Ordinary or Extraordinary? Why Some Teams Suck and Some Don’t

Sara Lindmont:                  Hi everyone, and welcome to today’s webinar. Ordinary or Extraordinary? Why Some Teams Suck and Some Don’t. It’s hosted today by HRDQU and presented by Kevin Coray, Sally Stamp and Todd Weinstein. My name is Sarah and I will moderate today’s webinar. The webinar will last about an hour, and if you have any questions go ahead and send those right into us all throughout the session today. There is a section on your GoToWebinar control panel. It should be labeled questions for some of you, it could say chat, but if you open that up, there’ll be a spot where you can type that in and click send. That’ll come over to us and we’ll either answer those as the session is happening or as time allows for Q & A at the end. If not, we’ll then definitely get back to you by email. Go ahead and send in those questions, we’re looking for some good participation today.

Sara Lindmont:                  Today’s session is based on the workshop and team assessment, extraordinary teams available at HRDQstore.com. This complete set gives you everything you need to deliver an engaging and meaningful team training workshop. If you are interested in more help, our team of skilled practitioners, some you’ll hear from today, they are available to certify you as a trainer or deliver this workshop at your location for your organization. Reach out to HRDQ for more information on how you can bring teams from ordinary to extraordinary.

Sara Lindmont:                  We’re really excited to have three members of the extraordinary team partnerships as our presenters today. First, here is Kevin Coray He is trained as an industrial and organizational psychologist. Kevin is a consultant and coach to leaders, teams and organizations. He is also co-author of the Extraordinary Teams Inventory and the Embodied Leadership Assessment. With over 35 years of experience Kevin’s client work has an appreciative approach that utilizes his skills and certification as a master somatic coach. He is a founding member of the extraordinary team partnership.

Sara Lindmont:                  Todd Weinstein is a certified executive coach with 20 years of experience as an HR professional leadership consultant and strategic business partner. He’s been an advisor, coach, mentor or facilitator to hundreds of leaders at all levels. He has held senior leadership roles and multiple organizations in industries that include retail, hospitality, healthcare, energy, technology and financial services.

Sara Lindmont:                  Sally Starbuck Stamp, working with individuals and teams as a leadership development coach has been her focus for the last 15 years since she became a Board Certified Coach. Her clients include a wide range of individuals and teams where she has been using the extraordinary teams research. Prior to that, Sally was a hospital administrator of care consultant, and serial entrepreneur. It is an honor to have all three of you speaking with us today.

Sally Stamp:                       Well, thank you very much, Sarah. Thanks to HRDQ, for inviting us to join the webinar today. Thanks to my colleagues at the Extraordinary Teams Partnership, and especially to all of you who have joined this webinar. Admittedly, we talked about naming it and when we suggested it would be entitled, Why Some Team Suck and Some Teams Don’t. We weren’t sure that that was appropriate. Then on reflection, we decided, yes, in fact, it is. What are we going to talk about today? Well, as coaches we’re very interested in what you experience. We will begin with that and we’re going to be inviting some answers to questions that we’ll pose to you to learn more about whether you’ve had team experiences that were sucky, solid or extraordinary.

Sally Stamp:                       We will also be reviewing some research from extraordinary teams, work that’s been done and led to the development of the ETI. We’ll be sharing some stories about our client experiences using this information. We’ll also be identifying some steps actually to help you move your teams from a continuum of maybe not so great to fully extraordinary. Ones that would be memorable that you will want to recount. We’re hoping that you leave this webinar with what I’m calling the three eyes that you’ll go away saying it was interactive, informative and inspiring.

Sally Stamp:                       Let’s move ahead and begin with taking a look at a question and we’re going to invite you to respond in your question area as Sarah had identified and we want you to think about a sucky team experience. The story we made up about all of this is that probably most all of you have had at least one of those. If you’re in one now, please don’t mention any names or be specific about that. At this point, we’d like you to think about one or two words that describe or described how you felt in that sucky team experience. I’m going to ask Todd to keep track of what’s showing up as you enter in some of those words. Please do that now. Todd, what are you seeing?

Todd Weinstein:               Thanks, Sally. Just waiting for some responses here. Seeing a couple come in, frustrating. I’m seeing annoying, draining. Waiting for a few more.

Sara Lindmont:                  I’ve got a couple here. I have a hyper aware of a knife in my back. I checked out. Over overworked and disenfranchised. There’re several that have come in with the concept of attacked, pushed, tense. Definitely, disengaged and discouraged is a common one coming up.

Sally Stamp:                       Kevin, let me ask with your background in somatic coaching, what are some things that you have experienced in describing the actual feelings?

Kevin Coray:                       I would just add to the participants that most of the words we’re hearing or what I describe as emotions or judgments or some description of the nature of the experience and if you then took it down a level and said, “I felt discouraged or I felt disengaged or I felt stuck or trapped or excluded.” What was going on in your body? What was the impact of being in a sucky team on your health and well being?

Sally Stamp:                       Any of those show up, Todd?

Todd Weinstein:               I’m seeing anxiety, tense.

Kevin Coray:                       Tense, migraines. Yeah, good. Hard to breathe deep.

Todd Weinstein:               Hard to breathe.

Kevin Coray:                       Yeah, that’s it.

Todd Weinstein:               IBS.

Sally Stamp:                       Well, that can be intense.

Todd Weinstein:               It impacts all parts of our body.

Sally Stamp:                       Exactly. Yeah. When people say a sucky team experiences, making them unhealthy, that can literally be true. Well, we just asked you to think to about what actions did you take when you came to the realization that you were in a team that wasn’t what you were hoping it would be? Anybody enter in what they did about that, if anything? Any responses there?

Todd Weinstein:               It was minimum.

Sally Stamp:                       It was a minimum.

Todd Weinstein:               Putting in that, I fired the team. Start with the leader.

Sally Stamp:                       How about exiting?

Todd Weinstein:               I tried to encourage collaboration, wanted to resign.

Kevin Coray:                       Pull off the team.

Todd Weinstein:               Ultimately, rose above it and stayed. Let me just expand that one, ultimately rose above it and stuck to the high road and was actually promoted. I told them they have to get ready.

Sally Stamp:                       I think that’s a good segue in to what we’re going to look at next, which is a comparison or contrast with a great team experience. Hopefully, everyone’s had at least one of those. Take a minute now and think about that and think about a great team experience. Again, what are one or two words that described how you felt in those teams? Consider what Kevin said about the feeling as opposed to just the cognitive or thinking piece. What are some of those words? What are you seeing now Todd?

Todd Weinstein:               Exhilarated, excited, open, engaged, relaxed, energized, creative, hopeful.

Sally Stamp:                       Much healthier in a feeling.

Todd Weinstein:               Invigorated, supported, engaged and excited. Pretty different there.

Sally Stamp:                       Yes, yes. One last question related to this, what would be one thing that in your experience as a team member, allow that to happen? What allowed the experience to be so much better? Anybody throw out a word about that one or two.

Todd Weinstein:               Seeing trust, generosity, a great leader, safety, trust and respect. Deep connection to shared vision, good leader, openness to ideas, investment.

Sally Stamp:                       I think we’re hearing some themes here.

Todd Weinstein:               Yeah. Feeling of others standing for me.

Sally Stamp:                       Well, so thank you for experiencing this with us and I’d like to shift now to Kevin to hear really what we’ve learned from the research and how does that compare with the actual experiences that you have all just described, Kevin?

Kevin Coray:                       Yeah, thanks. The results, the emotions and the feelings that you guys have all described about your great team experiences are really consistent with our research. Here’s what we know, in 2009, Jeff Bellman and Kathy Ryan published a book called Extraordinary Groups. That particular book described their field research that they did on 60 teams, self identified as having a truly amazing team experience. Those same kinds of words are there in the book, it’s the same really great feeling. I reviewed the book for them, and then suggested that we conduct broader research on what differentiates extraordinary teams from solid or sucky ones, because they only study great teams.

Kevin Coray:                       Kathleen Ryan and I conducted research on many more teams and in 2014, as a result of our research HRDQ published the Extraordinary Teams Inventory, or what we call the ETI. That research identified five key indicators that distinguish what extraordinariness is as compared to other kinds of teams. Since 2014, and the product has been out there on the market, we’ve continued our research and added capacity to our consultation and coaching services. Today, we’ve now done research on over 2,000 people and 230 groups and teams. I just want to highlight what we think of as the real key difference for extraordinary teams.

Kevin Coray:                       From the original field study Bellman and Ryan said what makes these teams totally different is the level of outstanding results they get, both tangible results and intangible ones. Some of the intangible ones are about how it impacts the health and well being in the nature or dynamic of the people in the team and you guys have described that in the chat that we did. We would also say that most people are personally transformed. There’s deep learning, and that there’s the opportunity to think about this as you go forward into the rest of your career is as a high point experience. These kinds of teams exhibit stuff like getting outstanding goal achievement, like you said, people feeling respected. One thing we didn’t hear from you, but there’s a lot of positive humor and people have fun working together. There’s high commitment in these teams and low turnover and there’s lots of this deep learning of profound learning. Like somebody said, there are high levels of psychological safety.

Kevin Coray:                       What we came around to was a model that included the five key elements that were typical or characteristic of extraordinary teams. At the same time, what were the outcomes and what we saw as the outcomes of extraordinary teams were these outstanding results even higher or better than what you would commonly known as high performance teams and the personal transformation. It’s when all of these things come together that that wow happens, that energizing feeling, that connection that you get with the other people in the team, that you’re hopeful and that you’re positively change. Now let’s shift back to those sucky things and Todd’s going to dive in on one of these indicators, just to give you a feeling for the indicators. I’ll just shift over to Todd.

Todd Weinstein:               Great. Thanks, Kevin. One of the qualities that really stands out in our research is the diversity that exists on a team like this. By diversity, we don’t just mean when people may look different or have different backgrounds from one another, although that can definitely be a part of it. The idea here is that what we’re really talking about is when members of a team, embrace each other’s differences and see those differences as a strength overall on the team. When that happens, they may experience a few things, for example, they may explore and challenge each other’s ideas. Of course, someone mentioned safety earlier, the idea here is that safety would have to be present for me to really feel comfortable to explore or challenge ideas, and to be open to new ways of thinking.

Todd Weinstein:               They would also move ahead through those differences to find solutions. Even though they would be having a difference of opinion or perspective, they would be able to get to more reasonable solutions together that they’re working through. That also means a third thing that is, they’re speaking up. They’re not avoiding the hard conversations, they’re able to and comfortable to speak up and they see those differences and that diversity as a strength. This is definitely one of the key things that we noticed, and when we look at this a little deeper, I’m thinking back to a time where I spent recently working with a team that had a new leader and two sub teams that were having some challenges. Think of this as a team made up of some analytical types where people were really wanting to dive in and understand things more deeply. Some more creative, innovative thinkers, where they were really running into a bit of a challenge together.

Todd Weinstein:               What we noticed in working with this team, is that what was happening was a lot of conversations where they were not understanding each other’s values, where there were tendencies for them to want to control what was happening, and where conflict was happening, but not in a productive way, there was a real lack of respect because they didn’t really see things. If you look at things on the left side of the sucky side of the continuum, what we wanted to do was to help them achieve their goal of shifting more towards extraordinary and this meant getting them into conversations that allowed this to become unstuck. They were looking to learn about each other shared purpose and values to speak up and be it find the ways to include one another, to have more productive conflict, and to have cross functional work teams that were really getting things done together.

Todd Weinstein:               This embracing differences, if we go to the next slide, you can really start to see what showed up here. This is just a snapshot of a team like this, where there’s more detail in our report. You can see here that definitely the lowest factor here showing up is this the indicator of embracing differences. What this shows is that there are a number of elements that are contributing to this team. What we wanted to do was work with them through a series of coaching interventions, working with individuals, working with pairs of individuals, with the leader of this team, and really creating an environment where this became a catalyst. For them to talk about those things that were undiscussable, for them to really surface what was important to the team and allow them a framework to get started and focus on how do we really want to make each of these indicators change for us in a way that moves us towards extraordinary.

Todd Weinstein:               Obviously, you can think of teams you’ve been a part of, or you’ve noticed, where they’re struggling with some of these things. This report became a way for them to begin to talk about it, and allowed us to begin to work together. With that, I’d love to hand it back to you, Kevin, if you want to take us a little bit more in terms of what are some of the ways in which we can begin to make that shift happen?

Kevin Coray:                       Yeah. I mean, the key here is that teams are perfectly designed to get the results they get. Sucky teams are perfectly designed to get sucky results, but the elements that exist in those teams is what makes it so and nothing is going to change unless somehow we change those elements. Let that sink in a little bit. The teams are perfectly designed to get the results they get. There has to be a way to disrupt the system, the existing system, and then you have to do things like not leave it to chance we have to intervene in some way, we have to be highly intentional. Measuring it using something like the ETI to show and get things on the table is huge as a way to open the conversation. Then, from a coaching standpoint, you really have to work hard to change behaviors, habits, culture, norms, the ground rules or other structural elements that might be outside the team itself.

Kevin Coray:                       Sally, can you talk more about an extraordinary team and how it shows up on the ETI?

Sally Stamp:                       Sure. I’d also like to add to what Todd was describing how in the actual report there’s much more explanation of these indicators. An essential piece that I discovered in reviewing data with teams that have taken the assessment is they typically look at the lowest scores. That’s probably all of us when we get feedback on something we look at, okay, what’s not working as opposed to what is. Yet, what we would say is that regardless of where you score on this, there’s always an opportunity for growth and development. I’ve found it so interesting that teams will say when they look at their scores, for example, in this one, “I thought we were better and embracing differences.” Again, as Todd said, it opens up the opportunity to talk about these things that teams don’t typically take the time to talk about. From that standpoint, it can be one more tool for any of you that are in team advising roles to use with the team.

Sally Stamp:                       To get back to your question, Kevin, and thank you, I’ve had an opportunity to do an ETI with a number of teams in most sport in the solid range, quite frankly and yet a couple in the extraordinary. One in particular, I will describe, and actually we didn’t do the ETI until after we had done some team coaching. While I’d like to take credit entirely for their scores, extraordinary, I won’t do that. It was a small team in size, a team that had a history together. While their roles were siloed, functionally speaking, they did have a real sense of teamness and they were truly curious individuals and they had an open mindset and welcome to feedback. The engagement that we have with them did one of the first steps that we would do in any coaching engagement, and it’s a big part of all of this is to look at increasing awareness of the current reality. We did a lot of individual assessments, personality, values, strengths, and compared those, which allowed them to really begin to appreciate differences and understand differences.

Sally Stamp:                       We also then looked at their vision, their purpose and really refined how that was stated and looked at was it actually being lived behaviorally, as well as just stated on a plaque. We also worked with them to identify their roles or responsibilities, their current reality and all of the things that entered into their teaming effectiveness. Again, this was the result of the ETI after some team coaching and that continued afterwards, their response to this data was, “We thought we were better in embracing differences.” They still tended to look there, and yet realized that they hadn’t embraced differences. They had acknowledged them, and yet we’re not necessarily utilizing those to their full extent.

Kevin Coray:                       Sorry. Before you go on, I’m seeing here John has typed in a question about, describe what highly intentional means with regard to making the change from ordinary to solid or from solid to extraordinary. I just say that this is an example. This is a team that made a big commitment to getting substantially better and at work.

Sally Stamp:                       Absolutely. Another question that I have had from teams is, well, if we finally make it to extraordinary what are the chances we’re going to stay there? Now I have a thought Todd or Kevin, do you have a thought on that as well?

Kevin Coray:                       The groups that are extraordinary do tend to stay there, but these are really temporal results there if there’s a change in the nature or the membership of the team, or the situation in terms of the larger organization, for example, it can impact whether or not the team is extraordinary. Extraordinary teams are really flexible, they’re able to confront things that ordinary teams or solid teams can’t. They’re able to adapt and stay extraordinary better than the other kinds of teams.

Todd Weinstein:               I would draw connection as well to anything that we want to change in our lives. If we want to get healthy, there’s a certain amount of work we have to do to get to a specific level of health and then there’s a certain amount of work we would have to do to maintain that. If teams want to remain extraordinary, there’s going to be a certain amount of maintenance work to always be paying attention to what helps those conditions be there. Not just to work on it temporarily, but to really make that a part and add in some mechanisms for that always to be a focus for them. What we find, I think is that extraordinary teams find ways to do that, to always be talking about what’s making this team work, and what would make it even better.

Sally Stamp:                       Well, and thank you both, because I think all of that is so important that not only expands on the whole idea of intention, it’s all about commitment. As you said, Kevin how agility is a key element demonstrated by extraordinary team. If that relationship exists, there’s probably a likelihood that it can continue, however, it does need to be practiced and done with intention.

Sally Stamp:                       Taking a look at the next slide about this idea of making a shift from ordinary to extraordinary, what do we need to do? One other point that I just thought of too is how extraordinary teams tend to recognize the difference between task and relationship. I’m guessing all of us talk about that at times. Yet, it’s fundamental to what Kevin talked about in terms of personal transformation on an extraordinary team and how relationship becomes important. Clearly, there has to be a balance, and yet, that’s an essential element. Step one, if we would put this into a step format, is this whole idea of awareness. Again, as Kevin said, doing something over and over, is not likely to affect a change. Practice doesn’t make perfect if you’re practicing the wrong thing. You need to look at what you’re doing and really, what is the benefit of doing something different?

Sally Stamp:                       Taking the baseline ETI as I said, whether it’s done initially with a team or at some point in, for example, a team coaching process can give you that opportunity to open up conversation. It is one element of data or information, and yet I found to be a very vital one, I have yet to have a team that didn’t find the experience valuable. As a coach, it’s very helpful for me because it really does eliminate some blind spots. Typically, as I said, people are surprised by some of the findings of the ETI. Get help.

Sally Stamp:                       This reminds me of something that one of my coaching instructors said early on in my coaching career, which is that, “Many clients, individuals or teams believe that they can do everything themselves.” Her comment was typically, “I don’t doubt that you can, I’m not sure that you will.” Again, it’s not that people aren’t capable of doing some of the things to have more effective teaming. It’s a matter of having the time and the commitment and the outside expertise to make it the best possible. If indicated, get help and help can come in a variety of different ways. I think the ETI is just one of those coaching consulting is another one of those but having a neutral party observe and notice blind spots and our automatic responses to things can be very, very helpful. Todd, I don’t know if you had any other slot related to that with your experiences. You’ve worked in so many different disciplines and so many different service sectors.

Todd Weinstein:               Yeah. I think another thing is reconnecting people to why they’re a team or a group in the first place. Oftentimes, people get so wrapped up in the day to day activity and the busyness of their work that they sometimes forget to step back. If we think about this question from earlier about being highly intentional, what are we being intentional around? What is the purpose we’ve come together in the first place? I can think of some work I did with a hospital system, for example, that was just simply about reconnecting all of the different people in these roles to the importance of the patient and the patient care. The idea here is how do we get people also reconnecting to not just what it takes for them to work well together to be extraordinary, but why they’re there in the first place? I think that’s often something that gets forgotten.

Sally Stamp:                       Thank you. Let’s do a poll. Let’s take a look at the current reality. This you can respond to in your poll, there you go. Thank you, Sarah. Think about a team today, it can be the one that you’re on at work. It can be another team, any team and how would you rate it knowing what we now know? We’re going to consider that sucking or could be better was in that ordinary range. It’s good, it’s in the solid range, very good to high point, it’s moving into extraordinary. Let’s go ahead and vote and see what we learned about the people on this webinar. Well, the votes are coming in. All right. Here are the responses. Go ahead.

Kevin Coray:                       I know that as we see the results that we’re getting about 6% say it sucks and present around 9% are saying it’s a high point in my career, and the rest are coming in the middle but skewed more to the sucky side, which is fascinating. In general, across the teams is that we work with, we find that the results are relatively normally distributed and yours are looking that way, but a little bit shifted to the more negative end.

Sally Stamp:                       I couldn’t agree. I was really surprised, and this was all word language that we used and yet could be better is a pretty high number. I think that that confirms what we believe that so much work is done in teams, and we all spend time in teams, whether at work or family unit or volunteer activities, and yet, they’re lacking in so many respects. Todd, did you have any other thoughts about that?

Todd Weinstein:               I was just going to make a quick comment. I think this is really indicative of what I’m seeing a lot lately as being more of a practitioner of this work in the organizations that I go into where people are feeling like their team experiences are subpar. Where we’ve put a lot of emphasis on the performance of the individual, but not as much on thinking about how the group operates, or how that team is coming together. I think it’s definitely showing in numbers what I’m often feeling when I’m working inside companies that this is a big opportunity.

Sally Stamp:                       The question that I often get is what if it’s all the team leader? What if the leader starts? I think one of you want to take that.

Kevin Coray:                       I would love to hear your thoughts on that, if you have been encountering that before. I’ve got another question coming in after.

Sally Stamp:                       I’m just reminded I didn’t have engagement where I was invited to come in and do some team coaching by the team leader. When all was said and done, and everybody was excited, he said, “By the way, I’m not going to be part of the group. I don’t need it.” That was not hopefully the case often, it can be a challenge. That’s where having the ETI, for example, and having the team leader participate and getting some results and being able to have some open and honest dialogue around that can potentially lead to a discussion about the role that the leader is playing in making it not as great.

Kevin Coray:                       Often times, when we’re going to find that situation that will share the ETI results first with the leader, when the leader is part of the problem and open up the possibility for a discussion, that maybe is a missing conversation that has been needed to happen together with the provider and the team. Sometimes the supervisor needs some coaching before you go into the full sharing of the results with the team itself and the team together in making the decision about how to move forward.

Todd Weinstein:               An interesting comment we got in from one of our participants says, “One thought, we’re all probably on multiple teams. If we don’t have one we’d score is extraordinary and the sucky experience is more present or stands out. I do have teams that I’m on that are good, but the sucky one is definitely louder.” It’s interesting how that can be taking them out of our mind share, even if we’re on teams that are working pretty well.

Sally Stamp:                       Well, I know Kevin is a researcher, and yet I’ve read, probably not substantiated research, though, so many times the negative thoughts are what remain with us. Thinking about the story of lost luggage at the end of your trip, no matter how great the vacation was, that’s what you’re going to tell people about. I think some of that can happen, what do we do about that? We have an idea of the current reality and obviously, this is just one sampling. What we would suggest is comparing that with a future vision. Imagine having an extraordinary team, and again, regardless of where you are in the audience now, whether you’re a team leader, or a team member, or a team advisor but consider an extraordinary team. Think of those words that you used, and that the research has suggested describe extraordinary. There was a lot we heard about trust and respect, and psychological safety and shared vision.

Sally Stamp:                       Think about how close are you in your team to that vision now? Is the gap greater or lesser than what you thought it was? Then what’s getting in the way of being better? I’d invite you to think about what you or other team members are doing as opposed to sometimes all the external factors that we suggest getting the way. The blame game, if you will. Take personal responsibility for what’s getting in the way of being better. A coaching question that I often ask clients is what will it be like if nothing changes? What will that feel like? What will that be like? How motivating and non motivating will that be? Finally, well, how important is achieving your vision? In some cases, perhaps not as important and that’s a choice you have to make. Yet, if it is important, then to take some of the steps we’ve talked about and getting more insight and awareness into the teaming itself, and then determining what you might want to focus on to make it better makes sense. Anything that you wanted to add, Kevin?

Kevin Coray:                       I think that’s great. Let’s move to what Kathy said about teams.

Sally Stamp:                       One of the authors, we love her quote, “Life is too short to spend time in teams that don’t fulfill their promise.” Now, our take on that was, because we’re not as politically correct as Kathy is, “Life is too short to spend time in sucky teams.” Again, it’s about a choice. It’s about really making a decision in terms of what’s important to you, as a team member, what’s important to the team, and in turn to the whole organization that the team is a part of. It’s something to take a look at. Todd is going to talk a little bit about another way to do that.

Kevin Coray:                       Before we do that, I see a question from Malcolm about a fifth question on the prior slide around. What are you prepared to do to make your team extraordinary? How hard are we prepared to work on it? That’s a great thought. I’ll just leave it at that. It’s well said.

Sally Stamp:                       Very well said.

Todd Weinstein:               I might add that the questions that you were asking before are great reflective questions for us. They’re also really practical and useful questions to be asking if you’re a part of a team, or working with a team that you can pose and get into some great discussion around. Think about the vision, what’s getting in the way, what would it be like if nothing changes, and getting people to talk about those things can be great precursors to all this work.

Todd Weinstein:               Let’s go to the going deeper slide here. Great and if you think of what could be happening next, if you are part of a team or noticing that there’s an opportunity for a team that you’re working with, to go a little deeper on this and wanting to be more responsible for its performance in that way, we are offering a launch to extraordinary one hour consultation, which is really just a complimentary call to sit down and help you do four key things. One is clarify? What are the results you’d like to see with this team? Number two is what will it really take to get there and really think through maybe at a deeper level what you’ve been wondering about or wanting to work on? The third might be to discover what’s that number one thing that may be holding the team back? Oftentimes, there’s some root issue or challenge that hasn’t been uncovered or talked about. This can be a way to explore that a little bit more.

Todd Weinstein:               Finally, identifying the powerful actions that will move this team forward or if you’re responsible for the performance of that team, something that maybe you can be doing to begin that process? This is something that we’re wanting to be able to offer for those who want to go a little bit deeper. There are always the opportunities to use the ETI and other tools that we have out there. Of course, the book is a great resource as well. We wanted to at least, put that out there and then maybe open it up for some questions to see additional thoughts, input or other questions that may be on your minds as we pause here for a moment to see. What would you like to add? While we’re waiting for some questions here, maybe I’ll go to my colleagues, Sally or Kevin, anything you would want to add?

Kevin Coray:                       Yeah, I’d add one thing. This is really, we think that in a one hour call, we could get to the bottom of the four major questions and designer way to move forward together with you.

Todd Weinstein:               Sally, how about for you, anything to add?

Sally Stamp:                       Yeah, I thought I heard another question in the background. Yes. I think that for all of us, we’re happy to share some of the experiences we’ve had as well. I would say, if anybody wants to take advantage of this, we can talk a little bit about that, especially for those of you in the audience that are advising to teams. Going deeper is something that we have found can be so beneficial. In our work, we typically don’t just go in for an hour or two overall or even for one short event, recognizing that teaming is a process, as is the coaching of teams a process. It’s important to frame it that way, and also to help equip people to be better on their own. It’s not about ever creating a dependency relationship where we’re going to need help on an ongoing basis. It’s really about developing the insight, awareness, choice and action planning to do it yourself. I would add that, that was a long at Todd.

Todd Weinstein:               That’s great. We did have a question that came in. Really a comment that I think is a part of this experience, though. That was it being a huge issue with a leader, who’s maybe more of a sucky leader. I’m wondering if either of you would want to speak to what do you do, if there is one person and maybe that’s the leader who doesn’t really seem to care about that teaming experience? What chances does that team have of becoming extraordinary when you have that one person, especially if it’s a leader, playing a role of really not sponsoring or support that work?

Kevin Coray:                       I’ll take that. We mentioned earlier that we often go in when we administer the ETI and work with the leader first to open up the opportunity or the possibility of the leader. Hearing feedback from the team in a new way and creating opportunity, have that missing conversation with the supervisor in a way that hopefully is safe. Oftentimes, there’s a deeper coaching that has to happen with the with a team leader who thinks they’re doing the best they can with the skills they have, and yet they don’t have a sense at a deeper level about how their behaviors impacting everybody else. It may well be, for example, that the team leader is the person who makes people feel not safe to back to somebody who’s early, concerned about a sucky team versus a really extraordinary one.

Kevin Coray:                       Then the question would be in honoring this, the supervisors sense of why do you do that? Well, I did that because it made me successful in the past and it’s the one way I know to manage teams. Yet we might, in a coaching conversation, be able to move them to a place where we’re able to say, at one point in your career that was probably functional, it may have been functional even in earlier times in your life. Yet, in this particular situation, it’s no longer functional and won’t help to move the team forward. We’ve had feedback from the team about safety, and what would that look like? What are the differences in the kinds of behaviors that are exhibited when safety exists in the team? Mostly, the team members wouldn’t be able to make that intervention, but when we see it, we’re able to go deep with those kinds of supervisors. It could also be that, that’s the case with individuals in the team as well that their behaviors that they’re doing that are holding the team back.

Sally Stamp:                       I would add with respect to a team member who was potentially resistive, disruptive or otherwise, not a team player. Lots of times there, they really are not self aware. They don’t appreciate the impact that what they’re saying or doing is having on the team, to have conversation about that can help and there are times that it won’t. I believe individuals and teams can change yet there must be a degree of desire and intention to do that. Sometimes if there’s not, then that can be a very real obstacle and it might mean that somebody shouldn’t be a member of the team in my experience.

Todd Weinstein:               Here’s one more coming in that, I think is an interesting one. Given that we are often working in many different teams that are constantly changing, or assignments that change with each project, how does it a teammate achieve an extraordinary experience? If it’s the same team working on multiple assignments? Or if someone’s finding themself a part of many different teams? How do you make that an extraordinary experience? Either of you have a thought on that? I’m happy to jump in after.

Kevin Coray:                       I’m happy to jump in. we’ve had experience couple of our extraordinary team partners, we’ve had experience with consulting teams where you change the people that you’re working for, the people you’re developing deliverables for, or with engineering teams or with firms where project work is such a big part of the way moving forward for our team. To the extent that the team members shift, and you don’t have an existing intact team, it starts to be incumbent on the enough people to learn the key characteristics of extraordinary teams. As you reorganize into a new project team, to bring that discussion forward about how are we going to work together? What are our ground rules? What is it that we want to do when we don’t agree with each other? In essence, to start to focus on the relationship side of the project team, or the dynamic side of the project team? The Extraordinary process kinds of side of working on a project and before we jump into the task.

Todd Weinstein:               Sally, I’ve got one more here. I’m wondering, if you can jump in on this one. This is a question that says, I’m often on the end of making… this person consults with teams and says, I’m often at the end of making the case to the leader how important the teaming is, and requiring time and space, even when delivery on tasks seems the highest priority. Can you speak to how the ETI might help make that case for leaders?

Sally Stamp:                       Yes. Again, we’ve probably all had that experience. It’s a variation of why do I need to do this? Then that’s the question, well, what happens if you don’t? Often, I will show you a sample of ETI report to someone and review the areas and look at what learning could come about as a result of that. That can be very effective in helping somebody to see that going just that much deeper. Again, it’s such an easy assessment to administer and interpret and process that I think, from that standpoint, that’s how I’ve approached it.

Kevin Coray:                       I think I’d als add that, there’s enough information out there about the return on investment to the bottom line of teams that the teams that are more extraordinary that exhibit these kinds of characteristics are so much more effective in producing returns for the company. Although it may seem that just keeping at it is the best way to go, because we have so much to do, taking time to reflect and understand your own processes is so valuable. May be that in some cases, you may need to offer that research to the team leader and then open the conversation that way as well.

Sally Stamp:                       Yeah.

Todd Weinstein:               Yeah. I’m reminded of some of the research that Gallup has done some of the more recent research that Google has done on team effectiveness. A lot of times I’m seeing people bring in not only the data from a team, but also other broader research efforts to really help make that case. Usually, like you said, Kevin, it’s the team’s data that really stands out the most and creates the most visceral experience for that leader to say, “I really want this to be different.”

Sally Stamp:                       I’m thinking of two teams in particular that both scored extraordinary on the ETI and the emphasis they placed on acknowledgement and celebration. That was not something that they had, initially recognized for what it was. The value of doing that was so significant and led to this idea that we’ve talked about a personal transformation where people just really felt transformed by the experience and a lot of it related to that. We don’t always take time to do that.

Kevin Coray:                       Malcolm just asked a question about, how do you show up as an extraordinary team member? That’s a great question. An extraordinary team brings out the best in each of us that we have an opportunity to contribute in ways. I think about the old Phil Jackson quote about the amazing basketball team when he said, “We need to finish strong. We need to take this team which is a whole bunch of amazing individual performers and make them work together as a team. Where is it that Jordan need to pass, as opposed to driving in and making a shot himself?” It was that whole sense of how do we work together? Is a big part of how do I be an extraordinary team member? Become curious about others differences as opposed to being triggered by them. There are a whole lot of skills that individual team members start to develop and become more supportive of each other in really extraordinary teams.

Todd Weinstein:               From my experience, when I’ve seen this in action that leaders or the team members as they start to learn more about each other’s capabilities and differences. That’s how the energy gets built. The curiosity, like you said, really drives a deeper understanding of what can everyone do to contribute? Now I know who to go to when I have a question or need some support on something that up until now I’ve been I’ve been struggling with on my own. That begins to build that momentum as well.

Todd Weinstein:               I know we’re getting close on time. I guess I just want to check in with Sarah and see if there’s anything else you’d like to add in here at this point, or if you want us to keep taking questions. I know we’re getting to the top of the hour.

Sara Lindmont:                  Yes, thank you, Todd. Yes. I do one other question that I personally actually have. We haven’t we have a little bit of time here to go ahead and answer that. If you do have any other questions, though, everyone out there, go ahead and send those in anything we don’t get time for today we’ll answer by email after the session. You will get all your questions answered, go ahead and send those in. I personally have a question, I volunteer a lot. I’m on these short teams, where you’re not with these people all that long of a time, and sometimes it’s really awesome and sometimes it is just terrible. My question is, are there times where that’s just okay, and we all tend to just suffer through it? Are there other things that maybe we should be doing? Are there times where it’s just like, we just accept them?

Kevin Coray:                       Yeah, thanks Sara. There’s a fair amount of teams that I’ve worked with are boards that change over time, particularly for not for profit organizations. One of the things that I find over and over and over again, is if we can orient the board to what makes great teams as part of their orientation as opposed just about the mission and the roles of the board members, it makes a huge difference and how they work together. That’s going to happen over and over and over again, a board will change maybe every year or maybe every three years and not for profit organizations. It’s a constant battle for the executive director and the staff to manage the dynamics of the board shifting. It’s a great way to just start with board activity is to be able to have them have an experience of working together and then use the ETI to then go to a deeper place that board retreat for example.

Sally Stamp:                       Well, I won’t jump in Sarah was saying that something I’ve done with informal groups is a little like what we did today. When we’re getting together for just a project, a task force or anything to say, “Okay, we have a choice about what we want this experience to be like short lived as it is. Let’s think about a great experience that we had.” Everybody just give some thoughts on what allowed that to happen. Like Kevin is saying, just so that we have some awareness before entering into the relationship can jumpstart the process towards making even that extraordinary.

Kevin Coray:                       Yeah, exactly. To try to get this positive vision of how we’d like to be because everybody knows fundamentally what they need to do to move in that direction. They may not be highly skilled, but at least they’re leaning in the same direction and their moral open to help.

Todd Weinstein:               My one small add might be the word being, like you said, how do we want to be? Oftentimes, when we’re on a team, we focus on what do we need to do? What do we need to get done? I think bringing in both sides of that, what do we want to do? How do we want to be together? Identifying that up front can make a big difference from an early outset of any team or group experience.

Sara Lindmont:                  Great. Good. Thank you. I just want to share I don’t know if you guys have seen it, but we have a comment here. That came in from an attendee that says that he loves how the three of you work together and played off each other. I thought that was a great example of some extraordinary teaming.

Kevin Coray:                       We do try to practice what we preach.

Sara Lindmont:                  It’s great, good. Well, thank you so much, Kevin, Sally and Todd. That was really wonderful. We appreciate everyone today participating in some great participation. Thank you so much. I do just want to share for those of you who don’t know HRDQ, we publish research based experiential learning products that you can deliver in your organization. You can check out our online or print self-assessments and workshops, like the Extraordinary Teams Inventory, the foundation of today’s session. We also have up-out-of-your-seat games, reproducible workshops that you can customize. Check those out.

Sara Lindmont:                  We do have a team of practitioners that can come help you deliver a session, the coaching that Todd talked about as well. We have practitioners that can come on board and help you internally in your organization for teaming, and all sorts of people skills topics. We do look forward to being yourself skills training resource. I just want to say Kevin, Sally, Todd, thank you for joining us today.

Todd Weinstein:               Thank you for having us.

Sally Stamp:                       Thank you.

Sara Lindmont:                  Thank you everyone for participating in today’s webinar and happy training.