Five or six years ago I was fascinated by the amazing difference in the performance of project teams that were working on similar challenges. I had the chance to attend a workshop for 4 teams all starting out on new projects. they were of similar size and makeup and all reported to the same director. Within a month I could detect the different rates of progress and realised that I was seeing Tudor Rickard's theory of team performance unfold as I watched! In his book Handbook for Creative Team Leaders he and co-author, Susan Moger, talk of Teams from Hell, Standard Teams and Dream Teams.
I had been to his lecture at a Design Symposium earlier in the year where he explored the extremes which he called Teams from Hell and Heaven, which I have summarised on this slide:
Rickards builds on Tuckmans 4 (5)-stages of growth theory which he called The title picture summarises Peter Senge's work on Learning Organisations in his book The Fifth Discipline which says that for optimal learning one needs 5 key tools:
Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, (Adjourning)
The last stage is often neglected but the way teams are disbanded is also important for it affects the way people approach their next task.
At each stage a different set of behaviours are exhibited and so a different leadership style also applies which makes the job of successful delivery of the outcome so "exciting"!
The teams I was observing were all going on the journey through the stages. Some never got beyond the storming stage and never delivered a product worth launching (Rickards's Teams from Hell); another team delivered what seemed to be a great product but the consumer decided it was a mediocre innovation (Rickards's' Normal team that got to Norming, developing norms they used to guide their performing); One team delivered something unexpected and this was successful in the marketplace; they behaved as a high-performing Team from Heaven, or Dream Team; they got to norming, developed norms and then proceeded to challenge them as the project progressed.
Systems Thinking
Team Learning
Mental Models
Personal Mastery
Building
Shared Vision
So, building high performing teams is quite challenging... for innovative design teams the challenge is even greater as we are trying to catalyse change in organisation, creativity, leadership and followership....
The choice of team members can itself constrain the future behaviour which can be further perturbed by training or the lack of for members and leaders. Hilarie Owen wrote a fascinating book called
Creating Top flight Teams using the Red Arrows as the team exemplar
[picture used under Creative Commons Licence original uploaded by
Bad Scooter ]
So I can say that when it comes to building innovative teams I totally agree with Bill Buxton's comment:
“You have to spend as much time directing your innovation and creativity to fostering a culture of creativity and a receptiveness to innovation as you spend on the ideas themselves.”
This is the real challenge facing business leaders as they exhort us to "Be more innovative." Are we going to be able to explain that we need to work differently to achieve the goals of
Simplicity - to reduce unnecessary complexity and to focus on delivering excellent consumer experiences.
Space - to expand the range of opportunities and to nurture great ideas.
Speed - of decision making and of time to market.
Self-confidence - to believe in consumer insights and to lead the market
by delivering big, bold consumer relevant products and services that deliver engaging experiences.
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