5 Traits of Successful Teams

From the article...

1. Dependability.

Team members get things done on time and meet expectations.

2. Structure and clarity.

High-performing teams have clear goals, and have well-defined roles within the group.

3. Meaning.

The work has personal significance to each member.

4. Impact.

The group believes their work is purposeful and positively impacts the greater good.

Yes, that's four, not five. The last one stood out from the rest:

5. Psychological Safety.

We've all been in meetings and, due to the fear of seeming incompetent, have held back questions or ideas. I get it. It's unnerving to feel like you're in an environment where everything you do or say is under a microscope.

But imagine a different setting. A situation in which everyone is safe to take risks, voice their opinions, and ask judgment-free questions. A culture where managers provide air cover and create safe zones so employees can let down their guard. That's psychological safety.

I know, not the quantitative data that you were hoping for. However, Google found that teams with psychologically safe environments had employees who were less likely to leave, more likely to harness the power of diversity, and ultimately, who were more successful.

Engineering the perfect team is more subjective than we would like, but focusing on these five components increases the likelihood that you will build a dream team. Through its research, Google made the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle proud by proving, "The whole can be greater than the sum of its parts."

Hidden Waste

The Waste Iceberg

Time can be our enemy

Just time alone can make some useful things useless. Think about it.

Take elastic bands for example. An elastic band can be used many times before it becomes useless.  Unless it isn't used.  The other day I noticed a bunch of elastic bands hanging over a door handle.  They had been removed from daily newspapers delivered to the front door. Apparently, they had been hanging there for a long time. Long enough for them to become useless.  When I removed them from the door knob, I tried stretching one or two of them. They just snapped! Time had simply dried them out. We had probably looked at that bunch of elastic bands dozens of times over a few years.  Looked at them without really seeing them. And then for a brief moment I "saw" them.  Out of sight in plain view.

How about elastic waisted clothing?  Ever notice that, after a period of time, the elastic in our underwear just quits. Loses its elasticity. Long before the fabric is worn out the elastic is done. So what do we do with that underwear? Toss it in the trash.  Maybe there's a repair option.

How many things are there in our environment like this that you can think of?  Sometimes all we have to do is look around us. Raise our level of awareness to the conscious level for a minute or two.  And, all of a sudden, the out-of-sight in plain view stuff just pops out!

Eric "Gub" Snyder