Ritter The 4 Stages of a Team

How Teams Thrive... and What to Do When They Don't
1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5439-7312-9
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 200 Seiten

Running a successful business involves people, processes and products. This book is about the people - written to support teams. Ten years ago, Team Clock: A Guide to Breakthrough Teams was designed to introduce a model for effective teaming. That book was the 'why.' This book is the 'how.'

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ritter, Steve

Leseproben

- CHAPTER 1 - A Toolkit for Team Survival WHAT IS TEAM CLOCK®? All relationships travel through cycles of growth and change. Whether it’s two people in a partnership, a team of people with a common goal or an organization with a mission, the living entity evolves through predictable stages. At the beginning, teammates invest in a future together and carefully define its direction. As the team becomes close and discovers how to work out differences, trust becomes the fuel for connection. The foundation of shared values and accountability becomes a platform for innovation. This exploration creates change, which requires some distancing to adjust to what has been lost, refuel, and adapt to the new circumstances. Once the team has coped with the change, partners return to another cycle as they deepen their investment, strengthen their trust, invite more daring innovation and distance again to manage the next round of growth. Each of these stages has unique characteristics. Strengths and weaknesses developed in each stage are delivered to the next stage. Healthy teams tend to get healthier, while sick teams tend to get sicker. It takes deliberate effort to stay on a path to sustained team wellness. The Team Clock® model was conceived in 1980 as an alternative to the 1965 Tuckman Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing theory. Rather than viewing a team as a time-limited task group with a beginning, middle and end, the Team Clock® model views teams as ever-evolving, living entities that repeatedly cycle through stages of investment, trust, innovation and distancing, only to reinvest and repeat the cycle. Imagine 12 hours of a clock, where each hour represents a phase of a team’s development. The clock is always circling the dial as teams address the challenges of four key stages: STAGE 1: Investment Whether a team is beginning a project or entering a new season, getting off on the right foot is vital. Future performance will reflect any strengths or weaknesses built into the team’s chemistry. Clarity about team norms and goals lays the groundwork for managing conflict successfully. 1:00 - Investment in the team’s norms, mission and values establishes a foundation. 2:00 - Testing conflict highlights the differences that will be needed later when the team is ready to innovate. 3:00 - Dependence connects teammates as they commit to collaborating toward common goals. STAGE 2: Trust Once teammates learn to depend on each other, the work becomes a reflection of this engagement. It only takes one bad apple to spoil a bushel. In an environment that encourages connection and models respect, colleagues hold themselves and each other accountable. 4:00 - Trust grows when teammates are accountable to the agreed-upon norms, mission, values and vision. 5:00 - Cohesion develops as teammates grow more connected through respect, collaboration and shared experience. 6:00 - Attachment is the result of sustained mission alignment, successful conflict management, trust and connection, which forms a platform for growth. STAGE 3: Innovation Taking risks is contrary for teams that value stability. Hearing diverse points of view can be unsettling for some teammates. Yet, risk-taking and diversity may be the best fuel for innovation. Teams rarely thrive by staying the same. Most succeed by daring to be different. 7:00 - Innovation is made possible by psychological safety and comfort with growth and change. This allows teammates to harness their differences as strengths. 8:00 - Risk must be tolerated to move away from the status quo and toward an unknown future together. 9:00 - Independence allows teammates to stretch themselves while relying on the foundation built in the first two stages. The result is change. STAGE 4: Distancing Staying poised and resilient under pressure is especially difficult when teammates are deeply invested in each other and the outcome of their work. Powerful emotional reactions usually color a team’s response to a crisis. Adapting to new circumstances is easier once a team has had a chance to process what has been lost. Letting go of the past helps teammates refocus on what’s ahead. 10:00 - Distancing is a healthy reaction to the change the team has created. This allows teammates to move away from the way it has always been and evaluate new circumstances. 11:00 - Separation from the status quo is necessary to let go of people and processes that won’t be moving forward with the change. 12:00 - Loss begins with mourning the disappearance of past connections so the team can refocus on the new situation and reinvest in the next cycle of development. KEY PRINCIPLES Principle 1: The clock keeps turning: Cycles are natural for all living things. Moving from stage to stage is the key to growth, even when teams get stuck in predictable places. It’s easy to get stuck in each stage. Consider the reasons teams are likely to get stuck: • Investment: Rebuilding a team is hard work after the depletion of a loss. • Trust: Connection feels good, and it’s hard to sacrifice safety for the risks of innovation. • Innovation: It’s scary to be out on a limb trying something new when the outcome is unknown. • Distancing: Moving away from something familiar and valued exhausts energy. Everyone takes their own time to heal after a loss, disappointment, rejection or failure. Principle 2: Opposites attract: The challenges in each stage of the clock are powerfully influenced by those on the opposite side. Strength on one side creates strength on the other side. Weakness on one side leads to weakness on the other. 1:00 Investment affects 7:00 Innovation which, in turn, affects future investment. 2:00 Testing affects 8:00 Risk which affects future testing. 3:00 Dependence affects 9:00 Independence which affects future dependency. 4:00 Trust affects 10:00 Distancing which affects future trust. 5:00 Cohesion affects 11:00 Separation which affects future cohesion. 6:00 Attachment affects 12:00 Loss which affects future attachment. Consider the examples in your life. The greater the attachment, the greater the loss. The stronger the commitment to dependency, the stronger the platform for independence. The deeper the investment, the more daring the innovation. The more powerful the trust, the more meaningful the goodbye. WHY IT WORKS AND WHY IT’S UNIVERSAL The Team Clock® model has been tested by hundreds of teams in a variety of industries, including global corporate consumer product companies, nationally recognized professional service firms, championship sports teams, leading colleges and universities, and groundbreaking healthcare organizations. People are people. Relationships are relationships. Teams are teams. The recipe for healthy relationships and effective teams is universal: Stage 1: Investment Invest in common goals, healthy norms and constructive conflict. Stage 2: Trust Build trust through accountability, respect and connection. Stage 3: Innovation Harness differences and take smart risks to innovate. Stage 4: Distancing Respond to change by mourning what’s lost and embracing what’s new. This approach works in any industry. The product or service your team creates has the best chance of succeeding when the team is healthy, strong, ambitious and adaptable. Teams are made up of humans. Humans interact in ways that cause struggle. Thus, the value proposition is simple: THE VALUE PROPOSITION By identifying and addressing the obstacles interfering with performance, teams can spend more time focusing on their work and less time on the politics of their workplace. Unchecked organizational politics take away from the team’s performance. The less time and energy consumed by workplace politics, the more focused and engaged employees will be with their job responsibilities. Teams that succeed at this exhibit the most magnetic recruitment, the highest morale, the most productivity, the most creative innovation, the most resilient adaptation to change and the best employee retention. SYMPTOMS OF STRUGGLE The ideal team flows from challenge to challenge, moving over, under, around or through obstacles. Team members understand the purpose of their struggle and keep working on the problem. Because all living things move through predictable cycles, each transition provides an opportunity to get stuck. Whether it’s to re-establish direction, build connection, push growth or manage change, halting the team’s progress is a natural reaction to struggle. The goal is to keep the team moving even when...