More Than Talent: Collaboration and ‘Figuring It Out’

Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics player and NBA star

Talent and requisite skills are invaluable in any organization yet alone, they are not enough to achieve the ultimate mission. Excellence in collaboration is necessary. In short, and not everyone gets it, talented people aren’t enough. It takes working effectively together to get things done and win.

Not all groups of talent in any profession accomplish dreams and team goals. Some underperform, badly.

“No matter how talented a team is, it still has to work together and figure it out,” Jayson Tatum, star NBA player and Boston Celtics forward recently said.

That comment is the inspiration for this article. Bringing people together, working cohesively, addressing discontent, subjugating personal agendas and determining and working in complementary roles to increase the likelihood of elite success, are all difficult tasks.

“A room full of experts may have a lot of knowledge but not always operate well as a team. It is said that every team is a group, but not every group operates as a team,” says Stephanie Licata, senior learning strategist at Cloverleaf and an ICF Certified Coach.

Talent is vitally important to organizations and they pursue, passionately, those with the most refined of skills, the proof in action of them and projected reliability.

“Many individuals in organizations acquire their positions, especially those in management, on their technical acumen or subject matter expertise,” Licata says. “We need knowledge on teams. We need specialization that helps teams to stay competitive and ahead of the curve.”

That is only part of the success recipe.

Stephanie Licata

“We also need human beings who can actively listen to each other, consider alternative viewpoints and who have the courage to engage in healthy task conflict,” Licata asserts and advises. “Learning to operate as a team takes time, practice and an organizational context that not only models collaboration, but requires it.”

The question is how to accomplish it, the details that make it work. An idea about it comes to Licata’s mind.

“One of the most notable team formation models in the study of groups is the Tuckman model of team development,” she says, adding, “These (five) stages describe critical phases a team must move through to achieve high performance:

“Forming — Team members are getting to know each other and what is expected of them. Relationships and bordering are getting worked out. There may be a mixture of uncertainty and excitement during this phase.

“Storming — As people get more comfortable, individual voices get heard. There may be a clash of ideas, strategies or personalities.

“Norming — This is the figuring it out stage where teams learn how to resolve conflict. They may get to know each other more and learn how to customize communications with individual team members. They start to iron out initial obstacles to create a rhythm.

“Performing — Confidence grows as the team progresses in working together productively. This translates into tangible results, better work outputs and stronger team cohesion.

“Adjourning — If the team or work group is temporary — in some cases of cross-functional groups — put together for special projects, the team may dissolve as it completes its task,” Licata says.

What is often puzzling or frustrating or angers stakeholders is what really gets in the way of figuring it out — optimal team development and results.

“In that entire team development process, there is no mention of the leader, which is a critical key that can guide this process or actively hinder it,” Licata says.

That’s a key omission.

“The leader sets the tone and guides the team, which facilitates this process. For example, if the leader starts off modeling effective communication, giving timely and critical feedback and even encourages a team charter or documented set of agreed to norms, the team has much more of a chance to advance to performing,” Licata says.

While the team may be flush with highly skilled and thus, premium talent, the leadership is the difference maker.

“In the norming stage,” Licata points out, “key factors and behaviors from the leader are critical.”

One being, that person’s “ability to foster healthy conflict,” she says. “The leader of the team must embrace the concept of healthy task conflict. This means knowing the personalities and work styles of the team members and not letting just a few loud voices lead the way. Leaders must welcome the healthy challenging of ideas and model this in a team setting.”

In addition, constant helpful communication must be given.

“The leader’s ability to give timely feedback,” is imperative, Licata says. “In both situations where feedback is critical or positive, the leader must actively be delivering feedback to team members to continue to develop each person. This creates a learning opportunity for team members to incorporate feedback into their interactions and performance.”

Comfortable or not, a leader has to “hold people accountable,” Licata says. “This is one of the most critical aspects of the leader’s role and often the most difficult.”

She provides an illustration to further explain.

“For example, if there is one person on the team who is not carrying their weight, pushing off to work for others and not being held accountable for their workload, this can lead to decreased team morale, team stress and many other divisive team dynamics,” Licata says. “Leaders must actively and consistently hold people accountable through support and coaching rather than fear or shame.”

Then there is the organization and its responsibility to building the desired environment that paves the way for the ideal objective.

“The organizational culture can foster or hinder a team’s growth. If the organization itself, modeled by senior leaders, isn't creating messaging, learning opportunities and strategies around what it means to be a collaborative team, it can be hard for teams to find their way,” Licata states.

Companies would do themselves a favor, she proposes, to consider a specific role in decision making.

“This is where the role of Talent — or Learning and Development — comes in and why it’s essential for people with these roles to have a voice and seat at the C-Suite table,” Licata begins, going on to assert, “People strategy must be directly connected to business strategy. It’s human beings that are going to execute whatever that business strategy is.”

That also means experiencing challenging interactions and situations.

“Wherever there are humans, there is conflict, opportunities to develop, communication barriers and many more problems to solve,” she says.

“This doesn’t mean just set up some training. This means having a standard of leadership behaviors, measuring leadership effectiveness, providing training and development, but also holding leaders accountable to model values-based behaviors.”

There have to be variables that can increase the probability of a team of talented people finding their way and winning in their professions as individuals and more importantly, a collective.

“There are a few things that can create the most empowering environment,” Licata says. “Articulate the expected behaviors for leaders. What are they? Are they articulated in job descriptions? How do they reflect the values of the organization?”

This can’t just be answered in our minds, she adds.

“These behaviors must be documented, observed and measured in leadership effectiveness evaluations that can be in the form of surveys, 360 feedback processes or even skip-level meetings,” Licata says.

Also helpful she points out is training leaders — management or otherwise — in coaching skills.

“Leaders don’t always know how to develop people. It’s not always possible to provide a coach for each person, but actively seek out training and development that helps people go from boss to coach,” Licata offers as advisory.

She breaks down, for clarity, what that means.

“This means learning how to actively listen, ask more questions rather than always directing, and helping leaders to encourage team members to do their best thinking, rather than micro-managing,” Licata recommends.

The next suggestion won’t land well with all personalities and she knows it yet Licata suggests it anyway.

“Allow time for dedicated team building,” she says. “If you want people to truly know, trust and respect one another, give them time outside of ‘work tasking’ and projects to develop as a group. People actually get to see each other as humans, find commonalities and not just relate to each other as their roles.”

Like it or not, people must know what is not tolerable and accepted.

“None of this matters unless the organization is one that holds people accountable for their actions, that acknowledges great leadership and contribution and that is willing to say when certain behaviors are not in alignment with their values,” Licata says.

“Employees notice right away when this is inconsistent. Fairness in an organization can ignite organizational loyalty and boost morale, creating work environments that foster healthy individual and team growth.”

“At the end of the day, human beings coming together to work together will always be messy,” Licata has discovered. “Mistakes will be made, challenges will induce stress and people may not always get along.”

This doesn’t mean something can’t be done to mitigate problems.

“The key is embracing another important factor: it’s not about liking people, it’s about learning to respect and co-exist with them,” she says.

“Not every person on a work team may be a person you naturally get along with. However, we learn more from those who challenge us than from those who don’t.”

There is encouraging news, she declares, for teams who are open to learning and applying it within their work and professional relationships.

“Every individual can gain skill and strengths from finding their way to work with all different types of personalities and work styles,” Licata suggests. “This builds versatility, flexibility and most importantly, resilience.”