Random excellence

Before joining UTI I was working as part of a top leadership team of a youth-driven nonprofit organization. Simultaneously I was completing my Master’s Thesis on diversity and teamwork, part of the study being the concept of high-performance teams. These “hot groups” or “virtuoso teams” are a rare phenomenon and particularly complicated unit of analysis due to their seemingly random way of emerging, functioning and delivering extraordinary results. I know what I’m talking about because the leadership team I was part of fulfilled the criteria of a high-performance team. We were on a year-long mission of turning around a somewhat stagnated organization; “building a better future” as we’d say. It was nowhere near the ideal team that most team theories suggest: we rated poorly in team cohesion, empathetic communication and consencual decision making. There was a lot of rebellion against old norms, prevailing disagreement and heated discussions. But there was also overarching commitment to get results. I believe that team exceeded expectations on all areas of work. Later we became the best of friends. Though scattered all around the world (Puerto Rico, Finland, Malaysia and Sri Lanka) we are still in constant communication and even hearing a certain song in radio triggers the memories of that unique “Team Lego” as we called ourselves.

As time passed the theories and experiences gave way to new ones. Last weekend I was facilitating a yet another Wild Drift team development program. But it wasn’t a yet another program: something surprising happened. There was a team that seemed to go against all the ideals of teamwork yet they completed their task in a record-breaking time. As per my role in the activity I tried to confuse them, mislead them and set them up for failure. No matter what I tried they wouldn’t fail. Though there was no harmonic cooperation they portrayed unanimous passion and desire to get results: They came to win. I was perplexed: how can this random bunch of people be so successful though on the outset they are far from a well-behaving team? The answer was that we were witnessing a high-performance team in action. They did fulfill the team basics of sharing a single dream, having mutually complementing skills and organizing themselves around a common goal. But that is not enough to explain the extraordinary results they got. The advantage came through the “magic” of a hot group. Why I say magic is because there is no single formula that an organization could follow to build a high-performance team. In actuality, you don’t build high-performance teams: they emerge. Of course you can set the breeding ground for hot groups: you can select the brightest minds into your organization, you can tear down the walls (physical and mental) that restrict sharing ideas and you can challenge them with highly ambitious goals. That might increase the likelihood of seeing high-performance teams emerge, but it doesn’t guarantee it.

What is the learning point? If you want good results, you go by the book. If you want extraordinary results you ensure the basics and then bring in a bit of chaos, shake it and stir it, and hope for the best…