements before moving on to the next stage.
By listening to their teams, leaders can gain new insights into how to support them more effectively. Understanding how team members work together, what drives them, what challenges or frustrates them and celebrating both the learning process and achievements can strengthen the team’s emotional culture, improving its capability to function as a unit and deliver results.
Conclusion
Bringing a team together is no easy task but it is possible. As a leader, you have to devote a great deal of time and effort to this but once you do, it pays off.
Clear team objectives are a critical step in this process; however, they are only effective when supported by a culture that promotes trust among team members, values constructive debate, and places an emphasis on team success over individual achievement. At Change Aligned, as strategy consultants in London, we help leaders drive change effectively.
About the author
Olga Valadon is the Founder and Director of Change Aligned. She is a strategist, leadership mentor and corporate empathy expert with three decades of experience in global corporates. Her company specialises in culture design and leadership development. Olga is on the board of the University of Cambridge Primary school, advisor to Equal Employer®, and associate management lecturer at BPP University.
(1) Disclaimer: LEGO is a trademark of the LEGO Group, which does not sponsor, authorise or endorse this article or website.
