Lessons from Mars

In this final episode, I summarize all of what I covered in the preceding 26 episodes and discuss the resources available to listeners.

All teams attempting to enhance their performance must deal with trust. There are lots of theories about what trust is, why it matters and how to develop it. There are also countless exercises and activities designed to build trust. Most of these theories and approaches assume that trust is the key to effective teamwork, a necessary precursor. Our research led me to believe is that trust is an outcome, not a prerequisite. This difference it crucial for understanding how to approach trust in teams.

The key to this framework are the insights and theories that lie behind it. The name of the Imperatives and Practices are just labels; we encourage you to adapt this Framework to your organization and culture.

Great teams don't just conduct their business. willy-nilly. They align their collaborative processes, like meetings and decision making, to support the value they've agreed to deliver. For instance, they figure out what meetings are essential to getting their work done and then schedule only those meetings. Any team can hit its stride one or twice. Superior teams have a discipline of reflection, inquiry and learning that sustain their success over time.

Once a team knows why its collaboration matters and what work will deliver on their purpose they can begin to cultivate the relationships and commitments needed to deliver.

Once a team understands the context it's operating in, it needs to figure out how its collaboration can create the greatest value for the organization. A team's purpose captures that value proposition and provides a "why" for their collaboration. Understanding "why" a team's collaboration matters is a good start but it isn't enough. The next practice helps teams to figure out exactly what work requires collaboration, and which doesn't, and how their work will deliver on their purpose statement.

Strong teams begin with a clear sense of how they fit into the larger organization, they know what's expected of them to deliver value to external stakeholders.

Even with all the Clarity and Intentionality in the world, collaboration will sputter without sufficient and appropriate discipline.

Intentionality is the critical element in effective teamwork. It begins with Clarity and relies on specific efforts and practices to deepen and extend it.

To create intentional collaboration you begin with creating crystal clarity about why collaboration matters.

Getting teamwork right means paying attention to three key areas, what we call The Three Imperatives of High Performance Collaboration.

Consultants will tell you that there are teams, and there are groups and that the two are different. Don't worry about whether your group is a "real team" or not. Instead, focus on what requires collaboration and what doesn't.

Collaboration can be though of as having several levels or degrees. There are five in particular that are worth understanding to help your team understand how it wants to spend its time.

People who work with teams will often talk about dysfunction and how to help groups with it. The trust is that more team dysfucntion is actually based on individual behavior.

Stop your efforts at building so-called team spirit. What builds real team esprit de corps, what fosters team identity and releases collaborative energy is learning together.

Tuckman's Four Stages are based on research that is no longer relevant especially in the workplace. For instance, the assumption of linear development is useless. Nothing in business these days moves in straight lines.

Trust is one element of effective teamwork but building trust isn't where effective teamwork begins. Despite this, teams and team facilitators continue to treat trust as a necessary precursor to team effectiveness.

Shared goals are considered essential to teamwork. They matter but they don't drive collaboration. In fact they drive more individual effort. It's shared work that is the key to unlocking intentional collaboration

Most of what passes for teamwork in the workplace is helpfulness. Teamwork is seen as being willing to support your fellow employees when needed, to be supportive. That's great, but great teamwork is less reactive and more proactive. It is intentional.

The commonly accepted models for team effectiveness have out-lived their effectiveness. Why? They were developed in a different time, when the work place was different from today. There are important shifts that have taken place in the past 60 years that have to be accounted for in how we work with teams.

My work at Mars, Incorporated had a profound effect on how I think about and work with teams. Understanding the role that this privately held, quirky company had on my thinking and practice is worth understanding.

I am on a mission to humanize the workplace. Improving collaboration, helping people connect with people in productive and meaningful ways is the point, it's why I do what I do. What I hope you'll take away from these podcasts is a series of ideas and tools that you can apply in your work with leaders and groups to make the changes that you want to see in the world.