WORKSHOPS >> workplace teamwork

To the point, this is about what most people call "teamwork."

Bored already?

Believe us, we understand. Maybe your initial reaction would be different if this were the technology blog post unveiling the concept of the iPod or iTunes years before launch; especially now that we know it drove a world-wide music revolution. Or what about a report on a solar-powered laptop that weighs two pounds, has 12-hour battery life, and is always connected to the Internet whether you're in the Amazon or Beijing?

Better yet, imagine your interest if this was an article announcing the discovery of the key that would wipe out cancer from planet Earth in less than five years. There are so many topics that could engage your mind and enliven hope.

But... teamwork?

Traditional talk and training on teamwork in the workplace is overdone and underused, and so it's natural that we'd much rather learn about new energy alternatives, the latest technology, re-modernizing medicine, or futuristic engineering. But all of those market evolutions and world revolutions have and will rely on a team-somewhere, somehow, some way.

The most inspiring possibilities and persistent problems we face as human beings will almost always be tackled by a team.

But it's never enough to throw smart people in a room, tack some "play nice" posters on the wall, call them a team and challenge them with a Mt. Everest-sized goal. Thousands of ideas and strategies this year will either change the business world (at least your part of it), or be pushed to an early grave, by the way a team works.

So while the topic of teams and teamwork, at least as typically talked about, carries the baggage of being boring and ordinary, the results teams are expected to produce never are.

And that's why what happens inside teams, from a Presidential White House Cabinet to the Board of Directors at GE, from creative teams at Pixar Animation to your team, might be one of the most important topics we could ever talk about. And we have to talk about teamwork differently than in the past, and more candidly than we ever have, if we expect better products, people and performance.

For instance, among 327 teams representing nearly 4,000 people, the average "grade" teams give themselves on team dynamics is a "B-," or 80.3. That's just slightly above average (but not quite good), and a long way from being an "A."

talent + ambition + ____________ =

In an effort to raise performance, historically there's been a lot of focus on talent development, and how engaged people are in their work. And for good reason-companies who score high in employee engagement improve their operating income by 19% and their earnings per share by almost 28% when compared to organizations with lower engagement scores.

In a recent MarcumSmith survey, when asked how engaged people on their teams were, 70% said people were engaged or very engaged. So with that level of engagement you would expect more great organizational performance, right? Not necessarily, because engagement isn't the only way to better numbers-and engagement doesn't equal great performance.

When asked how often individual agendas get in the way of making progress as a team, 55% of those same people said daily or weekly. Another 22% said monthly. It's not that we can't get people on teams engaged, but it's the way team members engage that undermines team dynamics and blocks great teamwork at work.

For a moment, assume ambition and talent on a particular team is very high; that we have bright, experienced people in the right roles and driven to do great work. In considering both talent and ambition, is there really that much of a difference between, say, the talent of the engineers at Toyota and those at Ford, GM, Mercedes, and Honda? Does Toyota have exceptionally smarter people with greater drive than any competitor on Earth?

The answer is no.

So then why aren't more automakers outperforming, or keeping pace with, Toyota? For any organization, why is great performance rare if we essentially have equal talent and similar ambition? What's the difference between one team that knocks performance out of the park, and the team that doesn't? It could be luck. Luck is always a factor in business success (like it or not) but isn't a very reliable strategy, and represents a microscopic percentage of the difference.

When talent and ambition are relatively equal and in place, what separates great performing teams from everyone else from is the dynamics of the culture in those organizations and on those teams. Team dynamics, the third building block of the ultimate team, is either the ceiling or competitive advantage in reaching great performance.

Based on the original, eye-opening work of David Marcum and Steven Smith, our Team Dynamics workshop teaches how to build effective teamwork that leads to great results:

• people are engaged; a 48.9% improvement in team effectiveness
• retain top talent and lower turnover by up to 63%
• productivity-per-employee picks up
• increased customer loyalty and client trust
• less status-quo, more innovation

You can register for one of our LiveWeb workshops, or call us at 801.492.9009 to schedule an onsite workshop or keynote, download one of our latest whitepapers, or take our Team Dynamics survey to find out how close your team is to great team dynamics and performance.

If you would like to watch archived webcasts and webinars, download our latest whitepapers and articles, or get free tools for your team, visit our All Access page. You can watch a short Flash presentation of our Team Dynamics work and research here.