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Group dynamics and relationships are critical at leadership team level – attention to these dynamics and building team competencies are essential for any leadership team to engage effectively on transforming the organization and grappling with complex issues.

Team dynamics is a theme so common in management education and literature that it seems to have become almost invisible - certainly not a sexy topic of discussion in the boardrooms and power brunches of the corporate elite.

Yet management teams who do not bring team competencies and dynamics to the conversational agenda do themselves a great disservice. Transformational leaders demonstrate through their behaviours and attitudes how their organizations should behave – your top team should be walking the talk. Both popular and academic literature support the contention that cohesive, high-performing management teams far outperform groups whose team dynamics are underdeveloped.

The appropriateness of using teams increases in accordance with the risk and complexity of the task.

Most managers have read about or studied team theory at some stage in their careers and yet we find that a startling number of top management teams in listed companies do not pay any attention to group behaviours and dynamics.

Many seem to consider these issues to be pertinent to their subordinate teams, but rarely look at their own top management team through the same lens. The themes of team dynamics and team competences are not on the management discussion agenda.

Classic frameworks of team development illustrate a progression of concern from functional, to tactical, to behavioural elements. McFadzean’s framework illustrates this as ‘attention steps’ of team development.

At which level is your management team?

• Level 1: the team is focused entirely on the task at hand.
• Level 2: teams begin to work on meeting process as well as the task, developing agendas and meeting plans.
• Level 3: the team is also aware of and monitoring team development – team composition and careful definition of roles and responsibilities are on the agenda.
• Level 4: teams progress to awareness of and attention to the behaviours and relationships that make up team dynamics.
• Level 5: team members are aware of trust, emotions and feelings, and the team tries to manage these dynamics constructively. This is the highest level of team development.

Studies show that as teams progress through these levels, effectiveness increases, the quality of discussion and decision-making improves, as does their ability to handle complex interrelated problems.

It is perhaps not surprising that top management teams, faced with increasing complexities and information overload, may feel that these issues are less than critical – but this is no excuse. Every leadership team has a corporate governance responsibility to utilize knowledge that could mitigate risks and improve leadership effectiveness. It’s time to go back to basics.

Donna Kipps,
Consultant

About Donna Kipps
A specialist in future strategy, culture, governance and leadership, she consults with individuals, teams and organisations on their unique transformational journeys.

References
McFadzean, E (2002): Developing and supporting creative problem-solving teams: part 1 – a conceptual model. Management Decision 40/5 (2002), pp 463-475.