Our Philosophy For Team Development

We say this repeatedly (it's kind of a mantra of ours) - high functioning teams are one of the most valuable assets an organization can have.

If you are going to focus resources anywhere, ensuring your teams are functioning at max capacity should be at the top of the list.

Because, very simply, ALL of your results come downstream from your teams.

Whether its a management team, a production team, an administrative team, a team of association leaders or volunteers, your results are all the results of how the individuals perform. And their results are significantly impacted by the environment of the team they work within.

The culture of a team predicts its results.

The most important factor in developing high-functioning teams, bar none, is the culture (or environment) of the team. In the Synergetics model, the culture is represented by the tetrahedral structure that comprises the 'whole system'.

You can have all sorts of highly capable and highly skilled individuals on a team but if you put them in an environment that is unstable and unable to support them, they simply won't perform at the level they are capable of.

On the flip side, put a group of less skilled individuals together in the right environment and they can produce miracles.

It's not about the individuals, it's about the team environment.

A great team environment will consistently produce synergistic results.

Synergy is defined as the behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their parts taken separately. (Fuller, Synergetics 101.01-102.00) In regular lingo, synergy means getting better results from a group than would be predicted by 'adding up' the total of each individuals contribution. It's like getting more for your money. Doing more with less.

But synergy can only occur when there is a stable environment, an environment where members feel safe enough to express themselves with a high level of innovative thinking and creativity.

What do we mean by a 'stable environment'?

By a 'stable environment', we mean a culture in which the goals, plans, tactics and continuous improvement strategies for the team are clearly defined and embraced by all.

It may seem counter-intuitive at first, but this stability actually allows for more creativity, risk-taking and innovation. It's like coming from a really solid, well-balanced family. When you do, it seems easier to step out and try out new ideas or new things. Because you always know that you have a safety net to come back to if the new stuff doesn't work.

Stability helps create conflict confidence an improves team productivity.

It's our experience that a thoughtful approach to developing a team, using the Synergetics model, creates an environment in which two things happen: members become more confident about their ability to deal with conflict and the productivity of the team increases.

Tell us what type of challenges you and your team are facing and we'll show you how Synergetics can help you overcome them.