Value Creation Teams

Agile frameworks place special emphasis on events that facilitate conversations because they recognize how important it is to generate conversations between the members of a Team.

Pedro Bernardo Juan Celis Caraballo

Last edited 770 days ago by System Writer

Summary

It would be strange if a team were not SMART. We usually look for individuals prepared, intelligent, with specific abilities and experience. However, is the team also HEALTHY? Teams that are healthy are those in which conversations generate advances and concrete results, in an atmosphere of cognitive diversity, motivation, and pychological safety

In this presentation, people will learn about leadership; work environments with psychological safety, and the impact of these factors on their Teams.

The importance of this topic is directly related to conversation generation y a project Team. Agile Frameworks, recognizing this, make special enphasis on events that facilitate difficult conversations among team members. However, without motivation; psychological safety, and cognitive diversity, it doesn't matter the amount of events, a Team will never generate fruitfull conversations, full of innovation and value creation.

We will then learn to be aware of the three invisible forces that make or break a Team.

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Agile Teams

We know how important it is to generate conversations between the members of a Work Team. Agile frameworks place special emphasis on events that facilitate conversations. In each sprint, there are meetings to plan the sprint, to refine the backlog, to review the final product and to review the process carried out. Even the daily 5-minute meeting in front of the KanBan board to generate conversations about the activities, tasks, and obstacles encountered.

However, the human interaction gap in a team is still gigantic. Between 60 and 80% of all problems are due to the clash of values and personalities. We don't understand why people think and behave so differently. Stress, confusion, disconnection, low performance and motivation are symptoms of these differences, which lead to high staff turnover and low customer retention.

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Figure 1 – The Human Interaction Gap

Figure 1 shows an attempt to measure the human interaction gap in teams. We have the results for 39 teams. Each team member is given a questionnaire, and then they are asked to submit a team response. The gap shown, in green, is the difference between the best possible team score, drawing the best individual answers, and the answer agreed by team members. The potential for collaboration between team members exists, but we are unable to take advantage of it.

SMART vs HEALTHY Teams

That human interaction gap exists because there is a difference between SMART teams and HEALTHY teams. SMART teams are those whose members are smart, prepared, experienced, and have the necessary skills to accomplish the tasks. HEALTHY teams require a set of characteristics generated by the team, not the individual, and that is directly related to human interactions.

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Figure 2 – The five qualities of the HEALTHY team

In figure 2 we observe the 5 qualities of a HEALTHY team. At the base we have trust, which is what will allow everything else to work. Then the conflict, because a HEALTHY team needs constructive conflicts to generate value. Conflict that it is resolved positively in an environment of trust, in turn generates commitment. And commitment leads to accountability and responsibility. All of which generate results.

Three Invisible Forces

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Figure 3 – The three invisible forces

In Figure 3, we show the three invisible forces that make or break teams. They make the difference between a SMART team and a really HEALTHY one. Motivation is one of them. Maslow's pyramid is still the model par excellence; the individual search for the IKIGAI. Psychological safety is the second. The one that will allow us to develop the trust that we present in figure 2. It is what allows us to really take advantage of the agile structure of events that generate conversation and force human interaction. Last, and probably most important, is cognitive diversity. With the latter, we recognize our profound differences and ways of seeing the world, both at the level of individual personality, which varies little over time, and at the cultural level, which depends largely on our environment.

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Figure 4 – Global DISC [TM]

The wonderful thing is that we can measure cognitive diversity of individuals and teams. In figure 4 we have an example of the cognitive diversity of a team, using the four personality quadrants of the DISC. We also have a measure of the team's blind spot. In this case, a blind spot of 58%. This is a measure of the absence of different perspectives on the team. It helps us to raise awareness and make an effort to see other perspectives, or also to reinforce the team with diversity, but not racial or gender diversity, but cognitive diversity to reduce the blind spot of the team.

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Figure 5 – Growth Zone [TM]

We can also measure the other two invisible forces, and locate the work teams. In figure 5 we show the zones in which a team could be. Apathy; Anxiety; Comfort; or growth.

Through Team Coaching it is possible to guide a SMART work team towards its zone of growth and high performance.

That area in which we have the ability to focus on a subject and forget about the passage of time. That is the area where teams create value.

References:

Csaba Toth. “Uncommon Sense in Unusual Times”, Publicado por Authorsunite.com, 2020.

Patrick Lencioni. “The Five Disfunctions of a Team”, Publicado por Jossey-bass, 2011.

Summary

Agile Teams

SMART vs HEALTHY Teams

Three Invisible Forces

References:

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