No Identified Problems
Your team seems to be operating effectively. Your responses show that you use the core values such that team members are getting all the information on the table, learning about each others’ views, making high quality decisions that take into account all the relevant information, creating commitment, maintaining accountability for implementing the decisions, and doing all of this while supporting each other in the process.
Your survey results
Here are the results of the survey you just completed. The survey identifies whether your team is using the five Mutual Learning core values that are essential to team effectiveness: transparency, curiosity, informed choice, accountability, and compassion. A result appears below for each core value where your team may be getting stuck.
Transparency
Your team may not be high-performing because you’re not getting all the information on the table. Here are some signs that your team could be more effective if team members were more transparent with each other:
- Some team members withhold, rather than share, information that’s relevant to others on the team. They think it’s okay to do so because it helps them control the situation.
- Some team members consistently share information only with certain other individuals, not with the full team. This causes delays in decision-making and lack of trust among the team as a whole.
- You frequently complain, after your team completes a project: “If everyone had put all of their concerns on the table from the beginning, we could have done better work.”
Curiosity
Your team’s effectiveness could be suffering because team members don’t ask genuine questions to find out about others’ knowledge, concerns and reasoning. Here are some signs that your team could be more effective if members were more curious:
- Some team members seem to think they understand the situation and those who disagree with them don’t. They think they are right and those who disagree with them are wrong.
- Asking genuine questions happens rarely, although some people may ask questions to make their point.
- Differences in views leads to winners and losers or stalemates.
- Team members often feel that they are not being heard or understood – and therefore they stop making valuable contributions.
Informed Choice
Your team could be having problems because team members don’t get the information they need and/or the opportunity to participate in decisions that affect the team and its results. Here are some signs that your team could be more effective making more informed choices:
- Some team members don’t involve others in decision-making. They tend to make decisions alone, perhaps thinking involving those they work with isn’t necessary or helpful, especially if others disagree with them. As a result, decision quality suffers.
- Those who have been left out of the decision-making are often not committed to the decisions, so implementation takes longer and frustration is common.
Accountability
Your team could be getting stuck because team members are not being accountable and/or not asking others to be accountable. Here are some signs that your team could be more effective if you defined accountability and came to agreements about what everyone is accountable for:
- Some team members have not been willing to consider if, or how, they may be contributing to problems they complain about.
- Some team members may be concerned about embarrassing others or themselves, so they avoid addressing important challenging issues.
- Deadlines get missed, it’s not clear who is responsible for critical tasks, decisions don’t stick and the same issues occur over and over.
Compassion
Your team members make negative judgments about each other and act on those judgments as if they are true rather than testing their assumptions. Here are some signs that your team could be more effective if team members chose to be more compassionate:
- You have conflict because some team members seem to believe their motives are pure and think those who see things differently from them have questionable motives.
- Team members misinterpret others’ actions, even when others are acting in good faith.
- Your team suffers from mistrust and defensiveness. Members believe it’s not safe to speak the truth and deal with important challenging issues. This environment reduces the team’s ability to learn together and perform at peak effectiveness.
About Your Results
This short survey is not a comprehensive picture of your team. Before you make decisions about what’s getting your team stuck and how to help them get unstuck, it’s important to get a more complete picture.
If you want to talk about your results and how we may be able to help your team, contact us.
