Optimise Efficiency and Boost Effectiveness in Your Team Using Our Team Effectiveness Model
The way we work has been rapidly changing over the last few decades, and team-based ways of working are now commonplace in pretty much all contemporary organisations today. There is an increasing body of research suggesting that this new way of working leads to enhanced engagement, increased innovation, and improved organisational performance. This has prompted significant interest amongst practitioners regarding the necessary building blocks for effective team functioning in today’s highly dynamic and modern era.
So what really makes an effective team?
At Impactful Work, we understand that team effectiveness is not simply about looking at the team and their personalities. For teams to be effective, we need to consider more than the team members, and account for the processes and plans that influence the team’s day-to-day operations and culture as well.
Our Team Effectiveness Model has been developed based on research and best practice, and outlines three key drivers – Planning, People and Processes – needed to deliver the best team experience and achieve success.
Our Team Effectiveness Model
Impactful Work’s Team Effectiveness Model
Planning: “What” the team does
Strategic direction and alignment · Roles and responsibilities · Resourcing · Monitoring and evaluating
Planning refers to the team’s need to have clear goals, and a solid understanding of what they have to do to get there.
In order to function effectively, the team needs to have a strong understanding of their strategic direction and be willing to monitor and adjust how they’re tracking against their goals. At a holistic level, an effective team also requires sufficient resources to achieve their objectives, as well as having a strategy to redistribute work if, and when, necessary.
People: “Who” the team consists of
Team dynamics · Team unity · Capability · Leadership
Models and theories of team effectiveness have generally focused on the People driver – the who’s who in the team. This is unsurprising, given the ‘who’ involved in a team are largely responsible for what the established team dynamics end up being, which in turn, can significantly impact the level of team unity. The type of leadership present also often has the biggest say in what sort of norms and cultures develop amongst the team. In addition, it is the people that make up a team that dictate the level of capability found within the team, which plays a factor in assessing how effective they are (or can be).
Process: “How” the team operates
Communication and collaboration · Feedback and recognition · Decision making and innovation · Change management · Learning and development · Organisational processes
The Process driver is all about the mechanisms and practices that enable the team to work efficiently. This can include the communication strategies in place, processes of giving and receiving feedback, as well as the organisational processes that can impact team functioning (such as company policies). In addition, this driver also explores the degree to which learning and development are valued within the team, as well as how well they are able to manage and embrace change.
Bringing it all together
For a team to work well together, all three drivers need to be optimised, with the team needing to understand how they can leverage these drivers to maximise their functioning. All too often, we find ‘good’ teams come out strongest in the People driver (where the attention has largely been focused on in the past) but are missing the opportunities in Planning and Processes. Being aware of which drivers you may be inadvertently overlooking and therefore limiting your team’s performance is the first step in working out how you can better support your team, maximise effectiveness, and take your team from ‘good to great’.