Pillars of Building a Flourishing Team

“Human resources are like natural resources; they’re often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they’re not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves.”

- Sir Ken Robinson

Pillar 1 | Relatedness

Create psychological safety and trust

  • Lean into vulnerability

  • Humanize teammates makes them more relatable

  • Builds empathy

Foster an environment of belonging

  • Team creates rules of engagement

    • Creates ownership of how individuals behave within the team

    • Improves buy-in and commitment to the co-created culture of the team

    • Helps team hold each other accountable

Promote generative conflict

  • Develop greater candor and more genuine dialogue

  • Practice the skills to work with mental models

    • Skill of reflection

    • Skill of inquiry

  • Built on a foundation of trust and safety and continues to foster humility and curiosity

  • Everyone gets to have their say or at the very least feels heard (increases buy-in)

  • Seek the truth

Pillar 2 | Autonomy

Choice and Ownership     

  • In autonomy-supportive environments, choice and ownership are critical

    • lets the team know they are essential and trusted

    • leads to a team with greater self-efficacy, resilience and coping skills

Create a shared vision through personal vision

  • Individuals are guided by a compelling personal mission, woven into the collective vision of the team

  • Everyone is CLEAR about what they are working toward - the desired outcome

  • Deepens and strengthens commitment

  • Provides focus and energy for learning

Provide a sense of control

  • Shift as much control and decision-making as possible to those closest to the issues

  • Facilitates greater ownership of the individual’s role and how they achieve the collective result

  • A greater sense of control is a prerequisite for developing intrinsic motivation

    • team members taking on a task for the sake of the task and the benefit of others

Pillar 3 | Mastery

Create an environment that facilitates the attainment of expertise

  • Feedback

  • Deliberate practice

  • Coaching/mentoring

  • Growth minded

Team learning – involves mastering the practices of dialogue and discussion

  • Think insightfully about complex issues

  • Learn how to tap into the potential for many minds to be more intelligent than one mind

  • Innovative and coordinated action – operational trust

Work to clarify vision (what we want) vs. current reality (where we are now)

  • Expand the ability to produce the results the team truly wants (generative learning)

  • Gain energy by exploring creative tension - the gaps between our vision and reality

  • Failure is viewed as an opportunity for learning

  • Strong sense of purpose

    See current reality as an ally

    Work with emergence - change

    Curiosity

    Deep sense of connection

    Commitment

    Take more initiative