"It should be possible to use a few questions to find out where a team's strengths lie and where the areas for development are!"

Written by Pascal Romann

A participant in the ETH leadership seminar asked me this in a slightly demanding tone. I thought about it briefly and replied: "There are various questionnaires and models on teams and team dynamics, but they each focus on one aspect of a team. As far as I know, there is no collection of questions that looks at a team as a whole. But something like that can be developed.".

I had set myself a challenge. As a lecturer, organizational developer and team member, I had all the components to develop such a questionnaire. A bit of thinking, researching and formulating later, 80 questions were there to identify strengths and areas for development in teams.

For a team to reach the performance phase, various dimensions of cooperation must interact.

At the beginning of a team development session, I always ask what experience a team has with such workshops. "We've already had a few team development sessions, but they didn't achieve much. We worked on individual topics, but the overall view was missing." is often the answer. Various dimensions of cooperation must therefore be considered for a functioning team.

(1) Factual dimension: focus on results and target achievement

A company and therefore its teams exist because a specific objective needs to be achieved (e.g. a marketable product or a customer-oriented service offering). It is therefore important to focus on this objective and work together to ensure that it is achieved.

(2) Relationship dimension: focus on the quality of cooperation

How team output is achieved depends on the quality of cooperation and therefore the relationship dimension. If everyone identifies with the tasks, knows who is responsible for what and supports each other, then working together is much easier than when trench warfare and competitive thinking dominate.

(3) Learning dimension: focus on innovative strength and resilience

Nothing is as constant as constant change. A market environment that continues to evolve. Technologies that renew themselves. Or an organizational or team structure that is being adapted. Continuous learning and renewal are just as important as the ability to deal with resistance and defeat as a team.

(4) Leadership dimension: Focus on the appropriateness of leadership

Despite trends such as 'unboss' and 'servant leadership', leadership is still needed. However, perhaps the leadership tasks are not all concentrated on one person, but are distributed throughout the team as shared leadership. It is therefore also about the appropriateness of leadership in relation to teamwork.

What are your team's strengths and areas for development? The compass for high-performance teams gives you the answers!

Would you like to know where your team stands in each dimension? Do you want to preserve strengths and realize potential? Would you like to read more about your team after about 10 minutes and 80 questions? Then you will find the link to the Forms questionnaire, which takes a holistic look at your team and 48 hours later you will have the resulting report in your inbox to read.

Would you like to read more about Teams? These are my recommendations.

About the individual team phases

On psychological safety

  • The Fearless Organization (Amy C. Edmondson)

On organizational energy

  • Organizational energy (Heike Bruch)

The mindset of teams

  • Spiral Dynamics - Leadership, Values and Change (Beck & Cowan)

  • Reinventing organizations in the illustrated version (Laloux)

Pascal Romann
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