How can you improve your team’s performance?
Recently, I did a training workshop for staff of the Cherokee Nation on Teamwork. Many of their questions centered around this question, and I suggested:
“You might think about starting with an assessment.”
You can keep it simple and take fifteen minutes at the end of your next staff or Board meeting to ask:
*What’s are we doing as a team that’s working well?
*What’s not working?
*How can we do to make what’s not working, work?
Or you can get more formal. My favorite book on teamwork is Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, which you can read more about in this blog. At the end of the book he has a fifteen question assessment. Here is a sample. If you like these then you can get the book and use the assessment with your team:
*Team members are passionate and unguarded in their discussion of issues.
*Team members quickly and genuinely apologize to one another when they say or do something inappropriate or possibly damaging to the team.
*Team meetings are compelling, and not boring.
*Team members leave meetings confident that their peers are completely committed to the decisions that were agreed on, even if there was initial disagreement.
*During team meetings, the most important—and difficult—issues are put on the table to be resolved.
*Team members end discussions with clear and specific resolutions and calls to action.
*Team members are slow to seek credit for their own contributions, but quick to point out those of others.
Developing a high performing team is easier said than done. Using an assessment can help you build – and maintain – high performance. It takes continual attention, but improving your team’s performance can improve your Mission Impact.
