Team Agility Is A Super Power and How To Develop It

As the uncertainties and complexities of our world continue to increase, TEAM AGILITY is quickly becoming the “secret ingredient” for organizational success. Agility is the ability for a team to take effective actions in the midst of complex and rapidly changing conditions. Now more than ever, organizations are relying on their teams to make the necessary adjustments to meet new challenges. Agility is not just another tool in the team effectiveness tool kit it is a team super power.

For any team to be effective there must be a solid foundation of common purpose, clear and aligned roles and effective processes for getting work done. In today's world, these effectiveness principles are just the price of entry for teams. Agility is the key differentiator that allows certain teams to succeed while others fail. Below are 5 attributes of the most agile teams.

1.    Ability to Quickly Reset

Teams must develop the capacity to continually reset direction to meet new challenges and expectations. A practice of resetting when new members come on board, expectations shift, or the external environment significantly changes helps teams to remain on-track for success. Teams need to take the time to reassess and make appropriate adjustments for these two areas.

• Goals – A common purpose or goals is what makes a team a team. How do we need to adjust or reprioritize our team goals?
• Roles – Complementary and synergistic roles are critical for team performance and trust. What, if any, adjustments do we need to make with our individual roles, responsibilities and authorities to succeed?

2.    Psychologically Safe Culture

Research confirms that the highest performing teams invest in creating an environment where teammates feel safe to take risks because they are confident that no one on the team will embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea.

One of the primary attributes of psychologically safe teams is that each team member has roughly the same amount of time speaking during team conversations—showing value for all perspectives. An inclusive team environment that invites equal voice and values all member’s perspectives isn’t created by happenstance or accident.

A 2017 Gallup poll found that only three in 10 employees strongly agree with the statement that their opinions count at work.

3.    Actively Learn from Experience

Teams with the most agility are deliberate about learning from their experiences. I have heard teams call this reflective process an After Action Review, Post Mortem, Retrospective, Blameless Autopsy, or Team Debrief. Regardless of the name, the purpose of this exercise is to gather the team together to review and learn from work recently completed about what went well and what went wrong and then committing to any improvements identified. An ongoing process of practice and reflection helps teams quickly assess past experience, make meaning of the experience, and decide what the experience means for future action.

4.    Established Process for Team Problem-Solving

A clearly defined process for problem-solving enables the team to develop collective habits and develop their team muscle for working together to successfully address issues. Below are best practices to create opportunities for members to have equal voice in sharing ideas, experiences and perspectives.

• An inclusive, simple and replicable process for when it is time for the team to work together to resolve issues and solve problems
• Communicate that the team is about to work through an issue and invite everyone’s input
• Provide think time for team members to document their perspectives prior to sharing

5.    Team Members That Seek Feedback

The most agile teams are made up of members that actively seek feedback from one another and their key stakeholders. Continuous feedback helps teams stay on track and improve performance.

Giving feedback is hard because of the potential for negative reactions, defensiveness, or damaged relationships. Because of these built-in threats that accompany giving feedback, team members must actively work to create a safe environment by giving permission and expressing a desire to receive feedback. The practices below help minimize potential threats while encouraging others to provide honest feedback.

Be Specific with Feedback Request – If a person asks general questions like “How am I doing?” or “What can I do better?” it makes it very difficult for others to understand what type of feedback is “okay” to provide.

Ask for Feedback Often – As this becomes part of the team’s culture people begin to feel safe about providing each other feedback.

Avoid Defensiveness – The quickest way for team members to ensure that they will rarely receive honest constructive feedback is to act defensively.

These 5 attributes will help your team to grow its agility for ongoing success in today’s complex, volatile, and changing environment. What is your team doing to increase its agility?

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Tony Gambill is the founder and principal for ClearView Leadership, an innovative leadership and talent development consulting firm based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Tony brings more than 20 years of executive experience in leadership development, coaching, and team effectiveness within global for-profit, non-profit, technical, research, healthcare, government and higher educational industries.