Teamwork is a skill: Psychological safety, trust, collective eficacy, shared cognition
Many of us have heard the belief that a team can be great or dead; it works well or it doesn’t work at all. It seems right, but it's a myth and simply not true. Let me explain why.
I believe teamwork is a skill that can be learned and developed. Anyone can be a team player, but they need to know how.
While some individuals naturally possess teamwork abilities, anyone can become a proficient team player with the right knowledge and guidance.
Understanding the dynamics of effective collaboration, communication, and cooperation is key. By learning the principles of teamwork, individuals can contribute positively to a team’s success, leveraging their unique strengths and actively participating in achieving shared goals.
However, teamwork as a skill will never overcome a lack of capabilities.
Our brains love storytelling, so we fall in love with movies about plucky but talentless underdogs who come together and achieve something big. Yeah, I also love science fiction.
Investing in your team is important, but it's essential to recognize if they lack the necessary skills to perform well. Identify if your team has gaps in key areas; this can help address dysfunction by hiring a team member with the needed skills or training existing members to fill the gaps.
Some leaders obsess over talent and bring the best of the best into their teams, only to find their top performers fall short of expectations. How is that possible? I was sure the best would make the best team ever, wouldn’t they? Now I have a Hollywood blockbuster scene in my mind, where the team of the best accomplishes the impossible and wins. Fiction again.
In my view, we should look at teamwork as a capability. Being a team member is not just an attitude; it’s a specific skill that can be learned or hired, like project management or technical skills.
There are six key team-building capabilities:
1. Asking questions and active listening: This means there’s no fear in asking questions related to mutual work. These questions help the team think deeply about their tasks, revealing crucial details about what needs to be done.
2. Giving and receiving feedback: This is important because feedback can open our eyes to aspects we ignored or thought unimportant. A common mistake is forgetting to give feedback or ignoring feedback from others. Read our story about how we helped Matt.
3. Working within controlled conflict: I’m a big fan of catching problems before they occur and raising red flags. Signaling potential issues can initiate conflict, as we all have different views on problems, making it difficult to spot them ourselves. Once found by others, it might create a conflict. The key is how you behave when an issue is found. It makes sense to explore why we become angry and what assertiveness is. Not all conflicts are easy to overcome, and some can escalate into crises.
4. Interpersonal skills: Skills like empathy and the ability to build trust between team members are crucial. Avoid creating small tribes within a team. I’ve seen this happen when working with subcontractors. Here is a good post about it.
If there’s a lack of specific technical skills, additional training or hiring someone with those skills can resolve it. This can be critical for moving forward without certain skills. If that’s the case, focus on scouting for these skills.
People work better within a team when they feel psychological safety—a strong sense that they won’t get in trouble for disagreeing with someone’s opinion, making a mistake, or even asking for help. It’s important to have personal conversations if there’s an issue or if you’re unhappy with a team member’s actions rather than criticizing publicly. One of the top predictors of team performance is psychological safety.
Everyone knows that building trust in a team is important. There’s no need to elaborate further—there are many useful posts on this topic.
Collective efficacy is when your team views difficult tasks as challenges rather than obstacles. Failure is not a reason to give up. There’s always a way; you just need to try things differently. Support your team members in difficult times and celebrate when something is achieved.
Communication is a basic and crucial skill. How well you communicate and share is much more important than how often. Try to balance frequency with quality—provide useful information clearly and on time. Have you heard of closed-loop communication? It’s a way to ensure that all details are clear: share information, check if it’s understood correctly (How? By asking questions!), and correct it if something isn’t right.
Team members who share a common purpose and priorities will work harder on tasks and demonstrate better results. Remember my words about a tribe—it's the same here. Only a common purpose will empower your people to excel in what they do. Not salary, not a corporate car, not food or free coffee—only a shared purpose. A clear understanding of their roles and tasks leads to effective monitoring and coordination. How do you achieve this? Set and share clear directions, priorities, and goals. It should be clear what we all want to achieve. Promote learning and adaptation. The more people learn, the happier they are (am I right?). Encourage participation.
People don’t work in a vacuum. When conditions are unfavorable, your team will struggle. It’s a leadership role to ensure that conditions are good (or better, great) so the team moves toward their goals, not just thinking they are moving in the right direction. I’ve seen situations where team members hide information and support a plan given from the top—this is an example of an unfavorable condition.