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Team Energy Grid
A cohesive team is not born but made.
You may know that your team isn’t ‘firing on all cylinders’ but you might not know why. It’s important not to let this situation drift, but to act. High performing teams drive growth and create millions in value for the team members, leaders and organisations. In contrast, a dysfunctional team can kill a company.
This is the second in a series of articles that explores the nine stages of team development. The path to high team performance requires expert guidance through these nine levels of development.
In this article, we consider stage three of team development – dependent experts. Many, many teams find themselves at this level. Do you recognise its characteristics?
Characteristics of a team of ‘dependent experts’
This is the first stage of genuine team functionality. The vast bulk of executives teams we see are at this stage of development.
You’ve got highly competent individuals, but they are dependent on the leader to bring cohesion to the team. You often see the leader of this team acting as a ‘parent’ having to adjudicate the squabbles of the ‘children’.
If you’re a leader of dependent experts, you probably find yourself spending a lot of time intervening and having issues escalated to you. That’s not to say that the team can’t achieve results, but those results are dependent on you, the leader.
You will see that when or if the leader leaves, the team often flounders and falls into chaos. Even when you’re not around, the team battle resumes as individuals fight for who is in charge.
Unfortunately, at this stage you’re failing to unlock the potential of the team, and everyone still operates in a very siloed manner.
No one aside from the leader takes the team perspective and this results in massive pressure on the leader.
Team development from stage three
The move from stage three to stage four of team development requires quality coaching. Specifically, you need to find a coach that understands what it takes for teams to develop. This is different from executive coaching and very different from team building.
It’s team coaching through very clear levels of development.
Some development evolves naturally as teams spend time together, but the right coach can dramatical increase the speed of team development to quickly create a more sophisticated and higher functioning team.
Building a high-performance team
The benefits of high-performance teams are well documented and significant. Complete has seen direct evidence of increased revenue and profitability, faster decision making and accelerated innovation.
If you suspect you might have a team of dependent experts and want to find out how to speed up your team’s journey towards high performance, get in touch.
