Your career is a solitary journey, and leadership is a lonely business, so when you have the opportunity to work in a team or serve on a board, it can be an energizing and fulfilling experience.  Though, it often isn’t.  So what makes for a great experience and what doesn’t?

My recent experience helps illustrate this difference.  For the past few months, I have been coaching an Action Learning team as part of a Leadership Development program for the next generation of top leaders of a large organization.  The idea of Action Learning is that the team works on a real world project that has meaningful deliverables while, at the same time, the team observes, reflects on and improves their teamwork and individual leadership skills.  During the process, it is helpful for the team to have a facilitator or coach to hold them accountable for the Learning as it is so often too easy for the team to give into the demands of Action by putting all its energies into the project and forgetting about their own development goals.

We are now at the point of the final presentation, and the team is expected to deliver the results of their hard work as well as share their insights into what they learned along the way. While helping them articulate their thoughts, I have been intrigued to analyze what made this group of five the most stellar team with which I have worked.

In my view, team members established three foundational elements contributing to its success:

1)    They built a high degree of trust.

2)    They were willing to slow down early on which helped them speed up as the project moved on.

3)   They made the time for a high degree of interaction.

Building Trust

Although the project was not part of their mainstream work, and team members did not know one another at the start of the project, they behaved in ways that built trust from the start.  Some elements I observed were:

1)  They all showed up authentically and got to know each other as they are without barriers.

2)  They quickly came to a shared understanding of what was important which enabled joint commitment to the project while respecting the needs of their day jobs.

3)  Mostly, they demonstrated excellent listening to one another.

4)  They showed respect for different points of view and ideas allowing team members to freely contribute and know it would be considered.

5)  They never broke commitments, but it was understood that if someone was not able to attend a meeting, the “show would go on” and the absentee would catch up behind the scenes.

Slowing Down

Some elements of “strategic” slowing down which enabled them to work very efficiently and effectively over time were:

1)  They took the time to really understand the project charter.

2)  They took the time to really understand the background and concepts.

3)  They took the time to really understand the meaning of each other’s ideas without jumping to hasty judgments.

Interaction

Early in the project, the team made some decisions enabling a high degree of interaction which proved critical to their strong performance.  Some of these enablers were:

1)  They blocked out a regular time slot on the calendar with the understanding that full attendance was desirable but not essential for the work to go on.  Nobody abused this.

2)  They chose to meet face to face as often as possible even though all five members worked in different locations.

3)  They outsourced logistics and administrative support so team members did not have to take care of meeting arrangements, interview appointments and note collation.

4)  They allocated ten minutes at most meetings for “learning” so they could cover different topics including team check-ins, reflection on any difficulties and offering constructive feedback to fellow team members.

5)  They chose a dual leadership structure with both the Action Leader and the Learning Leader having additional access to the coach.

I would add that the caliber of the individuals and the commitment to each other and to the project goals were also significant contributors. But, it is my belief that a few simple ground rules and a willingness to give your best to a team project is the best equation to have a very productive and personally rewarding experience.

Fredia Woolf , founder of Woolf Consulting, blogs to help people improve their workplace effectiveness and optimize their careers.  As an organizational consultant and leadership coach, she works with clients to increase insight, inspiration and impact. She can be reached at fwoolf@woolfconsulting.com.

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Last updated on July 27th, 2010 at 07:28 pm