The Five Pillars of Team Congruence for High Performance

Have you ever felt like your team is pulling in different directions? Or maybe you've noticed a lack of enthusiasm or engagement among your team members? You are not alone. Many leaders struggle with the challenge of Team Congruence.

But what exactly is Team Congruence, and how can you achieve it within your team? Let us explore the five stages of progression: commitment, curiosity, competence, collaboration and culture.

Commitment: Setting The Foundation

Commitment is the foundation of team congruence. It's the individual and collective dedication to the team's shared goals and values. When team members are truly committed, they're willing to take ownership and carry the team and mission to extra miles.

Here are some ways to foster commitment within your team:

• Set clear and inspiring goals: Make sure everyone understands the team's goals and why they're important.
• Communicate effectively: Keep your team informed about progress and challenges.
• Empower your team: Give your team members the authority and resources they need to succeed.
• Lead by example: Be a role model for commitment and hard work.

Curiosity: Sparking Interest and Exploration

Curiosity involves both individual and collective eagerness to explore new ideas and understand the business and market more deeply. This encompasses a desire for learning, innovative thinking, and the capacity to question and discover alongside others.

Here are some strategies to cultivate curiosity within your team:

• Attract inquisitive minds: Ensure your team includes individuals who are naturally curious and open to learning.
• Encourage exploration and questioning: Inspire your team members to ask questions that lead to new insights.
• Create a climate for curiosity: Foster an environment where team members feel safe to share their ideas and explore broader perspectives. Often it is helpful to assign a team member to role play a customer or other stakeholder to identify blind spots.
• Provide diverse experiences: Offer opportunities for your team members to cross train or shadow work so they can gain richer understanding of end to end processes that they may not have exposure to regularly.

Capability: Building the Skills and Knowledge

Capability refers to the individual and collective skills and knowledge needed to achieve the team's goals. This includes technical expertise, leadership skills, and the ability to work effectively with others.

Here are some ways to build capability within your team:

• Provide training and development opportunities: Help your team members develop the skills they need to succeed.
• Staff the right people: Ensure the necessary skills and experiences are represented on the team for the opportunity at hand.
• Delegate effectively: Give your team members the space to apply their skills and grow their knowledge.
• Encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing: Create practices where team members can learn from each other, both on the "how to do x" and the thought process behind decisions.

Collaboration: Leveraging our Superpower

Collaboration thrives when teams put their hearts and minds together to do the hard work of solving a problem. It demands a collective commitment to interdependence, holistic thinking, and ownership mindset.

To nurture collaboration within your team, consider these approaches:

• Define and Translate Common Goals: Create clear goals for the team, then connect the inputs (data, skills, experiences, tools, etc.) required to make achieve them. Translate the goals to each members' roles so they are clear on the impact they are about to make.
• Establish Operating Protocols: Seek to understand each member's work preferences, then establish practices that will keep everyone on the same page while maximize the team's effectiveness.
• Help each other win: Own our success together and Create the conditions for supporting each other. 
• Build Feedback Mechanism: Periodically check in with the team and provide opportunities for reflection on how to plan, communicate, and work better together

Culture: The Glue that Holds It All Together

Culture is the shared set of values, beliefs, and behaviors that guide a team's interactions everyday. A strong culture of trust, respect, and collaboration is essential for high performance.

Here are some ways to cultivate a positive team culture:

• Start with awareness: Leverage assessments tools to learn as much as possible about the team's operating norms and preferences.
• Build common language: Express our values, believes and practices in a way that enable team members to share their ideas and concerns with intention to learn.
• Leverage diversity: Seek and incorporate the unique perspectives and experiences of each team member and function.
• Recognize and reward positive behaviors: Align your recognition criteria to team first, then individual in context to the team and mission. 

Let's Build a High-Performing Team

To level up Team Congruence, you can work with the team on developing commitment, curiosity, competence, collaboration and culture.  You will foster an environment where team members are aligned in their goals, engaged in their work, and empowered to achieve outstanding results together. Now, it's time to take action. Assess where your team currently stands in each of these areas and identify opportunities for continuous improvement. Implement the strategies discussed to elevate your team dynamics and create a supportive and high-performing team environment.