THE CHALLENGE
Teams are complex emergent systems, composed of complex people working in today’s complex times. These collectively impact on performance. There are so many conditions that teams need to get right to become highly successful that it can take years to develop great leadership skills.
So how do you build a team’s performance, fast? Wouldn’t it be better for any team leader to follow a simple, trusted, scientific path to build a successful team? We do, so we’ve developed one. It’s called the ‘Fast Team Playbook™’. Team leaders and team members appreciate the easy-to-understand Playbook and with that understanding a team culture emerges. An effective team understands its purpose and its role within the wider business needs. The team’s high performance is built from this strong sense of purpose and embraces both individual and shared goals.
Time and again studies show that over 90% of teams under-perform. They haven’t invested in setting out a clear purpose, teams don’t feel the psychological safety which is so evident in highly successful teams, and as a result team members don’t share knowledge, don’t show initiative nor experiment with new riskier ideas.
Mission
Plans
Disciplines
Vulnerability
Empathy
Learning
Accountability
Constructive tension
Experimentation
Delivers
Trusted
Adaptable
An abridged version of the full diagnostic report we ask all team members to complete on every new engagement we take on, this is a your personal headline score that offers some insights to your view of your team’s strengths and weaknesses.
Although simple, it is a scientifically robust and best-in-class measure of team effectiveness. It is unique in pinpointing the precise performance areas for team leaders to address and the order in which to work on them. This order is based on the very latest scientific research.
Get Set
+ Mission
+ Plans
+ Disciplines
To set ground rules the team generates ‘swift trust’ by agreeing 9 ‘task-based’ commitments. Studies tell us each of these predicts team performance, especially in the virtual team. The team quickly establishes proven foundations behind team success. Teams scoring well on the Get Set metric are clear on their mission, plans and responsibilities and feel confident, aligned and purposeful. They are ready to pivot and rapidly adapt to change and are in a great position to leverage their task-based trust to build deeper levels of interpersonal trust and higher levels of psychological safety in the next stage. All high performing teams excel here, the diversity of voices and the complementary skills that each team member brings is a consistent measure of whole team success.
Get Safe
+ Vulnerability
+ Empathy
+ Learning
By building more interpersonal trust the team is better able to create higher levels of psychological safety. There are 9 behaviours that studies confirm enable team members to feel more supported, more able to express themselves, make more telling contributions and to speak up if they have concerns. Any team member’s skill gaps are supported, rather than ridiculed. As a result team members share more of their knowledge and learn more rapidly. The whole team is openly accountable. Studies confirm that the extra safety generated is necessary for the team to then excel in the next stage.
Get Strong
+ Accountability
+ Constructive Tension
+ Experimentation
Here the team builds on the clarity achieved in the Get Set stage and the safety generated in the Get Safe stage to be able to achieve the necessary levels of constructive tension, accountability and experimentation that really drive results. Team members collaborate better, influence each other more assertively, and constructively challenge each other. A great team scores well here, they make and deliver on more commitments to each other, are prepared to experiment and think creatively, better able to work autonomously in sub-units and are interact better with other teams. Great teams take risks. They do all of this without unnecessary guidance or control.
Get Success – Delivers, Trusted, Adaptable
+ Delivers
+ Adapts
+ Trusted
The team’s progress, now excelling in the previous stages, shows a highly nimble, confident, cohesive and reliable team that works exceptionally well with other teams. Nine measures of performance in this stage demonstrate that the clarity, agreement and alignment of the Get Set phase, in conjunction with the psychological safety generated in the Get Safe phase and the constructive tension developed in the Get Strong phase has now created in a team that delivers consistently, is trusted by its stakeholders, and is seen to be highly adaptable in how it can pivot to changing business conditions. Congrats! You have one of the 10% high performance teams.
One of the Playbook Get Set conditions is for team members to have ‘sufficient skin in the game’ to motivate collaboration with others. It is easy for us to say what you and your leadership group should do, we feel it’s just as important for us to be vested in your team’s success. Further, we ask for no upside, no financial ‘bonuses’.
We are so confident in the science behind the Fast Team Playbook™ that we will forfeit 50% of our fee if our approach fails to deliver expected high performance value for any of our coached reports, modular, virtual team development solutions or our executive coaching programmes.
Our diagnostic reports provide average scores in the 27 team behaviours that studies confirm predict team effectiveness. Scores are arranged in three sets of nine for the Get Set, Get Safe and Get Strong stages. The team also scores itself on nine measures of team effectiveness in the final Get Success Stage. The entire on line question set takes no more than 10 minutes to complete. The reports start the process of team-improvement as they pinpoint the precise areas for team leaders and their teams to address and crucially, the order in which to work on them.
We offer three types of report:
1. Detailed Self-Assessment Report
A complete Playbook question set that will provide a full picture of how you view your team’s current strengths and weaknesses.
The report will produce guidance and offer support for your possible next steps for the development of your team.
You can take the diagnostic up to 3 times in a 12-month period to help you identify growth areas achieved.
Cost: £80
2. Detailed Team Report
Team leaders receive a Fast Team Playbook™ detailed report and unlimited repeat diagnostics for the same team for a 12-month period.
Ideal for – team leaders who wish to understand, with absolute precision, how their teams stack up against the 27 predictors of performance and to use the report to action improvements and then track team working improvements over time.
Cost: £400 per team per year
Email us on hello@team-up.company to request a Detailed Fast Team Playbook™ Report.
3. Coached Report
The Coached Report is a detailed Fast Team Playbook™ Report accompanied by at least one coaching session plus unlimited diagnostics for a 12-month period.
Cost: To be discussed with TeamUp
Email us on hello@team-up.company to enquire.
We have over 20 years of experience in improving team working by designing and facilitating on-line and face-to-face team development. We offer:
> Modular (Online or Face)
You decide the support you require from TeamUp from a menu of 2 hour on line workshops. Titles include
1. Building ‘swift trust’ in the virtual team
2. Boosting psychological safety in the virtual team
3. Team plays to deal with selfish gits
4. Converting your team to a pivot friendly team
5. Building a team identity for the tired and disengaged virtual team
You then decide on how you would like to support your chosen module from the following additional services
+ Pre module briefing
+ Detailed Fast Team Playbook™ Diagnostic Report
+ Team Leader coaching and Fast Team Playbook™ feedback session
+ Post module Team Leader coaching session
+ Repeat Detailed Fast Team Playbook™ Diagnostic Report
+ Repeat Team Leader coaching session
> Bespoke (Online or Face)
Usually reserved for Boards, Executive Teams or the more senior teams, please feel free to discuss the creation of your own team development programme incorporating diagnostics, interviews, design, facilitation, coaching, evaluation mechanisms.
George is highly experienced executive coach at C-Suite level and has undertaken coaching engagements at CEO, CFO, HRD, CIO, CTO, COO and MD levels across multiple industries. TeamUp evaluates every coaching engagement undertaken using the Fast Team Playbook™ Diagnostic to ensure any coaching benefits show up in the team performance led by the person being coached. We are so confident our techniques work, if results are disappointing, we will forfeit part of our fee.
