Team \u2013 Getting Things Done with Others<\/a>\u2019, David Allen and I have taken a deep look at these factors and written a manual for how to make the team environment a more positive force; a support for what we\u2019ve called \u2018healthy high performance.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\nDavid\u2019s work has always been about high performance of course, and it has always been most attractive to the individuals who have a big vision and are moving fast to try to achieve it. In our research for the book, it became clear to us that high performance on a team cannot be established without considerable attention to the health of the team. A team that performs at a high level but regularly breaks its members isn\u2019t really a high-performance team at all. Apart from the inhumanity of allowing it, its performance is by definition unsustainable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If this was a whodunnit, then it would make sense to widen the investigation of what happened to include not just the person most directly affected, but to enquire how other members of the team are being affected. Perhaps the most fruitful examination would be to look at the way the team is set up for those individuals to interact with each other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Doing a \u2018whodunnit\u2019 on a team is doubly challenging; it is more difficult to investigate things that aren\u2019t there (but really should be). Its difficult work to examine the absence<\/em> of something, and what\u2019s missing is often what is creating the conditions for potential burnout cases to fester into actual burnouts. Like the dog that didn\u2019t<\/em> bark in the Sherlock Holmes classic, these things can be at least as useful to consider as the things that are more easily observable, like a long-hours culture or excessive communication on the team. <\/p>\n\n\n\nIn our work over the years, we\u2019ve noticed that there are some key things that support healthy high performance on a team, and the absence of them tends to produce a series of negative results, of which burnout is only one of the most obvious. So, if we were investigating a burnout case through the lens of healthy high performance at a team<\/em> level, we\u2019d take a much more systemic approach. <\/p>\n\n\n\nWe don\u2019t have space to cover all of that approach here, but a few ideas can give an indication of the kinds of reflections that will help. Some of the interventions can be quite quick \u2013 establishing a motivational purpose for a team needn\u2019t take days of discussion for instance \u2013 and others rather longer (creating clarity about who\u2019s doing what on the team and where the boundaries between roles lie can take days and weeks of experimentation).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A team culture of healthy high performance is one in which individuals are given clear direction on the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n- why they are doing what they are together<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
\n- what they are trying to achieve with each other<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
\n- what each person\u2019s role is in making that happen<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
When there is a lack of clarity on those points, individuals will struggle to prioritise and focus on the important work of the team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beyond that, such a culture is fanatical about reducing wasted effort and time by \u2013 for example \u2013 minimizing poorly prepared meetings (and eliminating ineffective ones entirely), establishing clear structures and processes to avoid double work and unnecessary friction. And, critically, it is a team that devotes sufficient time to maintaining its own systems \u2013 and allows its members time and space to maintain their physical and mental health, and key relationships too. The biggest challenge comes from the need to not just establish these things, but to maintain them over time. <\/em>This is much more work than putting the onus on the individual to sort themselves out and become more resilient, but will also dramatically reduce the likelihood that they\u2019d need to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
est. reading time: 5:15 mins When a team member goes off sick with burnout, most organisations respond admirably. In many countries the person\u2019s job is protected by law, and beyond that some companies will provide support for their rehabilitation. When the time comes for them to return to work, those affected are offered a phased […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":146591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_eb_attr":"","gtp_columnspro_styling":"{}","gtp_paragraph_styling":"{\"f72f0fd1-80d2-4742-8088-594ef68e5545\":\" .gp-gutenbergpro-f72f0 { background-position-x: 50%;\\nbackground-position-y: 50%;\\nbackground-size: cover;\\nheight: px; }\"}","gtp_heading_styling":"{}","gtp_spacer_styling":"{}","gtp_video_styling":"{}","gtp_group_styling":"{}","gtp_cover_styling":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[309,19,21,317,314,318],"tags":[250,4209],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146592,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146590\/revisions\/146592"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146590"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=146590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}