Are you winning as a team? A three-step checklist for winning together.
Our ancestors would not have been able to survive long if they did not operate well in teams. Surviving the perilous and harsh conditions demanded that they organised and coordinated their lives by forming resilient and dynamic cooperating groups.
In fact, what seems to have advanced humanity, ‘civilization’, modernity and life forward is cooperation, singularity and individual freedom operating in well-organised collectives with a vision.
Today the social processes and formations at our workplaces, both project-based and task-based groups, are established on a common goal. The goal of the group is the unifying force towards progress and success. The leader and certain people in the group give focus and collective identity to the group.
A diversified and heterogenous group of individuals in a team, besides the common goal, are motivated by personal ambitions and goals. The personal goals are as important or more important than the common goals. ‘What is in it for me?’ ‘How can I use this opportunity for my personal interests?’ These are key questions that arise from our biological evolution.
The desire to maximise self-interest leads to amazing contributions from individuals. These are some common motivators that drive people:
-Financial (pay raise or bonus)
-Promotion
-Reputation
-Excellence
-Acceptance
-Recognition and Appreciation
-Fulfilling a purpose
-Gaining new skills and knowledge
We are complex beings and are often motivated by many social, cultural, economic and moral goals simultaneously, however, in a macro perspective, we can say that there is a single primary motivator. Many theories and researches have given us insights into individual motivational factors. Some noteworthy theories are; Marslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Two-Factor Theory of Motivation, Expectancy Theory and Three-Dimensional Theory of Attribution.
The theories suggest that productivity and achieving collective goals directly correlates to individuals achieving their goals and outcomes.
In modern profit-oriented workplaces, we tend to reward the leader of the group and/or the decision makers. The assumption is that when a project or task fails to achieve its purpose, the decision makers accept the consequences. This biased and imbalanced reward system creates resentment and negatively influences the long-term productivity and cohesion of the group.
At the end of the project, when the celebrations of your success or commiserations of your failure are tucked away, take a few moments to reflect on the people who made the project possible.
In teams with high levels of trust, we can do the following three steps as a group.
1. At the start of the project or task, understand how individuals operate and what motivates them.
2. Write the goals and rewards for each member:
Keeping in mind the primary goal of the project or task, note everyone’s goals and outcome.
3. At the end of the project, check with everyone to track their progress and outcome.
Repeat this for every project and task to build a happy and super productive team of individuals.
With time one can have a personal direction and a record of the success, achievements and shortcomings of particular individuals. This allows leadership to organise work according to the individual’s autonomy, sovereignty and goals.
Somewhere Henry Ford writes that “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
When a happy and motivated team works together and trusts one another and upholds the ultimate aim of the organization, then we have the recipe for innovative and ground-breaking work.
