A Recipe for Building Team

by Dr. Ted Fish / March 03th 2020

If you’re managing others, then group performance is a key to your success. So how do we do it – how do we help individuals transition to TEAM?

I encountered this challenge the other day. I was in a meeting with a talented unit that had never gelled. They were polite but separate. They cared about one another but not enough to put their shoulder to the wheel for all. The opening happened when the distinguished senior member stretched his arm across the table to challenge a junior. “What have you been doing to grow your business?” he said.

In a team there is no your business. Your wellbeing is my wellbeing, because each member’s strength feeds the strength of the whole.

So I called out the elephant in the room. “Our problem is that it’s set up, so his growth comes at your expense,” I told the senior. “He needs your strength behind him to thrive. But I won’t ask you to help him if it hurts your success.”

I turned to the group, because I did not have the technical expertise or context to solve the problem. “Can we find a win-win?” And they responded with phenomenal ideas. You could literally feel the wellspring of synergy open. You know the feeling. It’s that moment when something extra fills the space – a generative energy. A binding force. And then it occurred to me: synergy is not accidental. It can be created if leaders follow a recipe of 3 strategic steps. First comes alignment. Through empathy and curiosity, you discover what each person really wants. What their yearning is. You have to listen deeply sometimes and dig, because you want to access what they really stand for – their values, the central themes of their life, not their personality or habits they may have become lodged inside. Once you know what someone really wants, you can find a place – perhaps small at first – where each person works for a win that also produces a win for the group. This is the magical, the critical, intersection, and over time it naturally grows.

And then through a mix of empathy, courage and truth-telling, you hold everyone accountable.

Naturally, there comes an acceleration of giving and winning, where the individual’s success builds the group energy, which builds other individuals’ success, which enhances the group energy and on and on.

Synergy: TEAM SUCCESS = individual success x individual success x individual success…

#leadership #building teams

What people say

Let us help you build leadership today!

Get in touch

Please call 5052312699 or email ted@fishleadership.org

Or complete: