You can have the best talent in the world and an organisation full of A-players but that doesn’t mean they’ll perform as a collective unit. Sports has plenty of examples on how the top players in the world don’t win as a team. For example, Real Madrid has a team valued at USD 600 million, they lost to the Spanish Football League rival Atletico Madrid with a player value of USD 90 million. Then there was the famous Lake Placid Olympic Games where a team of American amateurs beat the pros of the USSR in the 1980 Ice Hockey Final.

In the real world, teams with less talented people often out-perform those who on paper have more talented individuals. These teams have figured out what their Goal and Soul are and have gone through the required Stages to Unlock the Power of High Performance. These examples are not only limited to sports. The Oscars for the best actor or actress seldom goes to the movie that won the ‘best movie’ award. Orchestra’s with the best paid musicians aren’t always the most successful ensembles. And research projects with the smartest minds don’t necessarily create breakthroughs as big as those from science teams of lesser known repute achieve.

Of course in many cases the most talented players, scientist, musicians and actors do outperform their lesser talented colleagues but the difference is often more than just the skills and proficiency of the individuals. Instead it’s about:

• How groups of people come together and commit themselves to a larger goal that’s more important than the separate goals of the individual, and
• how they focus all their energy to jointly achieving that goal.

In his 1993 classic, Wisdom of Teams , J. Katzenbach defines a team as: 

A small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.

Note that the key words in this definition are “complementary skills”, “commited to a common purpose”, and “mutually accountable”.

Team Flow

The psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, coined the term ‘flow’ as:

A state in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.

He extended his research to how groups can collectively achieve team flow.  According to Csíkszentmihályi when a team is in flow, it’s innovative, harmonious and productive. Being part of it improves the performance of each member. Communication is purposeful and clear. Friction is seen as an opportunity, not a personal threat. Location and time zones pose no barriers. The balance is just right and everything flows.

The Characteristics of Team Flow

1. Clarity: knowing what’s expected of you.
2. Centering: knowing that your teammates are interested in what you’re doing.
3. Choice: knowing that you have options.
4. Commitment: having a sense of trust in your team that lets you feel unselfconscious.
5. Challenge: increasingly complex challenges to tackle.

Nobody in today’s world needs to be convinced about the power of teams and achieving a state of group-flow would be the equivalent of a leaders Shangri-La. However when I ask top teams “How often have you been part of a team in flow?” I almost never get any positive reactions.

My interpretation of this less than scientific piece of research is that there are probably too many different pieces that a team lead and members need to get right before the team really starts to work together effortlessly, providing extraordinary results, significant learning and satisfaction for its members.

I’ve been lucky to have been part of 3 amazing high performing teams. I’ll talk about them and a model I’ve created which unites a team’s “Goal” and “Soul” to create the flow that so many organizations are desperately trying to find. If you’re already a subscriber to my blog, you’ll get the link in next week’s newsletter. And if you’re not, you really should sign up to get access to this exciting way of unifying your people.

Have a great weekend everyone and Happy Easter to all those celebrating.

Photo Credit: David Minty via Compfight cc