Team Up!

How teams get high performance

Google made a study of what makes high performing teams. They concluded that there were five factors.

· Psychological safety - can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed?

· Dependability - can we count on each other to do high quality work on time?

· Structure and clarity - are goals, roles, and execution plans clear?

· Meaning of work - are we working on something that is personally important for each of us?

· Impact of work - do we fundamentally believe that the work we are doing matters?

Holding team members in the blue zone is the key to the first element. In the blue zone we respond with the well-being of the other uppermost. Dependability is the foundation of empowerment, can we count on you, are you accountable? The use of cognitive coaching in its informal mode is a means of empowering others.

The final three elements arise from effective team direction setting and planning the projects and individual actions needed to achieve the goals that will move the team in the right direction. The team-based version of the SMARTER coaching process – TeamSMART – provides a framework for this.

With the blue zone as the foundation, good processes - both one-to-one and one-to-group - build high performance.