A short story illustrates what’s at stake.

I once facilitated a retreat for an eight-member executive team that had been together under the leadership of the current CEO for nearly two years. In the initial meeting, the CEO shared her perspective on the team and the issues she wanted to address. After a thorough exploration of these and an exchange of mutual expectations about working together, I agreed to facilitate the retreat and made my customary request to interview each of the other members of the team.

It was during the interviews that the team members’ sense of important issues to address began to diverge from the CEO’s. Here are three quotes that represent what team members shared.

“The role of the team is not clear. We don’t know if we’re supposed to just drive in our lane or work with each other across the whole organization.”

“Are we simply a sounding board or are we a decision-making team? Mostly we get asked to comment on things and Jessica (not her real name) decides. There’s no buy-in to decisions.”

“I have the impression that we are just a hierarchical conduit to the rest of the organization for sharing information and nothing more.”

Team members shared that the team had been “functioning” without a clear understanding of its role, scope, boundaries, authority, and responsibility. In short, it wasn’t functioning anywhere near its potential.

Based on my working agreement with the client, I shared an anonymous summary of interviews with Jessica so we could plan carefully how to approach the retreat. I highlighted the matter about the unclear role and function of the team and how the executives thought it was severely limiting the team’s ability to be truly effective. I told her that although there were others, this was the critical issue to be addressed and resolved first. She listened carefully if surprised. After a bit of reflection, she agreed and the two of us had an in-depth discussion of what she wanted the team to be and how she wanted her executives to function in relationship to her and to each other.

At the retreat, during an exercise in which the CEO and the team each exchanged their perceptions of each other, the team raised the matter of the lack of clarity of team role and function. The CEO was prepared to respond and she and the team had a very candid and honest conversation about the matter. The CEO did a good job of describing what she wanted the team to be and, together with a lot of frank dialogue, they arrived at agreement about the role, scope, authority, and responsibility of the team.

Clarity of purpose matters.

Research in group dynamics and experience tell us that when any team is formed, there are questions that are commonly top of mind for new members. The questions represent a combination of natural curiosity but also personal judgment regarding willingness to engage. To the extent that each question is addressed and resolved satisfactorily, the team moves on to the next key question and so on until a firm foundation for teamwork and action is established. Three of these formational questions comprise a construct I call Clarity of Purpose.

Orientation: Why am I here?

When a team is formed, team members have orientation questions. What is this team about? Why was I selected? Who am I in this team? How will I fit in? What role will I play? These questions address matters of team identity, personal identity, and membership. Team members need acceptable answers in order for team development to continue.

To the extent that these questions are not satisfactorily resolved, an undercurrent of emotional issues that interfere with effective group development and functioning results. At this point, the undercurrent of emotional issues is characterized by confusion, uncertainty, and trepidation.

Personal/Relational: Who are you?

The second question addresses matters of interpersonal relationship and trust. Who are you? Who am I? Who are we in relation to one other? What expectations and agenda do others have? How do these fit with what I want and what I can offer? Again, answers to these and related questions must meet team members’ satisfaction. To the extent that they do, then mutual regard, candor, and trust develop.

If these questions remain unanswered, then the undercurrent here affecting team functioning consists of wariness, pretense, and doubt.

Direction/Future: What are we going to do?

The third question is directed explicitly to the matters of purpose and goal clarification. What are the assumptions about this team? What kind of team are we? What is the vision for this team? What is the team expected to accomplish?

When these questions are addressed successfully, the team gets clear about the reason it exists, the future it will chart, and results it intends to achieve.

When these questions remain unresolved, the result can stunt team development. Team member indifference, deep frustration, and infighting to try to establish direction characterize the emotional undercurrent.

These dynamics do not affect only newly formed teams as the story above shows. To the extent that these formational questions are not satisfactorily addressed, the undercurrents noted above stall a team’s development and it functions below its optimal level.

Does your team have Clarity of Purpose? Are members clear about why the team exists and the kind of team it will be? Do members understand the results it intends to achieve? Are members clear about the team’s scope and authority and what the team is answerable and accountable for? Or are members searching for answers to these and related questions and, as a consequence, the team is functioning below where it might?

If clarity of purpose is a matter at issue for your team, Performance Development Associates can help. Visit pda.us.com to learn more.

• Teams are the building blocks of organizations
• Effective organizations are a function of effective intra and inter-team relations
• Effective teams are a function of effective interpersonal relations

The first point comes from an overview article on Organization Development that my colleague Jack Sherwood wrote. It’s a simple but very powerful idea that organizations are not large, uniform entities – monoliths. They are instead a collection of teams differentiated and then re-integrated in meaningful ways to cooperatively produce an intended outcome.

The second point is a logical extension of the first. If teams are the building blocks of organizations, then organizational effectiveness is due, at least in part, to effective intra (within) and inter (between) team relations. If individual teams are working well and are, in turn, working well with other interdependent teams, then the organization works more cooperatively and an essential condition for organization success is established. This is critically true of the executive team.

The third point extends the logic one step further. Teams are comprised of people and human dynamics are at the center of everything teams do – planning, communicating, making decisions, solving problems, executing work, etc. To the extent that teams function at a high level, then the quantity and quality of communication, well-reasoned decisions, insightful problem solving, and thoughtful planning and execution follow.

What makes interpersonal and team relationships at all organization levels effective? In a single word, the answer is trust.

Two statements written years apart capture the essence of trust differently from most dictionary definitions but are more germane to the context addressed here.

Stephen Covey offered this perspective on trust:

“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”

Many years earlier, the journalist and essayist, H. L. Mencken, wrote:

“It is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest, that holds human associations together.”

If trust is the glue of life and holds human associations together, then it is a property of interpersonal and team relationships to which leaders and managers across an organization must pay explicit attention.

A great deal of research has been done on the matter of trust over the last several decades and that research describes a number of relationships that go to the heart of effective organization functioning. The essence of that research, greatly distilled, is summarized here.

Trust covaries with properties of interpersonal and team relations that are essential to effectiveness. To co-vary means that two variables move in the same direction together. As one increases, so does the other and vice versa.

In the most general terms, trust covaries with:

• Interpersonal openness – the higher the level of trust between two people or within a team, the greater the level of meaningful disclosure
• Willingness to take risks – the higher the level of trust between two people or within a team, the greater the willingness to make oneself vulnerable and take appropriate risks
• Owning behavior – the higher the level of trust between two people or within a team, the greater the willingness of individuals to own up to and take responsibility for oversights or mistakes

Beyond these broad strokes, the research further identifies specific dimensions of productive team and organization behavior that co-vary with trust.

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni offers a related and compelling case for the importance of trust to organization functioning. Lencioni depicts a cascading progression of related outcomes within a team that can go well or poorly depending on the initial state of trust. The progression goes like this.

If there is absence of trust within a team, then fear of conflict drives inauthentic dialogue. (Think low interpersonal openness, low disclosure, and low risk-taking.) Inauthentic dialogue results in guarded behavior and artificial harmony at best. This condition leads to a lack of commitment to decisions and related plans of action. Without joint, unified commitment among the members of the team to decisions and actions, accountability is avoided and when this condition is pervasive, results are at risk. If there is high trust within a team, then the progression becomes, with a lot of team effort, a virtuous opposite.

The stakes are high for any team, but they are even higher for the executive team. The adage, “As the top goes, so goes the organization,” is nowhere truer than for an executive team.

Do you know what the level of trust is for your team? Is your team functioning as effectively as it might? How healthy are the quantity and quality of communication with your team? Do the members of your team feel comfortable in taking risks and being authentic with each other? Do they engage in critical dialogue when problem solving or when conflict arises? Do they own their missteps or mistakes without fear of reprisal because there is a climate of support and cooperation?

Performance Development Associates can help you assess the level of trust among the members of your team and help you build intepersonal trust that leads to high performance. Visit pda.us.com to learn more.