High Performing Teams — Insights

HKU MBA Course 1

* There is a difference between a Team and a Group

Group:- People feel obliged to contribute; trust is not essential, lack of inter-dependency between each other. Most of them are individual contributors.

Team:- This is where members choose to participate and collaborate. They take shared responsibilities. Trust is essential, and they realize the power and influence individuals bring to the team. Everyone is a hero in the organization. They diverge in thinking and come together to make a collective decision.

*4 Stages of Team Development:

Forming: This is where members are learning about each other.

Storming: Frictions, the difference of opinions, and a clash of egos.

Norming: The team overcomes all the challenges.

Preforming: Start generating results.

*Principles of High-Performance Teams:

Participative leadership is on the top of the Pyramid and the last principle because if the foundations of the other guides are strong, you will have a self-functional team.

*Future of Work during and post Pandemic

1. It will is tech-based and non-linear

2. Due to covid lot of innovations have accelerated at a drastic phase

3. It will be brain-based work.

4. The global pandemic has pushed us to a VUCA state. Which stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous. We must be good at decision-making.

5. Work will be more human center; Live Science is bleeding into organizations.

6. We need a great combination of High Tech + High Touch: High-Tech brings in Digital, Automation, Data Analysis, and High Touch beings in Empathy, Creativity, Purpose, Intuition.

7. AI will not replace humans; it will replace jobs that people didn’t want to do in the first place.

8. Read Corporate Rebels Blog

9. HAIER is an excellent corporate example of how they changed their organizational mindset and saw great success.

*The 5 keys to a successful Google team

1. You cant get high performance without Psychological Safety

2. Collaboration is your motivation to work with others. It is a lot different than coordination & cooperation.

3. The best way to participate in the team is to accept challenges, share ideas, ask questions and be ready to experiences.

4. Competition within the team does not motivate people; it creates distrust and breeds ego.

5. How we describe our job depends on us? You can say I do this and that or say I save or change the life of people.

6. Avoid using the words efficient, productive, effective — we are not machines to measure them in these terms; use more human words.

7. In the team, while discussing use the word “They” instead of “Her” or “He.”

*8 Habits of Progressive Workplaces

1. Purpose: Let people feel that they are part of a meaningful journey that will give them the purpose of waking up and coming to the office daily.

2. Teams Network: Get over the Pyramid Structure and let teams have equal skin in the game and work in an agile network of teams.

3. Supportive leadership: Leaders have to walk the talk and be role modes

4. Adapt: Experiment, learn and adapt in this ever-changing world

5. Freedom & Trust: Give a high level of autonomy to people.

6. Decentralize decision making

7. Drive transparency in the organization

8. Talents & Mastery: Hire people not based on roles, hire them based on their skills, passion, and attitude.

*Psychological Safety at the workplace

“Psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes” — Amy Edmondson

1. There is trust in the team

2. Psychological safety gives space to creativity, risk-taking and innovation

3. Teams need to feel challenged and not threatened.

4. Approach conflict as collaboration

5. Speak human to human

6. Replace blame with curiosity

7. Ask for feedback on delivery

8. When you are in fear, your brain cells are captured with the fear and they can not think freely.

9. Acknowledge Fallibility. We all do mistakes.

10. When teams feel safe: They Collaborate, accept mistakes, Communicate freely, adapt to changes.

*Fixed Mindset vs Growth Mindset

Organization Culture: Is a set of behavioral norms and core beliefs that characterize a group or organization

*Tips for Organizations to adopt Growth Mindset

*5 points of a Dysfunctions of a team

5 ways to fix it:

1. Trust: Be Vulnerable, have confidence in each other. Share your personal life experience

2. Conflict: Encourage debates and give constructive feedbacks

3. Commitment: As a team set targets and agree to them.

4. Accountable: Set roles and expectations clearly, hold each other accountable

5. Results: Set clear measurable targets.

*Use Inclusive Language:

*Tips to improve your relationship with your team members / get feedback

1. What is one thing I do you’d like me to continue to do?

2. What is one thing I don’t currently do frequently enough that you’d like me to do more often?

3. What can I do to help you be more effective?