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< Dumb Like Einstein, and Another Important Heresy

The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us >

Making Teams Work

January 5th, 2014 at 8:58 am star

Happy teams are productive teams, right?

Wrong.

In an interview with the Harvard Business Review ("Why Teams Don't Work," May 2009) organizational psychologist and teamwork expert J. Richard Hackman upends this popular misconception:

People generally think that [harmonious] teams... are better and more productive. But in a study we conducted..., we actually found [that] the cause-and-effect is the reverse of what most people believe: When we're productive and we've done something good together (and are recognized for it), we feel satisfied, not the other way around.

Happy members don't make teams productive. Instead, collective productivity makes team members happy.

So cancel the big pizza kick-off party and crack the whip, right? Bring the project hammer down. Drill every detail of the team's to-do list into each of their heads. Leave everyone with no doubt about what's expected of them and who's in charge. Meet daily to make sure everybody's doing what they're told, right?

Wrong again.

Except for a narrow range of tasks that require a militarily precise situational response, you can't "drill" productivity into people. Instead, productive teams organize and engage themselves around the answers to three basic human questions:

"Who am I?" Which tasks naturally motivate me? Which drain me? What are my unique strengths? What kinds of situations stress me out? How do I react when I'm under pressure? Will I be recognized for my efforts on behalf of the team?
"Who Are You?" Can I trust you? Are we competing for the same things? Do you respect me? Are we speaking the same language?
"Who Are We?" What are we working on together? What roles am I expected to play? Who will benefit from our work? Who's in charge here?

Our experience with Onward's Team Performance Workout has proven to us over and over again that, in order to work productively together, people need to come to terms with these questions. The answers empower and motivate the members of a team to understand, trust, and cooperate with each other. They inoculate teams against the all-too-common symptoms of underperformance: silo thinking, cognitive bias, and passive-aggressive behavior. Without them, a team's key players will free-lance their own, private, off-target agendas. Cliques will form. Rumors will spread and gossip will abound. And befuddled team leaders will be left wondering how everyone could be so busy while nothing ever seems to get done.

.On their own, a team can take months to get to know themselves and each other well enough to cooperate effectively. All too often they just never "get it." In just a few hours, however, a structured learning experience like our Team Performance Workout can produce the kind of communal insights that can pivot a crew quickly from merely being busy to actually producing results. Here's how.

Understanding and Improving Team Behavior

As they work individually, people unconsciously slot themselves into "comfort zones" of workplace activity. They adapt their behavior to their subjective perception of a workplace that won't threaten them or stress them out. Result: An individual contributor whose day-to-day activities will be self-serving rather than aligned with the team's goals.

As they work together on a team, people reflexively form subjective, inaccurate impressions about each other. They may perceive threat in a peer's raised voice. They may feel unfairly treated by a leader who seems to smile and joke comfortably with some of their teammates but rarely with them. Result: team members whose interactions with their peers will be aimed at minimizing their personal perception of threat and stress rather than cooperating on accomplishing shared objectives.

Solution: Level the playing field. Give everyone a simple, common behavioral frame of reference for understanding themselves and each other.

Leveling the Playing Field

In our Team Performance Workout, we use a simple, cost-efficient assessment based on the well-known DISC behavioral model, coupled with a one-hour, personalized coaching session, to level the playing field for a team.

Regardless of their seniority, technical expertise, or position in the organization, nobody ever wins or loses on this behavioral field of play. Based on their personal behavioral style, everyone has unique talents they can choose to contribute, as well as challenges they can work to overcome. In this exercise, where everyone's equal, each individual team member feels safe enough to invest the kind of mutual empathy and respect that can really pay off later in improved team performance.

You can approximate this insightful experience with your team by using the DISC system's four behavioral styles (click to enlarge the image):

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Four Basic Behavioral Styles

Some of your team members (based on years of DISC research, about 12% of the worldwide population) will express D, or "Dominant," behavioral traits. Like "Captain Kirk" in the original Star Trek TV Series, they'll push for results and stress the importance of meeting deadlines. At the same time, they may also appear to some as rudely critical, hurried, cold, and unreasonably demanding over-simplifiers. Here are a few well-known examples of the D behavioral style: Simon Cowell, Hillary Clinton, Tyra Banks, and J. R. Ewing of Dallas.

Others (about 32%) will exhibit I, or "Influencing," behavior. Like "Dr. McCoy" in Star Trek, they'll enthusiastically offer ideas and alternatives, take the lead in meetings, and draw engaging pictures and diagrams on the whiteboard to make their points. To some, they may appear as erratic, overly excitable, animated, and chatty populists. Other well-known examples of the I behavioral style: Bill Clinton, Will Smith, and Jim Carrey.

Some of your team members (about 30%) will show S, or "Steadiness," behavioral traits. Like "Mr. Scott" in Star Trek, they'll answer questions calmly, engender mutual trust and harmony, and focus on getting to the bottom of one issue at a time. To some, they may appear as rigid, stubborn traditionalists. Well-known S style examples: Princess Diana, Mahatma Gandhi, and Bobby Ewing of Dallas.

Finally, some of the members of your team (about 26%) will exhibit C, or "Conscientious," behavior. Like "Mr. Spock" in Star Trek, they'll be analytical and thorough in their work, speak deliberately, precisely and carefully in concrete terms rather than abstractions, and continually improve their knowledge in particular specialty areas. To some, they may appear to be overly hesitant, prone to giving wordy lectures, and likely to become lost in the details of a situation. Other C style examples include: Al Gore, Richard Nixon, Bjorn "Iceberg" Borg, and Keanu Reeves.

"Who Am I?"

Read the descriptions in the following table. Which quadrant most describes you? Which quadrant feels least like you?

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Characteristics of the Four Basic DISC Behavioral Styles

As you pick the style that feels most like you, you're identifying your adaptive behavioral style, the style you display at work. Feel most like a "Captain Kirk?" You have a good chance of looking like a D to the people you work with. Adaptive behavior is learned and, based on the expectations of your career and workplace, tends to change over time.

On the other hand, when you pick the style that least feels like you, you're revealing your natural behavioral style. If, for example, you feel least like a "Mr. Spock," look diagonally across at the opposite DISC quadrant to find your natural style, which in this case would be I. Innate and instinctive, natural styles tend to remain stable over time.

Draw circles on the grid to denote your natural and adapted behavioral styles. Write an "N" in your Natural style's circle, an "A" in your Adapted style's circle, and draw an arrow pointing from your N to your A. Your arrow figuratively represents the behavioral transformation you make during your commute to work every day.

Natural and Adaptive Styles and the Perception of Stress

In general, people whose N and A behavioral styles are in the same DISC quadrant tend to experience less stress than those whose N and A are in different quadrants. People whose N and A behavioral styles are in diagonally opposite quadrants have the longest arrows and, in general, report experiencing the most stress at work.

Take "Joe," for example:

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Natural and Adaptive Styles Plotted on the DISC Behavioral Playing Field

Joe feels as though the "I" behavioral style ("Dr. McCoy") is least like him, which identifies him as Naturally Conscientious. On the other hand, he relates most to the "D" behavioral style ("Captain Kirk"), which identifies Dominance as his Adaptive workplace behavior.

So, who's Joe? Joe is a naturally analytical person, attentive to details and valuing precision. However, at work, Joe feels some pressure to be less diligent and line-item-oriented, and more assertive and bottom-line oriented.

Joe's experience, job skills, seniority and position in the company, physical condition, family situation -- all of these factors combine to make Joe unique, one of a kind. Yet, on our our level DISC playing field, he's no different from anyone else.

"Who Are You?"

Keep populating your level playing field. Plot everyone on your team on the same DISC behavioral "map:"

_________
The Team's Styles, Plotted on the Same Playing Field

Bill, who feels like he's a "Mr. Scott" type of guy but not at all like a "Captain Kirk," is therefore both Naturally and Adaptively a tradition-respecting and harmony-seeking S.

Liz is a Natural D (not like a "Mr. Scott") who adapts toward I (like a "Dr. McCoy") at work by becoming less assertive and more expressive and outgoing.

Jane is a Natural S who, like Joe, feels pressured (but somewhat more so, as her longer arrow suggests) to become somewhat less friendly and social at work, and more demanding and goal-focused.

What Motivates Us? What Stresses Us Out?

Equipped with this insightful understanding of ourselves and each other, we can become more effective individually by volunteering for the team tasks that naturally excite and motivate us. To build supportive relationships with our teammates, we can learn to communicate with each other in a way that expresses respect rather than disdain:

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Motivators and Stressors Associated With the Four Behavioral Styles

"Who Are We?"

Each of the four behavioral styles is suited to its own unique class of project tasks, and each is especially suited to playing a role at one or more phases (inception, elaboration, construction, and transition) of a project's lifecycle.

People with a D style, for example, can comfortably organize and schedule the team's activities, articulate its goals, and push for results. The D behavioral style works especially well during the later (construction and transition) phases of a project's lifecycle.

Team members with an I style are natural explorers and adept at developing and sustaining the support of the team's customers and stakeholders. Their style tends to work well in the early (inception and elaboration) phases of a project, and can help ensure acceptance and success during the final (transition) phase.

S-Style team members push for team harmony and steady progress. Their contributions are particularly valuable during the intermediate (construction) project phase, or whenever it's important to pay particular attention to developing and maintaining positive customer relationships.

A team's C-Style contributors won't miss a trick. Compulsive t-crossers and i-dotters, they'll build a strong case and help write a solid proposal in the early (inception) stages of a project, although it might take a D to push them to finish it and get it out the door. They can also be counted on to maintain measurably high standards of quality throughout every phase of a project.

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Typical Behavioral Targets

Setting and Reaching the Team's Target

So, what will it take to get the job done? Knowing its strengths and weaknesses, a team's leadership can set a team target by identifying the behavioral style they believe to be best suited to accomplishing the team's goals. With that target in mind, each team member can commit to a Behavioral Action Plan: a list of conscious adaptations that they intend to make in order to move their behavior out of their subjective personal comfort zone and better align it with the team's objective goals.

For example:

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Examples of Behavioral Action Plans

By committing to "Listen carefully and actively use what I hear in my next sentence," Joe is promising to "dial down" his C tendency to "know it all" and listen to others without judging. Most important, he'll be demonstrating this adjustment by consciously incorporating some form of what he hears, whether or not he agrees with it, in the very next thing he says.

Liz is committing to throttle back her D and increase her S by catching herself before submitting to her impulse to criticize others, especially in a public forum.

Jane has committed to catch and stop her reflexive impulse to engage Liz competitively, to "choose her battles." As she and Liz both work to control their expressions of D behavior, their relationship on the team will become less competitive and more cooperative.

Ultimately, as the members of the team stick to keeping their commitments, their Adjusted behaviors will shift toward the target set by the their leaders:

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Objectively vs. Subjectively Adapted Behavior

Joe, Liz, Bill, and Jane always have been and always will be uniquely talented, experienced, special individuals.

Now that they've been equipped with a deeper understanding of what motivates and stresses them, have a common basis for understanding and expressing respect and support for each other, and are consciously aware of the direction in which to adapt their behavior to accomplish their shared goals, Joe, Liz, Bill, and Jane have become a team.

The Real World is More Complex

In practice, there are many more than the four basic behavioral styles. DISC theory takes into account that most people exhibit combinations of two or three basic behavioral styles. The "Mr. Spock" character, for example, is clearly an analytical "C," but he's also an imposing, Dominant figure. "Captain Kirk" is undoubtedly the guy who gives the orders on the ship ("D"), but he's just as likely to charm someone into giving him what he wants.

_________
Objectively vs. Subjectively Adapted Behavior

The Extended DISC® instrument we use in our Team Performance Workout takes such nuances into account. It recognizing 160 different behavioral style combinations, representing team members' Natural and Adaptive styles, along with one or more team targets set by the team's leaders, on a multi-faceted DISC grid.

Learn More About Onward's Team Performance Workout

Contact acini@onwardeducation.com (609)238-5070, or call Onward at 1-800-830-1396 for more information or to arrange a webinar presentation.

Resources available on the web:

Posted in Managers by Al Cini

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