One thing will never change: an organization is only as good as its human resources. Even in a digital age. Idowu Koyenikan says “There is immense power when a group of people with similar interests gets together to work toward the same goals.” (Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability). In this post, we’ll try to take a new turn on the very often cited mindset and skillset needed for shaping and leading sustainable teams.
About the author
Vladimir Novac is based in Bucharest, Romania and works as top-executive leadership trainer and coach around the globe. He is certified NLP Practicioner and Change Indicator Analyst and especially dedicated to the topics of team development, self leadership, performance management and change. Inspired by a big personal mission, he is enriching the MDI world since many years with knowledge and passion.
Sustainable dream teams – Environment meets mind- and skillset
Sow to facilitate, lead, support a team in reaching the IDEAL mindset and the IDEAL skill set? And what about ensuring the appropriate ENVIRONMENTS?
Well, an environment is something that lives, is dynamic, changes, and influences people in a certain way. And when the right environment meets the right mindset and skillset, only the sky is the limit.
Mindset environments
Diversity: The amount of different perspectives, backgrounds, education, personality, that will ensure creativity, constructive conflict, complementing skills, avoidance of group think, as well as lack of general boredom!
Experience: Teams need experience in working together, in order to calibrate, pace, trust, adapt, hate, appreciate, evolve.
Tribe: Shared experience brings along stories, myths, heroes, taboos as well as a general feeling of safety and belonging.
Commitment: Commitment is a natural consequence of the aboveIt also links to the skillset environment as the individual understands his/her role within the team and the team accepts the individual in that role.
Skillset environments
Communication: The agile manifesto states that everything is about communication at the right time, with the right people, using the right channels repeatedly.
Feedback: Feedback is important not only for learning purposes but also for ensuring accountability.
Learning: Self-sustainable teams learn by themselves. Provided they want to and have an agreed, continuous, effective, quick learning system. This will allow them to adapt and evolve.
Role: Individuals in the team have a formal role and an acknowledged role. Leaders are not the only ones to be acknowledged, validated by the team. Everyone is.
As the major challenge in reaching the above does not lie in knowing what it needs to have sustainable dream teams but in really taking care that the desired environment is created, you can expect a serios of articles on exactly that: How do you really shape and lead sustainable dream teams?
Meanwhile remember this wonderful quote from Maria Montessori: “Development is a series of rebirths.”