ForChiefs is fond of the pyramid from Patrick Lencioni, which demonstrates the components of a strong team. Read with us from the top down and see which of these traits you or your team identifies with.
Strong teams
- set themselves challenging goals (KPIs) to achieve great results
- ask the members if they are personally accountable for their part in the results
- assume that the members feel committed to reach their KPIs
- expect people to fight for their projects, their job, their goals
- are expected to be trusted to do what benefits the company
This describes many teams, both in corporates and in startups. These teams are strong and they deliver good results, but they are at risk of creating silos and optimizing for expectations and KPIs. Hence they are good, but not great, and they most definitely don’t perform to their full potential.
So, since we prefer working with teams who strive for their highest possible performance, we read and preach the Lencioni pyramid from the bottom up, and conclude that…
High-performance teams
- start with building trust, giving everyone space to be welcomed as a human being
- embrace conflict, by challenging people to apply radical candor and fight with each other for the same goals
- show commitment to the team and the team goals, thereby defining success only from the team level
- accepting individual accountability as a vital part of the team, always owning the challenges together, never claiming ‘your side of the boat is sinking’
- celebrating the results that come as a team, accepting that they might differ (positively or negatively) from the KPIs, but by definition, they come closer to the joint team potential.
Applying this model makes it clear that trust is the solid basis that every team is built on.
Want to read more? Read the leadership fable ‘The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team’ by Patrick Lencioni. It should only take you about 3-4 hours and is time well spent in this age of Corona homeworking 🙂