Teamwork Matters The Synergy Illusion - Five Components of an Effective Team

Dr John Kenworthy

There's a mistaken belief that synergy is lost when someone is different.

The truth is, we're all different to begin with.

Teamwork Matters

2 | P a g e

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Contents

Teamwork Matters! ......................................................................................... 4

But what is an effective team? .......................................................................... 4

The Five components of an effective team .......................................................... 5

Shared Values ............................................................................................. 6

Clear Command Instruction ........................................................................... 6

Shared Experience ....................................................................................... 8

Shared Situational Awareness ........................................................................ 9

Communication .......................................................................................... 10

Team dysfunctions and issues ........................................................................ 11

Diagnosing the Issues in the team ................................................................ 11

What does the leader need to do? ................................................................... 12

Teamwork Matters

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Teamwork Matters!

Organizations accomplish what they do because of teamwork. Whether you are in

business, sport, education, the church and even marriage – teamwork is what paves

the way to success. What a leader can do with a great team far surpasses anything

they can accomplish alone. As a leader learns how to unite the right people around a

shared vision, their influence truly begins to take off.

One is too small a number to achieve greatness. Dr John C Maxwell

According to Dr. John C. Maxwell in his book, The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, the 1st

Law of Teamwork is The Law of Significance:

One is too small a number to achieve greatness. Leaders who fail to promote teamwork

undermine their own potential and erode the best efforts of the people with whom

they work. To accomplish anything significant, leaders must learn to link up with

others.

Recently I began working with a very successful businessman. In our first session,

he proudly informed me that he was a "self-made man". He was rather taken aback

when I appeared unimpressed. After all, this man is successful and rich. I

responded, "That's too bad. Imagine just how much you could have achieved with a

great team."

The reality, of course, is that no-one is truly self-made. We may not have been

gifted our businesses by our parents, but they have played a part in making you.

Your education may have been cut short or even, not especially good, but your

teachers did impart something. For a few of my clients, what they perceive as being

negative in their lives is actually the turning point for their success.

A leader's job is to develop the team so that the team is effective?

But what is an effective team? There are probably as many definitions of an effective team as there are teams. But

there does seem to be a commonality and this, I believe, distills to:

An effective team has unity of cohesion and effort

towards a common goal.

Copyright © 2015 Dr John Kenworthy – All Rights Reserved - www.celsim.com P a g e | 5

The Five components of an effective team

The Five components of effective teams are integrated and together create

this thing we call "synergy".

These five elements stem from research undertaken largely by the US Military (in

particular, post-Gulf War I, when the number of "friendly fire" incidents became

unacceptable).

Only when all five components are present in a team is there the potential for true

unity of cohesion and effort.

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Shared Values Shared values define the team. Without shared values, everyone on the team has a

different opinion about what's important. Values put people on the same page. Just

as personal values influence and guide an individual's behaviour, organizational

values set the standard for a team's performance.

Too often, the values of a team are prepared by a marketing consultant, discussed

and pasted on walls. Yet these are not the underlying true values of the individual's

within the team. Rarely does one see a team's values statement include payment for

their contribution, nor do we often see values pertaining to providing a safe and

secure home for our families.

When we ask our clients why they work, the number 1 response is unsurprisingly,

money. Joint second is providing for a family home and education for children; third

is God.

I liken shared values to the image of an iceberg.

The 10% above the water is what we see the

values that a person or the team holds – it

represents the behaviours that are manifest.

The 90% below the water is the character of the

individual or team – which is defined by the

values that the team members hold.

It's the 90% below the surface that sinks the

ship.

The leader who neglects the real shared values

of the team may find that the team:

Stagnates or fails to grow

Avoids obstacles

Loses achievement-oriented employees

Encourages team members to focus on their own careers and individual goals

Is easily distracted

What are the key shared values in your team?

The visible aspect of leadership is just 10% of

the whole. What sinks leaders is the 90 % below the surface.

Copyright © 2015 Dr John Kenworthy – All Rights Reserved - www.celsim.com P a g e | 7

Clear Command Instruction Clear command instruction gives team

members direction and confidence. If you

lead your team, then you are responsible

for identifying a worthy and compelling

vision and articulating it to the team.

People continually need to be shown the

team's compass clearly and creatively so

that their actions align, and they stay

motivated by a captivating picture of the

future.

Clear command instruction gives

team members direction and

confidence

Each team member should be able to

make decisions readily and rapidly based

on the clarity of the command instruction.

Clarity is essential. Often we see the use of delightful, yet nebulous words used to

describe the goal and provide the direction. The word excellence (or excellent) is

one example. Like values statements, the intentions are good, but what does

excellence mean? We each have our own definition, all perfectly valid, of what

excellence means.

In "Made to Stick", the Heath Brothers refer to this as 'Commanders Intent' and

recommend that leaders strip down the goal to the core message. The Combat

Maneuver Training Centre, the unit in charge of military simulations in the US

recommends that officers arrive at the Commander's Intent by asking themselves

two questions:

1. If we do nothing else during tomorrow's mission we must

__________________.

2. The single most important thing that we do tomorrow is

__________________.

In this way, any team member who faces a decision can make that decision in line

with the command instruction.

Establishing this takes time. Sometimes it is easy – when there are specific

standards laid down by an industry body such as a Ministry of Health, the Inland

Revenue or a professional body – then the goal of achieving those standards makes

command instruction comparatively straightforward:

Clarity about the direction the team should take is critical, yet so often it is unclear... if it is known at all.

Teamwork Matters

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Achieve these standards.

But what happens once those standards are met? The leader then needs to create

the new standards and articulate these to the team. And like any goal you want to

achieve it has to be SMART, sensory and compelling, and, of course, it must satisfy

the values.

Leaders who are unable to articulate clarity of command instruction often find that

the team fails to commit and:

This creates ambiguity among the team about direction and priorities

Team member's watch windows of opportunity close due to excessive analysis

and unnecessary delay

It also breeds lack of confidence and fear of failure

Team's revisit discussions and decisions again and again

And also encourages second-guessing among team members

Shared Experience Having clarity of direction that will

satisfy shared values is only the

beginning of effectiveness for the team.

Shared experienced is the 'how the team

will do this'. What skills and knowledge

are needed to achieve this?

Teams are, of course, filled with

individuals. And each individual brings

with them their own set of skills,

knowledge and abilities. And all players in

a team have a place where they add the most

value. Winning teams require more than

the right people. You may have a group

of talented individuals, but if each

person is out of position, then the team

won't reach its potential.

Leading a successful team involves putting people in spots where they can excel.

The leader can think of team members as resources and fill the spots like playing

checkers, or the leader can recognize the particular strengths and abilities of each

individual. Using their strengths work together as a team – like a chess player.

When the leader fails to use the right strengths and abilities…

This creates resentment among team members who have different standards

of performance

Encourages mediocrity

The team misses deadlines and key deliverables

And places an undue burden on the team leader as the sole source of

discipline

It's all well and good to have a goal,

but how do we do this? This is when shred experience comes into play.

Copyright © 2015 Dr John Kenworthy – All Rights Reserved - www.celsim.com P a g e | 9

Shared Situational Awareness The most neglected component, of developing

effective teams, is shared situational

awareness.

Shared Situational Awareness is when all team

members' continuous perceptions of

themselves and their peers in relation to the

dynamic environment of business, competition,

goals and the ability to predict, and then

execute based on shared perception.

This is often neglected because it is so difficult

to pin down. And the moment that you do pin

down that you are fully aware of the current situation, the situation has already

changed. Further, in circumstances where an individual's situational awareness is

well developed, much of the processing is unconscious.

Take, for example, driving a vehicle:

When you first learned to drive you were acutely aware of the very many things that

required your attention. All of which had an impact or potential impact on your

response? You have to steer, change gear, accelerate, break, and watch what is

behind you, beside you, in front of you. You have to predict the behaviour of every

other road user and make decisions based on a common set of rules. All on the

basis of trust. Trust that the other road users will obey the rules, trust that the

brake pedal will work, and trust in your own judgment call about what each other

road user will or will not do.

Now imagine attempting to instruct another person remotely how to do

that, in real time.

You would need to know that person's knowledge and experience, where they were,

what vehicle they were driving and all the other information. Impossible.

To enable this to work, the leader and each team member needs to be sure that

every team member will perform their role effectively and how each will respond to

given, known (and unknown) situations (following the command instruction based

on known shared values using their known abilities and experience). It also means

that team members look out for each other in the interests of the team.

When shared situational awareness is poor, teams: Conceal their weaknesses and mistakes from one another

Hesitate to ask for help or provide constructive feedback

Hesitate to offer help outside their own areas of responsibility

Jump to conclusions about the intentions and aptitudes of others without

attempting to clarify them

Fail to recognize and tap into one another's skills and experiences

Waste time and energy managing their behaviours for effect

Hold grudges

Shared situational awareness is

something you experience every day driving in heavy traffic. But

not everyone behaves rationally

Teamwork Matters

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Dread meetings and find reasons to avoid spending time together

Communication The fifth component of an effective team is in their communications. Communication

brings to light disagreements so that teammates can hammer out their differences

and move forward in unison. Communication also spreads information, which

eliminates redundancies and prevents teammates from working at cross‐purposes.

Communication within the team must continuously reinforce and support each of the

other four components. Openly and candidly.

And critically, communication is the

response you get. If a team member does

not understand what their teammate is

saying, the teammate is responsible for

getting their message across.

The culture within the team is created,

reinforced or undermined by the

communication within the team. Consider

communication as a family virus. The virus

spreads rapidly and easily because the

family stays close together and has

members who are similar. The more

virulent the virus, the quicker it spreads…

and for communication, nothing spreads

faster than gossip, cynicism and untruths. A wise leader ensures that they inoculate

every team member with their chosen contagion that supports the desired team

culture and prevents the spread of any malicious or damaging chatter.

Teams that have poor communication:

Have boring meetings

Create environments where back-channel politics and personal attacks thrive

Ignore controversial topics that are critical to team success

Fail to tap into all the opinions and perspectives of team members

Waste time and energy with posturing and interpersonal risk management

Without effective communications, none of the rest matter

Copyright © 2015 Dr John Kenworthy – All Rights Reserved - www.celsim.com P a g e | 11

Team dysfunctions and issues

In our work with hundreds of work

teams, we have found that the

lack of Shared Situational

Awareness is always the number

one cause of issues in teams. Even

in teams that are high performing.

It is most often manifest in the

apparent lack of trust in the team.

Lack of trust is the fruit of

behaviours that good SSA would

overcome.

The second dysfunction of teams is communication – often brought about because

of a lack of shared situational awareness or, as most people think of it, trust.

Clarity of command instruction is

most often the third issue teams

face though in competitive

business organizations the third

issue is frequently shared

values.

Diagnosing the Issues in the

team In our work and research with

organization teams across

industries and across the globe

we have identified the symptoms

of team dysfunction and how

frequently each occur within a

team. By surveying team

members, we have been able to

identify the frequency of

dysfunction symptoms and

thereby identify the key

component issue.

Data collected from 582 teams between Jan 2008 and June 2011 in South East

Asia organisations. Shared Situational Awareness was the #1 problem, with communications coming in second

Data from 582 teams, showing number of symptoms in each team for each component

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What does the leader need to do?

Law 4 in John Maxwell's 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork is the Law of Mount Everest

As the challenge escalates, the need for teamwork elevates. As the journey grows in

difficulty, you can no longer cruise along with ordinary talent and average

cooperation. To climb past the obstacles to your dream, you need to have a team of

peak performers working in unison and clicking on all cylinders.

If your team is facing challenges or you want it to perform better, then the first task

is to recognize that it is your responsibility as the leader. It is not the team

members' responsibility nor is it an external consultant's responsibility to "fix" the

team. It starts with you.

Use this chart to identify the key symptoms of ineffectiveness your team

exhibits and thus which is the critical component that needs work as a priority. There’s a larger version of this on the next page for you to use.

In each area, there are common key symptoms. This is not meant to be an

exhaustive list, just an overview of the top and most frequently uncovered issues in

our work with teams:

Observe the symptoms of dysfunction that may be present and raise each issue with

the whole team. Now is the time you can ask the team to help you fix the issues.

Knowing your goals, having the right experience and resources and working together

towards satisfying shared values are well known to be important for effective team

performance. Shared Situational Awareness and clear communication though is the glue

for teams: How you understand my context and situation, and we adapt to each new

situation as it arises - collaborating to gain those synergies everyone promises. And

the key to SSA is open and candid communication.

Copyright © 2015 Dr John Kenworthy – All Rights Reserved - www.celsim.com P a g e | 13

Teamwork Matters

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If you haven’t gone through the exercises yet, go back and do it now. Remember

that applying best practices with discipline and consistency, even if the actual steps

seem trite or obvious, is what leads to results.

Thanks so much for reading this guide – if you have any feedback or comments you

can reach me at john.kenworthy@celsim.com.

Don’t settle,

John and the GAPPS team

To learn more about our

Talent Management and

Coaching programmes, visit

us at www.celsim.com

Copyright © 2015 Dr John Kenworthy – All Rights Reserved - www.celsim.com P a g e | 15

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