Teams That Team - Align to Achieve

In my most recent newsletters, I shared the three most significant shifts teams made to transition to become more high-performing teams and flourish:

1. They discovered their power of purpose.

2. They made it safer by being braver.

3. They teamed to learn (rather than learnt to team)

The fourth most impactful shift teams made was to align to achieve. Teams flounder because they plagued by misalignment – they’re misaligned on their mandate, purpose and ways of working. Most of all they misaligned on what they are teaming to achieve. Teams exist to achieve what no individual nor group can.

In the absence of alignment of their team’s collective goals, team members naturally default their time, energy and attention on their own KPI’s – what they feel they can control, influence and accomplish. They each strive in their silo.

Teams that transitioned to flourish, aligned on 3 critical areas:

1. Collective goals – they aligned on what the team exists to achieve that no individual member nor group, can. They aligned to the collective goals that each held themselves and each other accountable for and could only achieve working, interdependently.

2. Measures of progress – rather than focus on the end result as their measure of success, they focused on the progress they made towards achieving the result. Continuous progress energises and drives momentum.

3. Individual responsibilities – for each of the team’s collective goals, each team member identified and shared their responses to these 4 questions:

Over the next 6 months, what 3 initiatives do I have to drive to enable us, as a FLT, to achieve the goal?

• Which team members and others do I need to work with to enable me to achieve each initiative?

• What needs to be true for me to achieve what I need to do?

• If we failed to achieve this goal, why would we and what are the consequences?

INVITATION

First, invite the team to each identify and align on the 4-6 collective goals, over the next 12 months, the team will hold themselves and each other accountable for and can only be achieved working interdependently.

Second, invite each team member to answer the 4 questions above, for each of the team’s collective goals.

Third, together, get to it!

May you flourish.