*This is a guest post authored by David Biggs, PhD, of Advanced People Strategies.
I have always been fascinated with teams and their impact on organizations. My most recent work in this area has been using the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), Hogan Development Survey (HDS), and Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) from Hogan Assessments.
HPI - Measures everyday personality and can be used to predict job performance.
HDS - Identifies potential personality-based performance and derailment behaviors.
MVPI - Reveals a person’s core values, goals, and interests.
One of the advantages of using psychometrics is the ability to quickly discover a team’s underlying motivations and personality factors.
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Ignition: A Guide to Building High-Performing Teams
Despite the fact that teams vary widely in terms of their goals and composition, there is one right way to build a team, and many wrong ways, according to a new book by Gordon J. Curphy, Dianne L. Nilsen and Robert Hogan. The success of any team depends on having the right foundation in place.
In their book, titled “Ignition: A Guide to Building High-Performing Teams,” the authors provide insights into how to solve problems commonly faced by teams in today’s complex, fast-paced organizations. Case studies include combining teams as part of a re-organization, virtual teams, and matrixed teams, as well as fixing broken teams and developing high-potentials into effective team leaders. “This book is the single best source available on how to carry out the fundamental task of building and maintaining a high-performing team,” says Curphy. “It outlines 40 team-improvement activities that are practical and effective. The exercises are based on the notion that teams need to do real work to become more effective.” “Ignition” is intended as a reference book. Readers are encouraged to review the first two chapters to understand the overall considerations in building teams and how to set up and run team engagements. Then, chapters can be selected by the reader that most closely parallel the specific team issues they need to address. Read More »What’s Holding the Team Back from High Performance?
*This is a guest blog post authored by Melvyn Payne, Commercial Director at Advanced People Strategies.
I am privileged to work on a regular basis with leadership teams from a wide variety of backgrounds – both public and private sector. The big question that is usually being considered is “how do we become a high performing team?”
These teams are usually made up of talented and successful individuals, and, typically, those same individuals expect their stakeholders to see the team as effective at what they do.
When asked, team members can easily articulate what they would see as the characteristics of a high performing team and, equally, the key risks that cause a team to become dysfunctional, such as a breakdown of trust.
So why is it that these groups of smart, experienced individuals, who clearly understand what might take the team’s performance to a different level, not take action?
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Successful Teams: The New Blueprint
Building the perfect team isn’t about assembling an all-star squad of archetypes. It’s about find- ing contributors who are generous and respectful, but confident and charismatic, too— and picking the right leader who can pull them all together.
IF CLASSIC CARTOONS like Scooby Doo, Captain Planet, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have taught us anything, it’s that only a team has the capacity and resourcefulness to solve a mystery or save the universe.
Read More »The Neuropsychology of Teamwork
“Why can’t they just act like adults!”
“It’s like herding cats!”
Although teams are our default organizational unit, team leaders often struggle to get individuals to cooperate and coordinate. Partly, that’s down to the fact that each individual has their own agenda for getting ahead, which they balance with getting along with everyone else.
Getting along is the hard part. We became hard-wired through evolution to prefer our own kind and to distinguish friend from foe. Although we are inclined to cooperate, we are also hard-wired for competition and war, which makes coordinating with others tricky. Science is now telling us more about how to manage people and teams to activate neural pathways for either trust and collaboration or conflict and competition. Here’s how to harness our neuropsychology to build better teams.
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Hogan case study: The nice team that went nowhere
Team performance depends on having a clear mission—a sense of purpose—and the right people to deliver it.
In the face of widespread and systematic safety failures, including worker deaths, a large organization created a new health and safety team and gave it power and autonomy to identify and fix the problems and policies that were putting their workers in danger. Six months into the mission, the team was meandering and hadn’t made any impact.
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Four Models of Team Performance
There are four more common models used to improve team performance. Find out what they are!
Important Differences Between Groups and Teams
The terms team and group are often used interchangeably, but there are some differences between these two concepts. Find out what those are.