Team Assessment

Researched By: Mr. Vismin Lawas, Jr.

MSIT (CTU-DANAO)
Imagine you are sick, but you don’t know exactly what’s wrong. You go to
the doctor and she is puzzled, too. You undergo a bunch of tests including
blood-work and a scan, and the doctor asks questions about your
symptoms. Using this structured, objective process, the doctor forms a
complete picture of your health and gets to the root cause of what’s ailing
you. In business today, teams need the same sort of doctoring.

Teams are the primary unit of many workplaces, and their problems are
diagnosed through team assessments. In this guide, we go over
everything you need to know about picking the right assessment tool, how
assessments work, and what assessment to use in situations such as
remote teams, start-up teams, and teams that struggle with trust and
ineffective communication.
 TEAMS VS. GROUPS AND WHY
TEAMWORK RULES

 “Teamwork” is a term that is used so frequently in professional and

academic settings that it means different things to different people.
Younger employees, have probably heard it so often that they’ll
conflate it with group work — basically, any time they’re working with
other people.
 Teamwork and group work are two quite different things,
even though many people don’t distinguish between
them.
 A group is simply a loose organization of people who
coordinate their efforts. A team, by contrast, is a
collection of people with shared goals who are bound by
their commitment to reach these goals, share a common
purpose, and they regulate their behavior and
performance to fulfill this purpose.
 Teammates - share goals
 - hold each other accountable while pursuing these
goals,
 -have to be good communicators.
 -characterized by synergy,
 -the combination of individual efforts to create a team
effort that is greater than the sum of the individual
efforts.
 Teammates can complement each other in
terms of skills, diversity of perspectives,
personalities, thinking styles, experiences,
training, and social abilities. In an increasingly
globalized world, even different cultural
backgrounds might be an asset. Bringing
diverse talents together can translate into
tangible benefits.
 WHAT ARE THE HALLMARKS OF A STRONG
TEAM?

 High-performing teams are more efficient

because they coordinate their efforts better. The
combination of different perspectives, thinking
styles, and experiences translates into better
decision making. And are aware of what each
teammate has to offer, and they usually
experience less interpersonal conflict.
 The strongest teams are characterized by clear,
fair communication, have more clarity about the
team’s purpose and goals, and thus more
accountability.
 Working together is generally a positive
experience, which means team members are
happier — both with the team and the
organization as a whole.
 If teamwork is not cultivated, problems often
arise. Many people who say they work on teams
— which, in the modern workspace covers most
of us — are actually members of pseudo-teams.
 Pseudo-teams refers to groups of people who
are intended to achieve team results but who do
not share the common purpose and
interdependence of true teams. When that
happens, the results are usually suboptimal, and
the teammates don’t enjoy themselves.
Characteristics of High-Performing Teams

Common purpose Shared Goals

Synergy Diversity of members
Complementary rules Efficient
Well-coordinated Strong decision making
Persistence Less interpersonal conflict
Clear communication Mutual respect
Accountability Positive relationships
 USE TEAM ASSESSMENTS TO UNCOVER PERFORMANCE
ISSUES

 A team assessment is an exercise that allows you to evaluate a

team’s strengths and weaknesses. As a recognized management
technique, team assessments began attracting attention in the
1970s and 1980s, after American organizational practice
wholeheartedly embraced the idea of teamwork as a primary driver
of success (in professional sports, which has always emphasized
teamwork, different team assessments have been used for even
longer).
 Scholarly interest in measuring team performance
followed shortly after, as Michael T. Brannick, Eduardo
Salas, and Carolyn W. Prince note in their 1997
book “Team Performance Assessment and
Measurement.” This trend coincided with a wider turn
toward the use of formal theories and frameworks in
measuring team performance. In the 1990s, team
assessment methodologies adopted from professional
contexts such as the military and theater were widely
disseminated.
 Some team assessments are based on particular theories about
what drives effective teamwork. These include the work of
management theorist Meredith Belbin, who suggested that good
teamwork was predicated on the presence of different personalities
on a team and having individuals who fit specific behavior roles, and
of business consultant Patrick M. Lencioni who identified five major
team dysfunctions.

 Other assessments focus on different measures of team

effectiveness, such as the quality of organizational support, clarity of
goals, a team’s ability to learn and grow, team diversity (not only in
terms of culture, race, gender, but also thinking styles and
personalities), and, most importantly, the ability to deliver results.
 While diagnosing problems is good, you should also
conduct team assessments to identify fault lines where
future problems might emerge. Going through the
assessment process usually also strengthens a shared
sense of purpose, trust, and communication among
teammates. The end goal remains the same: ensuring
the team is operating optimally and positively impacting
the team experience.
 As you prepare for a team assessment, make sure to choose a tool
that matches your needs and objectives. Some assessments focus
on how individuals contribute to teams: what strengths and
weaknesses they bring to the table, how their behavior affects the
team, and how effective their individual efforts are. Others focus on
the team as a whole, evaluating the team’s processes and the
quality of their results.

 While team-focused assessments may be better markers of team

results, which is usually the first concern for people managing
teams, there’s a strong case to be made for understanding
individuals before you can understand the team. And it may be
worth considering a specialized assessment for your team leader,
who fulfills the separate, challenging functions of coordinating,
motivating, and directing the team.
THE BREAKERS……..
G_ _ _ P - is simply a loose organization of people who
coordinate their efforts.

T_ _ M - is a collection of people with shared goals who are

bound by their commitment to reach these goals, share a common
purpose, and they regulate their behavior and performance to fulfill
this purpose.
 UNDERSTANDING THE ROLES PEOPLE PLAY ON
TEAMS

 To understand how team assessments can be used to

improve teamwork, let’s dig a little deeper into teams —
how they are set up, how they evolve, and what
problems they are likely to run into.
 Earlier, we mentioned Belbin, a British management
theorist who in 1981 described eight personality types
that needed to be present (and balanced) among
members of a team for the team to function optimally.
Belbin’s work is among the best-known theories of how
diversity impacts teams. He believed that these
personality types emerged naturally, meaning the roles
cannot be learned or sufficiently cultivated. So, they are
a critical consideration when picking people to form a
team.
Here are Belbin’s roles (including the ninth he added in
1991):
 The completer-finisher - Deadline driven and conscientious; takes pains to ensure
quality.
 The coordinator - Natural organizer who excels at delegation and facilitating
decision making.
 The implementer - Practical thinker who brings ideas off the page and into the real
world.
 The monitor-evaluator - Known for logical and thorough judgment — and for healthy
skepticism.
 The plant - Out-of-the-box thinker whom people rely on for creative solutions to
tough problems.
 The resource investigator - Extrovert who excels at developing vital contacts
outside the team.
 The shaper - Thrives under pressure, a clear role model for the team when things go
wrong.
 The specialist - Highly knowledgeable in a particular field, or possesses a specific
skillset.
 The team worker - Diplomatic, perceptive figure who reduces friction between team
members.
Here are Belbin’s roles (including the ninth he added in
1991):
 Belbin’s theory focused on naturally emerging
personalities, but alternative theories focus on
other characteristics. These include late
business journalist Robert Heller’s seven
functional roles, which relates team members to
the responsibilities they take on (rather than
their innate strengths), and psychologist Edward
de Bono's six thinking hats, which represent
different thinking styles that we all can wear at
different times. Kenneth Benne's and Paul
Sheats’ 26 group roles combine aspects of
function and personality.
ASSESSMENTS AND THE STAGES OF
TEAM DEVELOPMENT
 Teams develop and behave differently as they
pass through a number of developmental
stages.
 The framework most commonly used to illustrate
team development is known as Forming,
Storming, Norming, Performing and was created
by a psychologist named Bruce Tuckman in the
mid-1960s. In 1977, Tuckman added a fifth
stage, Adjourning, though it isn't consistently
referred to today.
 Forming: Teammates are excited but nervous
about the work. They act to orient themselves
with the group, introducing themselves and
asking questions. Though some may be anxious
about the project — particularly if they have
never worked with this team before — feelings
are mostly positive. The forming stage is when
the foundations for teamwork are laid. Activities
include defining the team’s goals and purpose,
teammate bonding, and deciding the rules and
processes by which they will operate.
 Storming: Storming usually occurs fairly quickly
after a team begins its pursuit of its goals. Even
the best-laid team strategies don’t always go
according to plan, and the early excitement
quickly ebbs. As the team’s progress slows,
members of the team become frustrated, and
this is the stage at which conflict is most likely to
break out.
 Norming: Norming marks the gradual reduction
of conflict within the team, as members come to
terms both with what the team is supposed to
achieve and with what other people bring to the
team. Cohesiveness increases, and members of
the team start feeling more comfortable with
their teammates.
 Performing: By the time a team reaches the
performing stage, it is running like a well-oiled
machine. Teammates have learned to work
together and are coordinating their efforts most
effectively. Synergy is at its peak. As a result,
individual members’ satisfaction with the team is
usually high.
 Adjourning: As a project winds to a close, team
members generally feel satisfaction with their
performance, though it’s not unusual for some to
be nervous about what comes next. It’s
important to make sure that motivation doesn’t
flag, and that the team finishes the project
strongly. It’s also vital to check and ensure the
quality of deliverables.
ASSESSING HOW YOUR TEAM EXECUTES:
THE Z PROCESS
 One alternative to Tuckman’s framework is the Z
Process. The Z Process is similar to Tuckman’s
framework in that it has four stages, but it
doesn’t focus on team dynamics. Instead, it
describes four stages during which a team
comes up with an idea and brings it to life. The Z
Process suggests that there are individuals
whose natural strengths correspond to each of
the four stages. If you know what your team
members are good at, you can have the right
people take charge of the project at each stage.
 The first Z process stage is creating: when
people come up with ideas for what the project’s
goals are and how best to achieve these goals.
This is where creative thinkers, or creators,
shine. No idea is off the table.
 The second stage, advancing, involves gauging
and building interest in an idea. Advancers excel
at getting people to buy into an idea before the
team starts to refine it.
 Refining, the third stage, is all about critiquing
and amending an idea so that it’s practical and
implementable. Project details are fleshed out in
this stage, and a plan of action is created to
execute the project. Refiners, strong critical
thinkers and detail-oriented planners, take
charge here.
 Executing is the final stage, when the plan is
put into action. Executors are good at
implementing plans and bringing ideas to life.
WHEN TO DO A TEAM ASSESSMENT
 Team assessments provide more value to the
team at some times over others. Unfortunately,
team assessments are too often done only after
things go wrong. While this is a perfectly
legitimate reason for an assessment,
organizations can reap more benefits when they
do not think of team assessments only as a
response to difficulty. Conducting assessments
before problems arise can avoid or mitigate
them as well as potentially save time and
money.
WHEN TO DO A TEAM ASSESSMENT
 Team assessments provide more value to the
team at some times over others. Unfortunately,
team assessments are too often done only after
things go wrong. While this is a perfectly
legitimate reason for an assessment,
organizations can reap more benefits when they
do not think of team assessments only as a
response to difficulty. Conducting assessments
before problems arise can avoid or mitigate
them as well as potentially save time and
money.
Here are some good times to do a team
assessment:

 To strengthen a team that is having problems

 To get a new team started right
 To help a team grow
 To prevent problems from arising
 When team members turn over
 To bond teams in situations such as remote teams and startups
 Before a major strategic shift or campaign towards a big goal
 As part of ongoing team development to baseline then compare at
intervals
 Team-building experts say early in the team life
cycle is a prime opportunity for a team
assessment. Make sure team members get off
on the right foot by learning about each other’s
strengths during the forming stage.
 That can reduce conflict that occurs during the
storming stage. These assessments are also
useful for introducing new members to a team,
since turnover isn’t unusual. When teammates
haven’t met each other before (such as with new
teams or remote teams), or when getting things
right the first time is critical (such as with
startups), these assessments lay a strong
foundation for the team.
 Reactive assessments are usually conducted
during the storming stage, which is when
problems are most likely to appear. Even if the
forming stage sets a strong foundation in terms
of interpersonal relationships, conflict can rarely
be eliminated.
 At this point, some team assessments help members
negotiate and grow past their differences. The storming
stage is also a good time to use an assessment to
determine team performance baselines, so you can
compare performance in the norming and performing
stages. If conflict is resolved successfully, you should
see performance improvements.

 Team assessments also offer value to already

established teams, especially when there is a change in
organizational framework or when the team is preparing
to tackle a new project that is different from those they
have done before.
WHAT CAN YOU EVALUATE WITH A TEAM
ASSESSMENT?

 With the variety of tools available, you can focus your team
assessment on different aspects of teamwork. Let’s look at
some of these.
Feedback
 Feedback is integral for individual growth, both as members of
teams and as individual contributors. Good feedback is an
honest, fair exchange of information and opinions on how
people are performing. Delivered effectively, it’s an excellent
source of firsthand advice that will help people advance
themselves and their careers.
 Delivering feedback effectively can be a challenge. Feedback
should not be unnecessarily harsh nor put people down —
quite the opposite. Remember you are trying to motivate the
individual to adopt the desired behavior. So you want him or
her to leave the encounter feeling that success is possible
and with a clear idea of what they need to work on. Make sure
you only give feedback in private, and if it is prompted by a
specific incident, deliver it after.
 Experts generally recommend starting feedback on a positive
note, appreciating a person for what they have done well. This
allows the person receiving feedback to relax, and they
usually become more receptive to criticism.
 If you are the person delivering the feedback, prepare your
comments beforehand so you stay on topic and remain
professional in the session. Make sure you can cite examples
to illustrate your feedback. Anticipate questions, explanations,
or objections the individual might have and think through your
responses in advance. Good feedback is specific and
actionable, and you follow up to encourage people to make
improvements in the areas highlighted.
 We’ll briefly discuss two models for delivering feedback to
team members: the GROW model, which can be applied by a
leader for a junior teammate, and 360-degree feedback,
which is delivered by a person’s teammates.
 The next step is determining the team member’s reality —how
far they are from the goal. Then the team member identifies
their options for meeting the goal. The coach, or team leader,
guides both of these assessments. To end the session, the
coach has the team member find a way forward. He or she
decides upon concrete steps to achieve the goal. The team
member leaves with a plan to put this idea into action.
 360-degree Feedback: A set of feedback techniques
designed to gather information from people in a full circle
around the individual — not just supervisors,
but teammates, coworkers, and customers. It’s an excellent
way to elicit feedback for team members. After all, few people
know you better than your teammates, who regularly observe
your behavior firsthand. 360-degree feedback is popular
because it’s more holistic than single-point feedback (like from
a boss). The process also reduces bias in the assessment
process. However, it’s a complex system that assumes that
everyone involved knows how to give fair and effective
feedback. Also, the fact that feedback is delivered
anonymously means it must be accepted at face value, and
there’s usually little room for further discussion.
 360-degree assessments use 360-degree feedback to create
holistic evaluations. You’ll see them in assessments of teams
or individuals with multiples interfaces, and especially for
leadership assessments. The assessment design means they
are able to measure performance in a large number of
competencies, including hard skills such as strategic
orientation, goal setting, decision making, delegation,
achieving results, collaboration, and political and
organizational savvy, and soft skills such as positivity,
respect, communication, integrity, courage, self-awareness,
and concern for others.
USING TEAM ASSESSMENT TOOLS FOR
ENHANCING VISION

 Vision encapsulates what the team is striving to achieve. It

motivates and guides a team to achieve its goals. Since vision
is such an important contributor to a team’s sense of purpose,
the best teams spend time developing and understanding
their vision. To ensure buy-in to a team’s purpose, make sure
everyone participates in developing the team vision.
 A team’s vision represents the basis for managing
performance. You can think of performance management as
the process by which organizations allocate, assign, and use
their resources to meet the objectives outlined in their vision
statement.
 Teams will can also identify KPIs (Key Performance
Indicators) by which to assess their own performance.
Commonly tracked KPIs for teams include customer
satisfaction, project cost and schedule variance, missed
deadlines, and process costs. Avoiding micromanagement
(which can lead to employees feeling stifled and frustrated,
especially if they’re creative people) and effective delegation
of duties are also indicators of good team management.
 These organizational objectives translate into personal
objectives for each employee, and employees are
encouraged and rewarded for meeting their personal
objectives. In the long run, success in meeting personal
objectives is directly connected to success in meeting
organizational objectives. This approach can be scaled down
to translate team objectives into personal objectives.
THE ROLE OF TEAM ASSESSMENTS IN
MANAGING CONFLICT

 According to Bruce Tuckman’s four-stage team development

model, team conflict is inevitable. That’s because people vary
in their perspectives, values, and working styles. For
teammates still getting to know each other, some degree of
disconnect is likely.
 When these differences aren’t dealt with, things can escalate.
Experienced managers and team leaders typically build some
time into the schedule for teams to hit their stride, but delays
beyond this can be expensive, in terms of both time and
money.
THE BENEFITS OF ASSESSMENTS FOR TEAM
MEMBER DEVELOPMENT
 As we noted earlier, effective teams are distinguished by their
synergy, and good teamwork is based on team members playing to
their strengths and compensating for each other’s weaknesses. But
team member development also requires improving in areas of
weakness.
 Let’s look at Edward de Bono’s six thinking hats as an example.
Being especially proficient in one thinking style certainly doesn’t
mean there’s no need to improve the others — even if other
teammates already excel at those skills. Team members are
inherently dissimilar; they bring different combinations of knowledge
and experience. So improving thinking and communication skills
allows people to leverage their knowledge and experience for the
team’s benefit.
 One important tool in team member development is
the training needs analysis, a method to determine who needs
to be trained, what they need to be trained in, and how best to
train them. A training needs analysis reconciles a team’s need
for specific competencies with the team member’s interest in
being trained, and ensures that training, when delivered, is
effective for both the trainee and the team.
 Developed by social psychologist Douglas McGregor in the
1960s, Theory X and Theory Y are shorthand for two
contrasting ways of viewing a workforce. Theory X can
broadly be described as a pessimistic opinion of the average
worker: He or she doesn’t enjoy work for work’s sake, has
little ambition of his own accord, and works only in
expectation of rewards. Theory X also views subordinates as
inferior to managers in terms of both intellect and willingness
to exert effort, which means they need constant oversight to
work properly. Theory Y, on the other hand, is optimistic,
viewing people as intrinsically motivated actors who actually
enjoy the work for its own sake, and for whom remuneration
isn’t the sole reward. It views subordinates as intelligent and
responsible in their own right, needing minimal supervision.
 While Theory-X-style managers enjoy a consistently higher
quality of output, Theory-Y-style managers tend to have better
relationships with members of their teams. Research
suggests that the nature of work to be performed is the best
determinant of which management style is more suitable. As a
general rule, managers obtain better results by using Theory
X to manage workers who perform repeatable tasks, such as
workers in the manufacturing industry. Conversely, workers
who undertake non-repeatable, creative, or intellectual tasks
respond better to Theory Y.
 The Blake-Mouton managerial grid is a visual representation
of how managerial styles differ in how people
focused and task/results focused they are. Being people
focused means you prioritize your team members’ happiness.
Being task or results focused means you prioritize task
requirements and deadlines.
 The Blake-Mouton grid doesn’t encourage striking a balance
between the two: it terms this “middle-of-the-road
management.” Instead, it encourages managers to develop
both management styles to their fullest possible extents, thus
maximizing both team members' happiness and team
performance.
 The Blake-Mouton model plots these two orientations on different
axes. Managers or leaders fall into different quadrants based on
how they weigh people and results. This indicates their leadership
style.
UNDERSTANDING AND COLLABORATION IN
TEAM ASSESSMENTS

 Synergy relies on two things: individual strengths (which we’ve

discussed) and effective collaboration. Teams need people who
complement each other, but they must coordinate their work.
 Some aspects of effective collaboration, such as communication,
tend to deepen naturally with time. Others, such as group cohesion,
have to be actively worked on. The members of a successful team
are all oriented toward achieving the same purpose, and they have
the same idea for how to get there. When team members’
orientations diverge, the team’s ability to collaborate — and their
productivity — takes a hit. If goals diverge further, tensions or even
conflict may appear, costing the team more time and money.
 To preserve the team’s orientation, consensus must be developed
and then maintained. This can be tricky since you do not want to go
too far in the opposite direction and impose a “consensus” from the
top down.
 A second risk (though one that’s not usually considered)
is groupthink, the tendency of groups to sacrifice creativity to
conformity. Teams who fall victim to groupthink have little trouble
developing consensuses, but this is only because they actively
refuse to consider anything beyond a small subset of ideas and do
not want to engage critically with unfamiliar or dissenting
alternatives.
 There are, however, team learning and negotiation techniques that
can reduce the effects of groupthink. One of these is concept
attainment, a teaching technique that can be used with groups of
middle-school age and older. Concept attainment promotes
understanding of concepts via observation, rather than using
concrete definitions.
THE “FIVE DYSFUNCTIONS” TEAM
ASSESSMENT MODEL

 Earlier, we discussed how team assessments are based on theories

of what makes teams work. One of the most widely used theories
comes from business consultant Patrick Lencioni’s 2002 book, The
Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
 As the title suggests, the national bestselling book traced problems
with teamwork to five root causes, which Lencioni termed
“dysfunctions.” Today, a consulting company called The Table
Group, which Lencioni and his colleagues founded in 1997, offers
online team assessments based on Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions
model. A number of other consulting companies, such
as Performance Management Partners, also offer team
assessments that draw from Lencioni’s model.
 As you’ll see, starting with the absence of trust, each dysfunction
gives rise to those that come after it. This is why the Five
Dysfunctions are represented as levels on a pyramid, with the
absence of trust represented as the foundation of the pyramid.

Five Dysfunctions of a Team

As Defined by Patrick Lencioni
 Absence of Trust: This dysfunction is best understood as a fear of
vulnerability, which inhibits trust building among teammates. A lack of trust
is to be expected among people who may be working together for the first
time, but it must be addressed nonetheless. Trust is a prerequisite for
effective collaboration. Lacking trust, the team becomes prone to the other
dysfunctions.
 Fear of Conflict: The second dysfunction recalls a phenomenon we
have already discussed: groupthink. While consensus helps
collaboration, it can stifle creativity if people are unwilling to propose
ideas they think the group might reject. This can be ascribed to a
lack of trust in teammates, and a perceived need to conform to the
group’s opinions (if you don’t trust the group to receive your ideas
fairly). In not trusting teammates to value and examine all ideas
fairly and critically, group members become uncomfortable with
disagreement, even if it is productive. Inevitably, they are
dissatisfied with the group’s approach, since their own ideas were
not taken into consideration when determining it.
 Lack of Commitment: Failure to commit to a single, defined
purpose can cripple the team’s pursuit and overall performance.
This dysfunction harkens back to the team’s need to ensure buy-in
to a common purpose. Buy-in only happens if team members trust
each other and communicate honestly and without fear of ostracism.
 Avoidance of Accountability: For all practical purposes, a team
needs to regulate its own behavior to ensure progress towards a
goal. Holding members of the team accountable for their
responsibilities to the team is a big part of this, but team members
who aren’t committed to the team’s purpose are unlikely to hold
others accountable to their responsibilities. Without accountability,
motivation and productivity can dip, even among committed team
members.
 Inattention to Results: The last dysfunction is a confluence of the
previous four. Without commitment and accountability, it’s almost
impossible for any team to produce their best work, as people focus
more on individual pursuits than on achieving the team’s purpose.
This reduces the team’s synergy.
HOW TO ACT AGAINST THE FIVE
DYSFUNCTIONS

 Many team assessments are modeled on Patrick Lencioni’s Five

Dysfunctions. If one of these suggests that your team needs to work
on certain dysfunctional behaviors, here’s how to go about it:
 Build Trust
 A lack of trust, says Lencioni, is the root of all dysfunctional
behavior. But since trust is an inherently personal relationship, how
does one improve it throughout a team? The answer: You can’t
really foster trust, but you can put people in situations that
encourage them to open up to each other, because openness can
breed trust. This works especially well when a team is still young,
but it can work with people who already know each other, too.
 Try having team members complete a personality instrument such
as the MBTI or Everything DiSC Workplace, and then share their
results with the team, with insight into how they think their
personality type and natural traits influence their behavior.
Otherwise, try using an icebreaker exercise to get people to open up
and talk about things they wouldn’t normally discuss at work.
 Open-ended questions that encourage people to talk about
themselves are the best choice here. And lastly, make sure your
team members see each other face to face often. This isn’t a
problem for many teams, b. But it can be for cross-functional teams
who don’t work in proximity and remote teams, and it’s generally
difficult for people to trust each other when they don’t interact face to
face very often.
Become More Willing to Engage in Productive
Conflict

 In teamwork, conflict isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Remember, it’s

necessary to develop ideas and to ensure buy-in to the team’s
purpose. Problems arise when team members are not willing to
engage in conflict at all, even if it’s productive. This can happen for a
couple of reasons.
 Sometimes, team members may not be confident enough to
challenge senior figures within the team, or they may keep clear of
conflict out of desire to be accepted by everyone in the team., This
is a reluctance to engage in conflict at the individual level. At other
times, however, the reluctance to engage in conflict is more a
structural feature of the team, such as the presence of naturally
dominant personalities within a team, or intra-team politics that
means those in conflict aren’t treated equally.
 At other times, the avoidance of conflict at a team level may be a
function of a general reluctance to deal with conflict among a
majority of team members.
 To address individuals’ reluctance to engage in productive conflict, a
personality or styles assessment such as the MBTI or the Thomas-
Kilmann Conflict Instrument can help people understand their
natural response to conflict, and how they might become more
willing to participate in productive conflict. If results are shared with
the team, these tools have the added benefit of enhancing mutual
understanding of conflict styles, which can make things a little easier
for everybody.
 To address a lack of productive conflict at the team level, set clear
expectations for how team members are supposed to interact with
one another: fairly, equitably, critically, and with an open ear. You
may also want to set rules for engagement; some teams, for
example, allot people uninterrupted time to speak during discussion
sessions.
 These things can help productive conflict emerge during meetings,
which can otherwise be intimidating for those reluctant to engage in
conflict. If your team displays a general reluctance to deal with
conflict, talk to the team leader about having someone to ask the
tough questions and thrash out the decisions that team members
are reluctant to make.
Increase Commitment

 If team members don’t trust each other, they’re unlikely to engage in

productive conflict, and if team members don’t engage in productive
conflict, they’re unlikely to see team decisions as representing
shared perspectives. This results in a lack of commitment to team
decisions and team goals, which can cripple a team. This kind of
commitment problem is best treated by addressing the underlying
causes: lack of trust and reluctance to engage in conflict.
 Lack of commitment can spring from other causes besides a lack of
trust and productive conflict. Sometimes teams struggle to set goals
for themselves, or the goals they set are unclear. In this case, it’s
the team leader’s responsibility to steer the team towards closure
and clarity.
 When decisions are made in a meeting, review them at the
end of the meeting, and make sure the communication is
cascaded. Lencioni explains the cascading
communication tool as a way of having leaders communicate
key messages to their staff, who do the same with their staffs
and so on. Try setting a thematic goal, which, according to
Lencioni, is the “single, temporary, and qualitative rallying cry
shared by all members of the team.”

 Sometimes, a team makes decisions based on the views of a

small majority. When this happens, you need to ensure that
the whole team commits themselves to the decision — but
how?
 In cases like this, it’s important to recognize that people will not
commit themselves to a decision if they don’t believe it’s the right
decision. (That is, if they fear it’s unwise and that things will go
wrong.) But since a compromise does need to be reached, have the
team set up a contingency plan that allows them to revisit the
decision. This removes people’s fears of assuming that one bad
decision will spell the end of the project, and allows them to dedicate
themselves fully and without worry to a decision they may not have
fully favored.
 Articulating the worst-case scenario might also be a viable tactic
here. Sometimes, it helps for people to know that a bad decision
probably won’t lead to a catastrophic outcome. Also, some members
of your team might respond to hearing what might go wrong by
committing themselves at least to ensuring that this doesn’t happen.
Practice Accountability

 Like a lack of commitment, the absence of accountability is a result

of preceding dysfunctions. In the same way, it’s also best addressed
by building trust, increasing acceptance of productive conflict, and
increasing team commitment.
 That said, there are some things a team leader or supervisor can do
to ensure the team practices accountability. Start by having the team
identify behaviors that are potentially harmful via a team
effectiveness exercise, where team members communicate each
other’s positive and negative behaviors. Then, publish a set of
behavioral standards which the team is expected to follow. It’s much
more likely that team members will follow — and make sure that
others follow — a code of conduct that is clearly enunciated.
Increase the Focus on Results

 In theory, you can go a long way towards increasing a team’s focus

on their results by addressing the dysfunctions that precede a lack
of attention to results. But you can also cultivate this directly.
 First, have team members publicly commit themselves to the team’s
thematic goal as that by itself with increase follow-through. Also,
make sure that a team's thematic goal is in clear alignment with
organizational goals. If team members understand how their work
contributes towards the organization as a whole, and if they buy into
the organization’s purpose, they will see the relevance of their
efforts to the larger effort. You can also incentivize team
performance by having compensation programs reward team-based
achievements.
THE FIVE BEHAVIORS OF A COHESIVE TEAM

 Lencioni’s five dysfunctions offers a roadmap for what not to do. If

lack of trust leads to fear of conflict and a variety of other problems,
it follows that building trust would reduce fear of conflict and prevent
the succeeding dysfunctions: lack of commitment, accountability,
and poor results.
 This is the idea behind The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team, a
collaboration between Lencioni and Wiley Workplace Learning
Solutions. The Five Behaviors is a team development program that
reverses Lencioni’s five dysfunctions to propose a model for
functional teams. If the five dysfunctions are the root causes of
problems with teams, the five behaviors help you avoid those
problems.
 The five behaviors are simply the reverse of the dysfunctions: trust,
(productive) conflict, commitment, accountability, and results. Just
like the dysfunctions, each positive behavior breeds the next. By
building trust, you lay the foundation for an effective team.
CHOOSING AN ASSESSMENT FOR YOUR
TEAM

 There are several things to keep in mind when selecting an

assessment for your team and your situation. No single assessment
works for all situations or teams. Each has its own strengths and
weaknesses.
 Cost, as always, is a consideration. Some well-regarded online
assessment tools can be used for less than $20 a person. But the
most effective and sophisticated tools cost more and are usually part
of a package that involves a consultant to oversee the assessment,
explain the results and draft action plans. These engagements
typically run into thousands of dollars.
 Before selecting the assessment tool, isolate what you want to learn
about your team. Are you hoping to understand team members’
personalities better? Are you looking to gauge the quality of team
processes, such as communication or delegation? Or are you trying
to assess your team leader’s leadership skills?

 If you have a team that’s already facing problems, you’ll need to

identify the broad area within which the main problem lies, and then
pick an assessment that specifically targets that area. Always aim to
address the biggest problems first.

 In fact, shoot your team an email, or have them answer a few

questions with a simple online survey to get their input on the type of
assessment needed. Here’s an example of one.
 During the assessment, you’ll need to plan time accordingly. If the
assessment is to be followed by a discussion, workshop, or group
facilitation, run the assessment before you start working with the
group, so you have the results to shape the rest of your program.
Make sure all team members participate. If you're facilitating the
session, make sure you set a good example.Keep in mind that even
within each broad assessment category, different assessments are
designed for different purposes. It’s important to understand exactly
what an assessment is measuring and how, so you can determine if
the assessment is right for you.
 For example, if you’re focusing on team communication, don’t talk
over people. Better still, bring in a professional to run the
assessment. They’re typically more experienced and are not tainted
by organizational politics, so they generally get more accurate
results.
 Lastly, remember that team assessments are simply an evaluation
tool that cannot necessarily override the nuance and subjectivity
involved in teamwork. If something works well for your team, don’t
feel you have to abandon it just because an assessment says you
should. Trust your team.
Personality and Behavioral Style Assessments

 Personality and behavioral style assessments try to help individuals

understand their behavior as a function of naturally emerging
personality or style traits. Understanding your own behavior helps
put your strengths into perspective, while allowing you to understand
how your coworkers perceive you. Your coworkers do the same,
which creates a greater, team-wide understanding of why people
behave the way they do.
 Personality and behavioral style assessments are designed to be
taken by everyone in a team or workplace as a way of
understanding how coworkers can work together most effectively
and minimize frustration.
Leadership Assessments

 Leadership assessments usually have two main aims: helping

leaders understand the behaviors they exhibit (their leadership
style), and helping leaders understand how they are seen by the
people around them. These assessments usually look at such things
as communication, creativity, decision making, planning, goal
setting, progress monitoring, team communication, coaching, and
operational knowledge. Some are 360-degree assessments,
gathering data from people at all levels of the organization who
interact with the leader to create a holistic picture.
 Leadership assessments are designed to be used with people who
have occupied leadership positions for long enough to have settled
into a reasonably consistent leadership style. They can be used to
troubleshoot specific problems or to broadly develop a leader’s
toolkit.
Team Assessments
 Team assessments are based on diverse approaches. Some view
teams primarily as sets of individuals fulfilling different roles, and
explain team success as a function of a team’s ability to balance
these roles (think Z Process strengths or the Belbin roles). Some
focus primarily on the nature of a team’s processes (their
communication, levels of trust, practice of holding team members
accountable, etc.), and some examine the quality of a team’s
outputs, treating these as proxies for overall team health.
 Think about your reason for conducting the assessment. Are you
trying to help new team members understand each other better? If
so, pick an assessment that focuses on individuals’ roles as part of a
team. Is your team running into communication problems? Choose a
tool that focuses on the subtleties underlying this problem. Are your
team’s results suffering? Select an assessment that examines
performance factors.
Tools to Help New Teams Build Trust

 While assessments that focus on leadership and behavior styles are

helpful for all teams, new teams should prioritize trust, which
according to Patrick Lencioni, is the foundation of all good
teamwork.
 Assessments may focus either on the trustworthiness of individual
team members or shared trust within a team. Since trust is a highly
abstract concept, different assessments measure it in unique ways.
Regardless of which trust assessment you choose, however, some
determinants of trust appear to be almost universal — comfort with
intimacy, reliability, integrity, and loyalty. And the end goal of all trust
assessments is the same: helping team members build better
relationships.
 Trust-building exercises work well with new and newish teams
because of Lencioni’s observation that a lack of trust is the root of all
team dysfunction. While levels of trust may generally be lower
among new teams, their newness also makes them more receptive
to trust development exercises, which can double as team bonding
exercises. If a lack of trust is a problem, address it early on, before it
can spiral into other problems that hurt the team’s work.
Tools for Building Team Understanding

 Tools for building understanding among team members usually

involve some aspect of learning about one’s self in order to
understand other people. This is especially true for the Myers Briggs
Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Thomas-Kilmann Instrument (TKI),
but it's also the way many icebreakers work. By revealing how
people think, act, and behave — usually in terms of comparing
themselves to others — these exercises build mutual understanding.
This fosters empathy and better communication.
 The MBTI is a personality inventory that classifies people into one of
16 personality types according to how they perform on four
continuums. It’s a big-picture view of how people see the world and
what functions they’re best suited for. The TKI is an assessment of
how people behave in conflict situations, and it’s specific to helping
people understand how they approach conflict.

 Although it’s tough to go wrong with tools to improve understanding

in almost any situation, think about what you’re hoping the team will
take away from the assessment.
DIY TEAM ASSESSMENT TOOLS

 If the cost of a consultant is prohibitive, or if traditional assessments

models don’t offer what your team needs, you might opt for a do-it-
yourself assessment.
 If you’re thinking about conducting your own assessment, ask
yourself what you’d like to achieve. First, who or what is the
assessment supposed to evaluate? Are you interested in the nature
of a leader, an individual team member, or a team as a whole?
Secondly, is there a particular problem you’re trying to address? Or
are you conducting the assessment to improve general performance
and reduce the probability of problems in the future?
 Answering these questions will help you to determine whether you
need an assessment for individuals, teams, or leaders, and whether
you need an assessment that targets a specific area of concern or
one that aids overall development.
 Some consultancies offer to help you customize team assessments
based on your organization’s particular needs. Let’s look at a couple
of these customizable assessments — the Leadership Gap
Indicator and KEYS to Creativity and Innovation, both offered by the
Center for Creative Leadership.
 The Leadership Gap Indicator is designed to help organizations
understand where and how leadership training efforts are best
directed. But organizations may define good leadership in different
ways. Leadership might entail one set of competencies in one
organization or industry, and a completely different set in another.
To facilitate this, the Leadership Gap Indicator is based on a model
of effective leadership that can be customized to feature different
leadership competencies, depending on the participating
organization’s specific needs.

 KEYS to Creativity and Innovation (KEYS) is an assessment of how

conducive a team or organizational climate is to creativity and
innovation. It works by surveying employees to gauge their
perceptions of the climate.
 If you want to see how far you can get with DIY assessments, start
simple. Have a few managers assess team members privately and
then compare results. Here’s a form you can use.
HOW TO GET THE MOST FROM YOUR TEAM
ASSESSMENT

 Team assessments can pave the way for a lot of learning. They
identify a team’s strengths, and also its areas for improvement.
Assessments that focus on both team processes and on individual
team members can paint a picture of a team’s dynamics, and how
balanced a team is.
 Assessments that focus on performance measurement can provide
a baseline for comparison after team development measures are
implemented. They also provide reliable metrics for reassessment,
to see whether a team is making progress. And lastly, participating
in team assessments can be a way for a team to revisit its purpose
and strengthen its commitment, which can make for meaningful
performance improvements.
 Since assessments are meant to provide actionable findings, hold
debriefing sessions (especially after whole-team assessments) to
discuss the results and evaluate options for moving forward. For
these debriefs, consider bringing in a specialized coach who can
help teams discover, discuss, and plan improvements.
 If this isn’t financially feasible, or if you’d want to facilitate the
debriefs yourself, keep in mind that discussion should be
constructive, rather than critical. Attack the problem by having team
members float suggestions for how they might incorporate best
practices in their work. Once some solid ideas emerge, consider
setting development goals and action items so your team has
concrete targets to work toward.
 For some individual assessments, you’ll likely want to allow team
members to keep their results anonymous, or at least private from
their teammates. For these assessments, one-on-one discussions
with team leaders or supervisors are a better option. Encourage
team members to start with providing feedback on the results of their
assessments. Personal development goals are an option here, too.
 Leaders may be awarded a little less anonymity, especially if they’re
participating in 360-degree feedback assessments. Some leaders
may be forthcoming about their weaknesses, while others may not
like to discuss these with their teammates for fear of losing face.
 Make sure that leaders have a trusted senior employee to talk with
about their assessment results, as they’re better equipped to
discuss the meaning and nuances of good leadership in a particular
role, sector, or industry.
Thank you very much