In this paper we share our perspectives on teams and what it takes to help teams be more effective

Those of us who spend a lot of time and energy being part of a team, leading a team or working with a team know that the promise of teamwork can sometimes feel more like wishful thinking than reality. There’s a good reason for this: Research focused on senior teams found that only 21% of teams were effective.

This statistic is more than disappointing; it’s unacceptable. Given the snapping rate of change, the need for coordination and ‘joined up’ thinking among team members is more important today than ever before. When teams perform at the best of their abilities, it’s magic! An unseen switch gets flipped. Fixed individual positions give way to fluid collaboration and team flow. Gone are the ‘trip wires’ of egos, blame, shame, butt kicking, and the could’ves, would’ves and should’ves. People are prepared to trust one another and adapt to change as they ‘merge awareness into action’. In short, they go from ‘me’ to ‘we’.

Our research has shown that when teams operate in a constructive way, they achieve significantly better results than teams operating in more defensive ways. For example, they:

• are 96% more effective when working together
• are 60% less likely to waste time
• increase the quality of solutions by 69%

Download Team's Paper - Working on 'We'