245: Elements of Team Effectiveness with Dave Gloss
The Modern Manager
What Is Team Effectiveness?
David Perry: I'm really looking forward to this conversation. We're going to talk about team effectiveness. It's not team building, though team building is a major part of it. Like you need those connections. You need that time either in space or virtually to connect as humans and learn about each other.
Teams are the backbone of organizations. When functioning well, team members feel a sense of belonging, while maximizing their collective resources and skills to accomplish the organizations’ goals. In addition, effective teams will enable organizations to become more efficient and productive. Therefore, the leader of every team must ask: Is my team performing effectively? If not, where do they need to improve, and how can I guide them to success?
Today’s guest is Dave Gloss. Dave is the Head of Team Effectiveness at AIIR Consulting, leading a global practice dedicated to building high-performing and inclusive company cultures. As an expert Team Consultant, Dave has worked with hundreds of Senior Leadership Teams to assess their companies and identify the root causes of underperformance and low engagement. As such, he is the go-to partner when you need to integrate cultures following complex mergers & acquisitions, design thriving hybrid workforces and cascade new "ways of working" across your teams.
Dave and I talk about team effectiveness - what it is, the components of what makes for strong team performance, how you can use operating principles to help your team more quickly adopt better behaviors and so much more.
Members of the Modern Manager community get access to 2 bonuses this week. The first is a free assessment: AIIR Team Effectiveness Survey. This assessment will help you get a better understanding of your team’s strengths, weaknesses, and ways of working. The second bonus is 50% off the AIIR Team Effectiveness Certification, where you will learn to quickly diagnose the root causes of any team challenge. Get these when you join the Modern Manager community.
Get FREE mini-sketchnotes with the big idea from the week’s episode delivered to your inbox when you subscribe to my weekly email.
Read the related blog article: How to Improve Your Team’s Effectiveness
KEEP UP WITH DAVE
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidkgloss/
Website: https://aiirconsulting.com/
Key Takeaways:
- Team Productivity + Team Culture = Team Performance.
- Team productivity measures how efficiently and effectively the team gets work done.
- Team culture measures how team members interact and relate to one another.
- Team performance is a team’s ability to maximize its potential and fulfill its purpose.
- Strong culture + high productivity = high performing team. Strong culture + low productivity = comfortable (but not as effective) team. Weak culture + high productivity = a team with high turnover and burnout.
- There are six components to team performance, three in each category of productivity and culture.
- Teams need shared clarity and alignment on why they specifically exist. This sets the stage for everything else.
- To build a stronger culture, consider goals of trust and belonging before strategy and tactics (events).
- Get collective and individual feedback via assessments to see how everyone feels about the team’s effectiveness. Often there isn’t a shared experience across the board.
- Include personality assessments to gain insight into why things might not be working. Boil insights from assessments into manageable, actionable steps.
- Create shared shorthand language - terms or phrases - to disrupt old, ineffective ways of working and quickly shift into more productive habits.
- Clarity of purpose and culture will build a strong foundation for when team dynamics shift after losing/adding people.
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