Being part of a great team doesn’t mean showing up and being awesome about everything, every second of every day. Great teams aren’t formed from robotic supermen and women who never have conflicts, contradictions, or confusion – or who’ve never had a bad moment. They’re made up of everyday people who bring their whole selves [...]
My work with teams builds upon a body of knowledge developed across decades, applying the latest thinking to fundamental and well-tested theories of human behavior within groups. Repeatedly, and in many different settings and industries, the correlation plays out: High-performing teams require psychological safety. Psychological safety requires emotional intelligence at a team level. And understanding and applying [...]
Many manufacturing businesses follow a predictable rhythm of activities based on a production and distribution cycle. And Santa’s North Pole-based outfit is an excellent example. Everything builds to a single tight annual shipping window, and to ensure customer satisfaction, it’s vital that the entire team is performing at an optimal level — particularly during the run-up to [...]
Have you heard? Psychological safety is the key to high-performance teams at Google. Google is full of high-performers, both individuals and teams. Some teams at Google really stand out—they are the highest of the high-performing teams. At Google, they want all the teams to be the highest of the high-performing, so they spun up a [...]
A team is a group of two or more people aligned with a common goal. A high-performance team is a team that is objectively better than other teams doing similar work (or with a similar goal, if it’s not a work team). Objectively better means that we can measure teams and compare them to each other. Aim for objective metrics that someone outside [...]
Have you ever tandem-bicycled? Molly and I cycled across Upper Austria on a tandem this summer. We enjoyed the vistas of the Danube River with its lush green hills, medieval towns and castles, and vineyards. Tandem cycling is an incredible team experience. Being on one bike together brings us into a state of high "teamness." [...]
It seems like everyone has high-performance teams on their mind. Just this morning, I had a great conversation with a young army veteran who had led teams. He said he experienced some incredibly bad teams during his stint in the army. The teams were toxic. They were run by bullying and negativity. His team leaders complained about everything that [...]
I joined my wife, Molly, and a group of around 25 old and new friends at the Open Space Institute’s conference on Peace and High Performance. I drew this quick sketch of Harrison Owen, creator of Open Space Technology as he reminded us how easy it is to connect using Open Space: just sit in [...]
I’ve been on tour, sharing my Building Great Teams with the Core Protocols class and talk all over North America and in London. And I’m honored and grateful for the positive reviews, reflections, and connections to other people’s work. Hannes Horn writes about his experience in my half-day class on Medium . He describes [...]
Want your students or clients to really learn Agile? Then get them to teach Agile. "Experience Agile" is the activity I use to close my my two-day Agile class. Students learn Agile by doing Agile and by teaching Agile to each other. The assignment: The activity leads them through every step of the Agile product [...]
