Developing high-performance and virtual teams

Teamwork is common practice in most companies. That's why their team development measures today are mostly about turning teams into high-performance teams. The development of cross-divisional and cross-company, often virtual teams is also gaining in importance.project and team work is common practice in most companies today. This has an impact on the design of their team development measures. They are usually aimed at this today,

  • increase the performance of existing teams or
  • improve cooperation across divisions and hierarchies or even across locations or companies.

The teams that take part in team development measures today have often already gone through at least the first two stages - if we assume the four stages of team development "Forming", "Storming", "Norming" and "Performing" according to Bruce Tuckmann (see video). However, there is still a problem with performing: the joint output is not right.

The four phases of team development according to Bruce Tuckman

Goal: increase effectiveness

There can be many reasons for this. For example, that the team forgot certain things during "norming" - when it defined the rules for collaboration. Or that the work requirements have changed so much that the agreements once made are no longer viable. Or that new members have joined the team with different ideas about working together. In all these cases, it is not about classic team building - i.e. reshaping a team. Rather, the aim is to improve cooperation and increase effectiveness.

This has an impact on the design of the measures. Survival training, in which participants travel down a raging river together in an inflatable raft, for example, has been rather "out", and not just since the coronavirus crisis. They are only used in sales, if at all. And there they usually also have an incentive function. The boom in high-ropes courses has also died down. Today, high ropes courses are primarily used to develop team spirit. For example, companies sometimes allow newly formed project teams to go through their course together so that personal relationships can develop between their members. The situation is similar with virtual teams, whose members never or only rarely see each other in everyday working life - except in video conferences - because companies' experience shows that this is not the case: When team members get to know and understand each other personally, collaboration "flows" better and fewer conflicts arise.

However, when it comes to developing existing teams, companies usually rely on other tools. Regardless of whether the teams only consist of employees

  • of a department or division,
  • several departments or divisions or even
  • of different companies.

For example, some companies now hold team seminars where participants cook together. In others, they paint large-format pictures. The aim is always the same: in the "reflection phase", the behavioral patterns that the participants show when solving the team task are initially used to draw conclusions about their behavior in everyday working life. And in the subsequent "transfer phase"? In this phase, agreements are made to improve cooperation and increase performance.

Employees are more open and self-critical

This "detour" has often been cited as a reason in the past: If the participants first reflect on their behavior, for example when cooking together or building an igloo, then they do not immediately adopt a defensive stance when sticking points are addressed - this is different when their behavior in the workplace is discussed directly.

Increasingly, companies consider such detours to be superfluous, because: The (young) employees of today are, to generalize, different types than the employees of 20 or even 30 years ago. At least the young people who have the potential for high-profile positions are more team-oriented and open to new tasks than employees used to be. They are also more open to criticism and more flexible in their behavior.

As a result, companies need less convincing when it comes to making the necessary behavioral changes. Also because most employees have internalized this: Ultimately, we are measured as individuals and as a team by the contribution we make to achieving the company's goals. Almost all employees are aware of this today. However, they are often still unclear: what does this mean for my or our day-to-day work?

Targeted development of relationships within the team

This is the starting point for almost all modern team development measures. They often use the following approach. First, an analysis tool such as the Connection Scan is used to determine the character and intensity of the relationships between the team members. Questions such as:

  • How willing is the team to cooperate?
  • Who is included, who is excluded? And:
  • Who communicates with whom and how often?

The information obtained is presented graphically in such a way that a kind of map of the relationships between the team members is created. In it, the distance between the people provides information about the intensity of their relationship and the frequency with which they communicate with each other. In addition, the respective color reflects the number of connections of the person in question, so that the active "hotspots" and the rather inactive "cold zones" in the relationship network become visible.

Building on this, the team members ask themselves questions under the guidance of a consultant based on the challenges they are facing:

  • Where do we need to make changes?
  • Which "cold zones" should be "hotspots" so that the team functions optimally? And:
  • What should change in the areas of cooperation, information and communication? For example, who should cooperate and communicate more intensively with whom?

From this comparison, the team members derive rules for collective and individual (communication and information) behavior. They therefore agree on standards that will apply to their future collaboration - always with the overarching goal of increasing the effectiveness of the individual members of the team and its performance.

Challenge: developing "virtual" teams

This approach is particularly important when developing cross-divisional, cross-location and cross-company teams, as these are usually more or less virtual teams. The same applies to teams whose members often work from home. For the aforementioned teams, their members no longer meet almost daily and exchange information about their (collaborative) work. Instead, they largely communicate digitally and with the help of collaboration tools such as teams. This is why such teams often need to organize their collaboration in a targeted manner and systematically promote team development.

Many companies have recognized this. That is why the demand for such team development measures is increasing. They all have one thing in common: Meeting, getting to know and experiencing each other personally plays a central role in them so that a relationship and trust can develop between the team members. The development measures are designed accordingly. One of their goals is always that the team members should get to know and understand each other as people when solving common tasks. This means that

team development measures for virtual teams, the first phase of the team development process according to Tuckmann, known as "forming", is often consciously run through again afterwards, because: This is often neglected when forming virtual teams - primarily because the members work in different locations.

This often results in deficits in the area of "norming", which lead to conflicts in everyday life. This applies in particular to virtual teams whose members have very different professional and cultural backgrounds. This is often the case with transnational project teams in particular. If the phase of getting to know and understand each other has been skipped, so to speak, there is a great risk that the irritations that arise in everyday working life will result in stereotypes being used to characterize the teamwork, such as

  • "Americans are superficial",
  • "Southerners are lazy",
  • "the Germans are doubters".

Challenge: Developing multinational teams

This is why, in addition to "forming", "norming" - i.e. agreeing on common rules for cooperation and communication - also plays a central role in team development measures for multinational teams, because: What is important to the team members always has cultural roots.

Would you like to support your virtual team with customized development measures? Then contact us here and make an appointment for an initial consultation. In a free, no-obligation consultation, we will work with you to find out what your goals are and how we can support you with our expertise.

WE BRING YOUR STRATEGY TO LIFE

Strong teams for strong results - whether virtual or on-site. With tailor-made development programs, we support companies in turning functioning teams into real high-performance teams. Our concepts take cultural differences into account, create clear rules for collaboration and increase effectiveness in everyday life. This results in teams that are flexible, critical and goal-oriented - and thus create real added value for the organization. If you are considering how you can strengthen your team in the long term and successfully shape virtual collaboration, please contact us - together we will develop solutions that make an impact.

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You can find out what this can look like here: Case studies & experience reports