If you wish to be a high performing leadership team it is not enough to just do the job. You have to be good at cooperating while doing it.

“Of course, people know how to cooperate!”

According to Phil Sandal one of the pioneers in team coaching and CEO of Team Coaching International this is a very common assumption.

The thing is that international research tells us differently. Less than 10 % of teams saw themselves as high performing in a survey from Team Coaching International*.

10 %! This is a small number during times when demands on companies and organizations are high and where good and efficient teamwork is in focus.

How about the cooperation in the leadership team?

One task belonging to leaders is to support and develop the organization and the people, who create the results and deliver the package.

How do you team up for that task in your leadership team?

Is your performance level a match for what the business and organization need?

High performing leadership team, what is it actually?

Performance is a slightly burdened term, which is often heard as sole achievement. But if you want lasting and sustainable performance that is not enough.

Performance is not just about achievement. About solving the task. It is also about how you feel while doing it. For high performance in teams it is about how relations support problem solving and creation of results. In short, how you feel about each other.

If you want to be a high performing leadership team you have to look for productivity strengths and relational strengths alike.

The productivity strengths could be your ability to make the right decisions and execute them. The relational strengths could be to trust each other’s abilities and intentions and to address necessary issues and dilemmas even if it is uncomfortable.

• Productivity strengths – to solve a task
• Relational strengths – to cooperate on a task

Some leaders are so focused on solving the task that they forget to consider their abilities to cooperate. That be internally with the other leaders or externally with the primary stake holders including the employees.

Do you need a high-performance check?

You might think the leadership team is doing well and that it is the employees that does not meet your demands and expectations. It might be that:

• Your employees lack engagement.
• The controversies are not solved constructively or aren’t even addressed.
• You experience misunderstandings between departments.
• You feel you have to do your employees work to get good enough results.

But…, There is only one way if you wish to develop your business and to have the organization working at its best and that is to develop yourself as a leadership team. To develop the way you solve your leadership tasks and to develop how you cooperate.

Sometimes you need to revitalize your leadership team. To consider how you can improve on your cooperative skills to solve the leadership tasks in the best possible way.

What do you think? Do you need a main inspection?

*Source: Analyses by Team Coaching International based on more than 4000 teams during a period of 10 years.

Few teams define common rules for handling conflicts and disagreements in advance. The primary focus is on what you are going to create and how you want to work together, not what is going to happen if anything goes wrong.

Conflicts: Agree on common terms when things are good

It can be difficult and feel unnecessary to discuss worst-case scenarios when everything is fine. But conflicts will always emerge and dealing with them is a lot easier before judgment is tainted by emotions and needs.

Mapping of reactions of oneself or others without anyone feeling attacked is also easier if you are not already crossed.

A way to prepare for disagreements is by exploring each other’s style of conflict. Partly to be able to reach out and help each other to a new (common) path. Partly to utilize differences in values, ways of thought and ways of reacting constructively when you are trying to agree on common norms.

Style of conflict: Are you a hawk or a pigeon?

How do you react when disagreements emerge? Will you return fire head on, do you withdraw or will you try to calm the waters?

Humans are different when handling conflicts. The more you know of your personal style, the easier it will be to react with awareness and well thought out – leaving the amygdala out. And it will be easier to accept the reactions of others, too

How do you get out of the comfort zone when it is necessary for development and change?

Perhaps you know the saying: “Everybody wants to develop but nobody wants to change”.

I don’t know where it comes from, but it is often what ends important changes in organizations.

The question is though; Is it true?

Isn´t it possible to challenge status quo so that you and others are willing and capable of stepping out of their comfort zone?

I would like to make a suggestion, but first…a few words on comfort zone.

The comfort zone – pros and cons

It is not necessarily a bad thing to be in one’s comfort zone and most of the time this is where we are. Some of the pros are:

• It saves time. You know what to do and how.
• It saves energy. You are not exerting yourself.
• It creates a sense of safety. You trust yourself and others because you know tasks, procedures and relations.

But the comfort zone has its limits. Some of these are:

• Creativity and thinking outside the box are scarce. Things are done and decisions are made as ususal. Other ways, which might be better, are not explored.
• You loose wins that might demand blood, sweat, and tears

Two strategies to get out of the comfort one and create the change you want

Strategy 1: What is no-go?

This strategy starts by defining what you would never do and then works its way backwards. The space between “What we will NEVER do” and “the comfort zone” defines the possibilities in front of you. This provides you with a developmental zone where the changes you agree on are both wanted and possible.

Strategy 2: What is the first small step we could take?

It is exhausting to not know, to feel unable to and to not understand. No matter whether you are a leader or an employee it is demanding to feel incompetent.

Instead of creating big changes where everything is new and nothing is known you create a smoother transition by gradually introducing more of what leads you towards the new and less of what belongs in the past.

It might sound like removing the band-aid slowly. This is not true. You create the road as you go along. Numerous small steps that make people feel they know, are able to and understand a minor but still new area before the move on to the next where they might feel unsecure anew – but not far from home…

A new saying could be:

“Everybody wants to step out of the comfort zone when the necessary changes feel desirable and manageable”.

And this does not demand superpowers…