Effective teams outperform talented individuals nearly every time. There is power in teams, and not just the obvious teams. A recent article by Marcus Buckingham and Ashely Goodall called ‘The Power of Hidden Teams’ (read it here) uses research to show the value of using the team networks that are both on the organisation chart, or form spontaneously.
In their research, the authors tapped into the impact engaged employees make in the workplace, and discovered that what actually drives employee engagement is their experience on teams. In fact, those that did most of their work on teams, were twice as likely to be fully engaged than those who did their work alone, meaning that the quality of an employee’s team experience is the quality of their work experience. The full article is an important read for leaders, but we have summarized some of the ky points below.
The factors that are present in the best teams, as identified in the article, are as follows:
- Focus on trust. Team members who strongly agree that they trust their team leader are eight times as likely to be fully engaged as those who don’t.
- Design teams for human attention. The research reveals that for people to be engaged, the span of control must allow each team leader to check-in, one on one, with each team member every week of the year.
- Learn together. Instead of sending people one person at a time for training, engagement is increased when organisations allow teams as a unit to learn together.
- Make all work like gig work. Workers need to have a stable and predictable role with a “home team” that is the bulk of their work, and then another that may be a series of opportunities to join dynamic teams inside the same organisation.
Taking these factors on board will provide workers with the best opportunities to feel valued as part of a team, which flows into being more engaged in their work, which results in a win for everyone. How are your tams managed?
Avondale Business School (ABS) can help you develop your teams, to find out how, contact Dr Warrick Long at [email protected]