How Healthy are Your Team Dynamics?
What’s that expression? “Hindsight is always 20/20.”
If only we had eyes to see. If only we had eyes to see inside our team. If only we had eyes to see the health of our team.
If only we could have seen the weaknesses, the gaps . . . perhaps we would have been able to save our team, our work, our project, and ourselves from all the pain and hardship.
Our team was young and grew fast. We went from four to ten in six months. We had colleagues ranging from age 19 to age 60—some with decades of overseas experience and some without a single day.
We needed help, and we didn’t know it.
We needed eyes to see. We needed a tool, a resource, a coach.
Our team didn’t make it. Only a few months after growing exponentially, our team and our project exploded and died. There were casualties along the way.
It could have all been avoided.
If only we would have known. If only we could have seen. “Hindsight is always 20/20.” If only we would have known the path to take, the road to walk on to build a healthy team.
“Do Better, Stay Longer.”
See Beyond’s motto is “Do better, Stay Longer.” This is our desire for individuals, for families, for teams, for organizations.
See Beyond is always looking for assessments and resources that might benefit teams and leaders. We are now offering a new resource called Periodic Assessment of Team Health (PATH).
The PATH
Some teams are all in the same location, and some are spread out in different locations. Regardless of their proximity, all teams will face the challenge of staying healthy and moving forward toward achieving their team goals.
The PATH assessment is gaining wider and wider usage. One organization recently provided the PATH assessment to 12 of their teams, comprising 87 team members. This same organization is hoping to double their use of PATH in the coming year due to the overwhelmingly positive impact it has had on its teams.
Photo by Tim Foster on Unsplash
WHAT:
The PATH assessment gives an opportunity to highlight the strengths and challenges of the team, as well as provide suggestions for improving the effectiveness of their relationships and work. The PATH assessment tool is like having a health check-up, which we all need periodically. This tool is built around the 7 dimensions of a “healthy” team.
7 Dimensions of a Healthy Team
1. Team Commitment: A team culture where members feel a strong commitment to the team.
2. Diversity: A team culture that values diversity, which is measured in many different ways—mainly through personality.
3. Communication: A team culture where members have the ability to share, respond, critique, and receive feedback.
4. Conflict Resolution: A team culture that creatively and constructively works through conflict toward appropriate resolution.
5. Leadership: A team culture where appropriate leadership is understood and exercised.
6. Decision Making: A team culture where the team has the ability to identify, process, and implement decisions.
7. Trust & Openness: A team culture of transparency, vulnerability, and safety.
find out more about PATH and how to use it with your team
WHY:
It is common knowledge that well-functioning teams take intentional effort. Sometimes things in the team go well, and sometimes they do not. Just like a medical health check-up, it is important to monitor the health of every team.
Peter Drucker is credited with saying, “What gets measured gets done!”
The primary purpose and goal of the PATH assessment is to give a current snapshot of how the members of the team perceive the functioning of the team in the 7 domains listed above. Just as our physical health can benefit from a regular checkup, our team’s health can also be enhanced with a periodic health checkup.
This enables the team to monitor and maintain its own health, with the help of the debrief facilitator. The PATH responses of each individual team member form the basis of the report that explores the 7 dimensions of a healthy team.
WHEN:
At the beginning:
If the team wants to be healthy in each of the 7 dimensions of PATH, they need to know what they are aiming towards. At some point during the first 1-3 months, the team is introduced to the 7 definitions used in PATH.
At each 1-year point:
Since the team knows that they are aiming towards being healthy in these 7 areas, they will be interested in measuring and finding out how they are doing. Near the 1-year point (annually), each team member and the team leader(s) take the PATH assessment. Arrangements are then made for the PATH debriefing to take place within the next month, either onsite or via Skype.
Before ending:
Since finishing well is also valuable to team life, they should explore ways that this can happen in healthy and productive ways. Approximately 6 months prior to finishing or ending the work of the team, each team member and the team leader(s) take the PATH assessment. Arrangements are then made for the PATH debriefing to take place within the next month, either onsite or via Skype.
Photo by Ben Ostrower on Unsplash
HOW:
Sometimes, a lot of time is needed to debrief a team. Other times, only a short period is needed. Either way, it is wise for every team to regularly check their health status.
Remember the wise saying, what gets measured gets done!
If you are a team member or a team leader, it will take intentional effort and monitoring from the team to reach the health levels needed to reach their goals.
Here’s how it works:
1. Have each member take the assessment.
2. Schedule a time, online or in person, for a team debrief with our PATH credentialed facilitator.
3. Experience helpful, positive, supportive insight to move your team forward.
What About Foresight?
We can all avoid the disaster you read about in the opening story.
Hindsight may be 20/20, but we can’t go back. We can’t return to yesterday, but we can learn valuable lessons for the future. We can learn from our past mistakes.
We are now starting all over—starting a new work, a new project, with a new team. Let’s not make the same mistakes. Let’s assess where we are and find a PATH forward.
Maybe foresight can be 20/20. PATH can help us clearly look ahead and see the road to walk on, so that our team is healthy and stays healthy!
