Management Summary
Healthy teams are characterised by various factors. These include, for example, the fact that they all trust each other. They all feel safe and have sufficient development opportunities.
To develop a healthy team, I recommend a five-step approach. The starting point for this development can be a team analysis. We compare this with the target image of successful teams. From this comparison, concrete measures can be derived for a more trusting team.
In general, we recommend proceeding in small steps and in a timely manner in order to avoid overburdening the team in its development.
Team culture basics
Characteristics of healthy teams
In my article "Team Development in Medium-Sized Businesses" I explain that healthy teams are characterised by five core factors:
- Everyone is committed with mind and heart to the common goals.
- Each team member has sufficient opportunities for development and growth.
- All team members feel equally seen, heard and valued.
- Everyone trusts each other.
- Everyone feels safe.
The moment one of these factors is not present or only weakly present, collaborative work suffers and the risk of conflicts increases. Therefore, it is worthwhile to regularly look at the situation, take stock and actively work on cooperation.
How can we achieve a trusting relationship within the team?
The tried and tested procedure consists of 5 steps.
APPROACH TEAM DEVELOPMENT
1. Analyse the actual situation
Start your process with an honest stocktaking, e.g. in the form of a team analysis.
2. compare with target image and derive measures
Define what you want to do concretely to achieve the goal you are aiming for.
3. plan resources and define responsibilities
If you want to achieve an improvement in cooperation, you may need a budget. What you certainly need, however, is time to be able to deal with things - if necessary also in the team. It is imperative to plan this time in your calendar.
4. arrange joint review appointments
Discuss in the team the time rhythm and framework in which you will look together at how you are progressing with the implementation of the measures and the development of team culture.
5. formulate how successes are celebrated
Celebrating achievements together is also central to team building. Think about what this could look like.
Let us now look at these steps in detail.
1 | Analyse actual situation
Before you start developing a common vision for your team, we recommend a thorough analysis of the current situation in the context of an anonymous survey. You can either develop the questions together in the team or use our team analysis tool, which gives you within 2 weeks after the end of the survey a meaningful overview of your team's strengths and fields of action and makes concrete suggestions for goal-oriented team-building measures.
If you want to develop the questionnaire yourself, you will get an idea of a minimal questionnaire below, which consists of statements that you can have answered either on a scale, in traffic light colours red, yellow, green or by different smilies. The more granular the assessment options, the more meaningful. We recommend a scale from 1 (hardly applies) to 10 (very much applies).
TEAM ANALYSIS | MINIMAL QUESTIONNAIRE
- I feel comfortable in the team.
- I enjoy my work.
- I appreciate the cooperation with my colleagues.
- My mind and my heart are in it.
- I am valued as a human being.
- I am being heard.
- I like to contribute my ideas proactively, even unfinished ones.
- I am not afraid to address problems openly.
- I am not afraid to criticise or to raise a conflict.
- I trust my team members 100%.
It is important that you guarantee the anonymity of the answers in the Evaluation, but look at both the range of values as well as the average.
Hint:
If the as-is analysis shows that you do not have a stable culture of trust in the team, we strongly recommend that the subsequent process be carried out by an External facilitator. This neutrality makes it possible to address sensitive issues in such a way that trust is not further damaged.
2 | Target/actual comparison and definition of measures
We compare the inventory carried out with the team analysis with the target image of successful teams. On this basis, we recommend specific measures that will lead to more trusting teamwork.
3 | Plan resources and define responsibilities
Experience shows that team development always requires a budget. Depending on how trusting your teamwork already is, the budget may not have to be large at all. What usually plays the greater role is the time budget for individual team members, you as a leader or all together. This time should be spent carefully and with time buffers in mind. Plan directly in the calendar and also actively create scope in day-to-day business for team-related activities and the defined measures.
Specific responsibilities are to be defined for each measure. We recommend that everyone plays a part and thus also takes responsibility for the team-building process and mutual cooperation.
4 | Arrange joint review appointments
"When are we going to look at ourselves as a team again and talk about what has already developed?" is the central question when it comes to arranging review appointments.
5 | Formulate how successes are celebrated
That you are already thinking initially about how you acknowledge achievements together, is crucial to the teambuilding process for several reasons. On the one hand, you thereby secure the motivation to continue, even if it sometimes gets down to the nitty-gritty. On the other hand, the celebration of successes explicitly pays for better teamwork.
In the team analyses we conduct, the statement "We celebrate successes together." is rated below average by more than 90% of the teams.
What practical tips can we give?
We recommend proceeding slowly and in small steps. This will prevent you from overburdening the team or individual team members with too many measures or too tight a schedule. Development will only take place if everyone feels confident enough to get involved in the joint process and the new way of working together.
Therefore, in addition to a clear structure and experience in facilitation, a team development process also needs time. You should take this into account and plan for it.
If you would like us to moderate your team development process or are interested in an in-depth team analysis, please contact us.
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