Create Team Learning Opportunities
Increasingly, companies perform work through task forces, projects,
groups, account teams, and the like. Teams as collectives of indi-
viduals may be scored on their ability to generate and generalize
ideas with impact. High-performing teams begin their learning
journey by generating new ideas, which come both from the com-
position of the team and from the way the team operates.
Build Teams That Generate Ideas with Impact
Teams generate ideas by having diverse members on the team, by
brainstorming alternatives before reaching a conclusion, by setting
stretch goals that demand new ways of doing work, by doing risk
assessment to examine probabilities between actions and outcomes,
by orienting new members rigorously to norms and listening to new
members for new ideas, by using time well to ensure that progress
is made, by allocating rewards based on team performance, and by
managing their group process to promote smooth teamwork.
Create Opportunities Where Teams
Can Generalize Ideas with Impact
High-performing teams not only generate new ideas but also
generalize those ideas by rigorously improving their team process.
Team process checks enable teams to audit and improve how well
they are working. Four processes are critical for team effectiveness:
defining purpose, making decisions, managing relationships, and
learning. Some audit questions might include the following:
How clear are we as a team about our purpose and direction?
How effectively do we make decisions as a team?
Do we make decisions too fast? Too slow?
How are our interpersonal relationships?
How effective are we at capturing important learning that has
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