Teams are far more influential than any individual.

We tend to focus heavily on coaching individual performance. We hire talented people, develop leaders, establish individual goals and evaluate individual results.

But much of what determines organizational performance happens between people. A team unified by a compelling mission and effective at execution generates focus and an energetic response from everyone in their function. Teams that work through directional and cross-division or cross-function challenges also set an infectious precedent for collaboration and creative problem solving.

Breaks and splits in the top ranks are just as visible. The costs of top-team infighting are multiplicative; they translate into huge and costly inefficiencies throughout the organization.

High-Performing Organizations Are Led by High-Performing Teams

The challenge is that even a team made up of highly capable individuals can function poorly. Priorities compete. Meetings consume time without producing decisions. Functional leaders defend their own areas rather than optimizing for the enterprise. People with concerns remain silent. And leaders can believe the team is aligned when individual members have very different views of what matters most. Worse, they are often blind to the dysfunctional tensions in their group because it is not the sort of thing that people like to mention.

The extensive literature and research on team effectiveness has produced many different models, but there is considerable common ground among them. Beneath the different terminology are a relatively small number of conditions that consistently distinguish effective teams from ineffective ones. These conditions can be simplified into three dimensions—Alignment, Organization and People—and these dimensions can be assessed by nine carefully chosen questions.

Nine Questions, Grouped Into Three Dimensions

The good news is that teams are actually more coachable than individuals. An individual will often bump up against the limits of who they are and find it difficult to change deeply ingrained patterns of behavior. Teams are more malleable. They can change how they communicate, make decisions, resolve conflict and work together relatively quickly.

Add that to the fact that teams have a much bigger multiplier effect on organizational performance, and there is a significant ROI to be gained. We just need a practical way forward—and someone courageous enough to start the conversation.

Alignment

1. Clarity: If each team member independently explained the group’s mission, how closely would their answers align?

2. Priority: If each team member listed the top five priorities for the next three months, how similar would their answers be?

3. Shared responsibility: How effectively do team members integrate their functional roles within the group's shared goals?

Organization

4. Structure: How well does the team’s structure represent all the critical aspects of their function?

5. Decision-making: How effectively does the team make timely, well-informed decisions?

6. Operating: How productive and engaging are the team’s regular meetings?

People

7. Leader: How much do team members trust and feel motivated by the leader?

8. Dependability: How dependable are the team members to deliver on their responsibilities?

9. Psychological safety: How freely do team members share their candid views, disagree and raise concerns?

Can nine questions really be enough to make a meaningful assessment, one that produces real insight and actionable suggestions for improvement? 

We say yes, while we acknowledge that the hard work comes after the assessment. The questions provide a solid starting place, but improvement will come from the work required to see change through, whether that’s about aligning on mission, improving the mechanics or addressing team dynamics. 

But you can be the judge by taking the assessment. 

There is another twist here. Your answers are passed to an AI-powered instrument that interprets your responses in the context of a broad body of knowledge about team effectiveness. It identifies patterns and relationships that may not be obvious from the individual answers and uses them to generate a customized assessment and targeted recommendations.

Take the Assessment

On completion, we will show you a reliable snapshot of your team’s current effectiveness, and share targeted suggestions for how to improve. No emails are used and there is no information tracked for marketing purposes. This is a freebie in the honest sense.

https://www.morganalexander.com/teamassessment

But that’s just your perspective. Having the conversation with the team is how teams really improve.

Your Assessment Is Only One Person's Perspective

If you want to get serious, ask each of your team members to answer the same questions. Then you will have everyone's perspective and a shared view of what is working well and what needs attention.

The differences between people's answers may be as revealing as the scores themselves. If the CEO believes the team is highly aligned while several team members see things differently, that gap is important information. It gives the team something concrete to discuss.

More importantly, involving the team changes the exercise from an assessment into a conversation. Instead of the leader deciding what the team needs to improve, the team develops a shared view of where it is strong, where the gaps are and what deserves attention.

https://www.morganalexander.com/getyourteamsperspective

An Informed Conversation

The purpose of assessing a team isn't to produce a score. It is to initiate an informed conversation about how the team works—with a mind to improving.

The nine questions provide a practical way to start that conversation. They focus attention on three fundamental dimensions of team effectiveness: whether people are aligned, whether the team is organized to perform and whether its people are creating the trust and accountability necessary for high performance.

The real value comes when the team answers the questions together, discusses the differences and agrees on what needs to change.

High-performing teams aren't simply collections of talented individuals. They are groups of people who know what they are trying to accomplish, work effectively together and are willing to have the conversations necessary to get better.