As a team, do you really know who you are?
Ask a leadership team how well it works and you may well get a confident answer. Ask each team member privately and you can get a completely different picture. On important dimensions of team effectiveness such as purpose, roles, values and dynamics, it is not unusual to see a disparity between the official leadership narrative and the more honest individual perspective.
Why appearance versus reality in teams?
Most investment in team effectiveness goes through leadership: for example, a workshop, a coaching programme, or a series of meetings. All of it rests on the leader’s picture of the team. That picture is the one most likely to be wrong, because it’s formed in the place where people are most wary about what they say.
In a 2009 study of more than 120 top teams, Hackman found that there was a wide and significant disparity of perceptions within teams.
Teams are often led on unchecked assumptions
The gap between perception and reality often shows up in team roles and expectations. A 2016 survey reported by Rigoni and Nelson found that “only about half of all workers strongly indicate that they know what is expected of them at work”. For example, two people each assume the other is following up with the client, so nobody does. In my consulting work, I find conflicts often emerge because of more than one person laying claim to the same role.
In 2012, Google set up a project to find what separated its effective teams from the rest. Five key elements were identified and one of these was Structure and Clarity, meaning whether people understand what is expected of them, how to deliver it, and what their performance leads to. Role structure and clarity are highly subjective and cannot be resolved in an abstract written charter. It is much better done in an engaged process involving the different members of a given team.
People tell the truth when it feels safe to
The obvious fix is to put everyone in a room and talk about how the team is doing. But what people say in that room depends on what they think will happen to them afterwards. This raises the issue of safety.
Amy Edmondson defines psychological safety as “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking”. In a 1999 study, she found that safety was enhanced in a process of sharing information, seeking feedback, asking for help and talking about errors. In the Google study, psychological safety emerged first among the five dynamics that separated effective teams from the rest.
Safety cannot be taken for granted in a team. It is unlikely to occur without positive intention and skilful developmental support.
Reviewing how you work pays off, under the right conditions
There is good evidence that “reflexivity” is a significant part of emotional intelligence.
A 2024 meta-analysis by Leblanc, Harvey and Rousseau found “evidence that team reflexivity facilitates team performance”, and also that leaders who encourage members to take part in discussion and decisions set the stage for it by building psychological safety first.
Our earlier Thornhill piece on after-action reviews made the practical case for regular, structured team reviews. The reflexivity research puts evidence behind that case and adds a condition: the safety has to come first, or the review only skims the surface.
Alex Pentland’s 2012 MIT research points the same way. Using wearable sensors to track how team members interacted, his group found that “the most important predictor of a team’s success was its communication patterns”. Those patterns are hard to see from inside a meeting, which is why teams need some way to look at them from outside.
The team, and the people in it
Our post on coaching from strengths argued that weaknesses are often the shadow side of strengths. For example, it is inevitable that someone with strength in attention to detail will slow a meeting down. Or another who takes initiative can be perceived as “dominating”. If feedback of this nature is given face to face in a meeting, it can easily lose the context of strength in its shadow form, be misinterpreted and lead to a loss of a sense of safety and, in turn, of team effectiveness.
What can be done about this?
Five practical steps follow from the evidence. Collect views anonymously before you discuss them, so the conversation starts from what people genuinely think as opposed to a façade stemming from fear of lack of safety. If roles are part of the problem, ask about them separately from the team’s overall functioning, because a team can be clear on its goals and still confused about who does what. Establish a context that recognises the value of feedback and that all strengths have a disadvantage. Then show everyone the same results at the same time. And end the discussion by honouring respective strengths, then agreeing on actions and naming owners, since a good insight with no owner tends to evaporate by the next meeting.
This is the thinking behind Thornhill’s Team Performance Review. Team members rate the team’s effectiveness on a 7-point scale against aspects such as clear goals, decision-making, feedback and communication. They then indicate which members play each of nine key team roles identified by Thornhill, so the report shows where the team has too many people in a role and where it has a gap. Each person also receives feedback on 18 enabling behaviours and on nine development areas, such as being inflexible or offloading work onto others. No one is rated as good or bad, only as more or less likely to display a behaviour. The individual report goes to that person alone, with a Personal Development Plan template. A recommended, optional two-hour facilitated session helps the team agree on actions to improve team and individual performance, with individual profiles discussed only where authorised. A Team Development Plan template is also provided. This instrument combines feedback on team effectiveness with individual feedback on team roles, enabling behaviours and development areas.
When the question is how the team as a whole is doing, the Team Effectiveness Survey is often the better fit. The 20-item questionnaire takes about 10 minutes to complete and gives feedback on the team only. It can be followed by a recommended, optional two-hour facilitated team discussion. Because no individual is singled out, it can feel less threatening. It can be run in advance or in the room, and the chart can be projected during the discussion so everyone looks at the same picture. A Team Development Plan template and a template for supporting individual members’ development are included. If individual feedback is wanted later, it can be paired with a Thornhill 360°.
Either way, the starting point is the same: find out what the team sees before deciding what it needs. To talk through which option suits your team, or for more information on Thornhill’s various products and services for all levels within your organisation, please contact us on admin@thornhill.co.za.