Team Development Techniques for Extra-Dependent Teams

The Problem

Conventional team development, once it’s got beyond the, “let’s-get-to-know-each-other-better” stage, focuses on combining differences.  That means encouraging people to specialise, for the team to depend on members’ different strengths or skill-sets to work better together to achieve the team's purpose.     

But in Extra-Dependent Teams, keeping a specialism, making the team dependent on a member for a specific capability, weakens the team.  That’s because people outside the team depend on the combined capability of all the team, but only receive this through interacting with one of the team.  The dynamics of similarity are completely different from the dynamics of difference.  And that means development needs to be different too. 

Team Development in an Extra-Dependent Team

Simply put team development in an Extra-Dependent Team involves learning collaboratively together:

• With each other
• From each other
• For each other

This means the team increases the consistency (Common Practice), sharing strengths so everyone becomes stronger (Shared Repertoire), and applies the resulting Combined Capability more effectively to the teams that depend on them.   For more on these three elements, see this video. 

However, because the team works apart, one of the hardest elements of team development is getting them all together at the same time to develop.   In effect they need to learn to meet together, before they can meet to learn together.    And this means helping them realise that whilst they don’t depend on each other, they can gain tremendous benefit from spending quality time together.  

Team Development Techniques for Quality Time

Here are a few development techniques that I mention in my book, “Extra-Dependent Teams: realising the power of similarity.”

1. Sharing Successes.  This is a simple, relatively safe technique to use during team meetings.  Everyone takes it in turns to share a recent success.  The rest of the team have the chance to ask questions, to learn more about how the success came about: this is the true learning to be gained.  When you’re comfortable as a team, you might then share mistakes, near misses, or failures.  These are just as useful.  
2. Work Reviews.  After completing a piece or a phase of work, a team member prepares a short presentation to share with the team.  The resulting discussion can draw out great insights from the team about how they approach similar work.
3. Thinking together through an individual's challenge.   A challenge for one, is a challenge for all - if not now, or already, then in the future.  This is the same as an Action Learning Set where a person shares a challenge they haven’t yet solved.  This invites the whole team to consider the challenge together, with the individual ultimately deciding how to move forward.  It’s a proven way to make progress on intractable problems. 
4. Experimenting for the team.  When a new idea is born, a team member tries it out to see if it works.  For the team, they get to hear why this idea and why now.  Indeed, they may have had a hand in forming the idea collectively.  The experimenting team member then shares with the rest of the team what they tried and what impact it had.  Together, the team learn what options are possible, what to anticipate, and the secrets and short-cuts to making it effective. 
5. Reflection.  An underused technique is reflecting collectively.  That means making time for everyone to think for themselves.  The key for teaming is externalisation (turning tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge) through either journaling (writing notes) or sharing vocally what’s on people’s minds (in pairs for instance).   I always encourage a vocal share within the whole team - by everyone, to everyone, for everyone.   They learn together, but it’s also the vulnerability of sharing reflections that helps build further trust within the team. 

 

Your Takeaway

In many ways, the experience of you reading this article is similar to the learning process of team development in Extra-Dependent Teams: 

• I’ve shared my experience with you
• You are stronger as a result - in some unique way which may not be by my design, but rather yours

If we were to do this more often, with two-way dialogue, we would learn better, together - with each other, from each other, for each other.  

If you’d like to continue to learn together about Extra-Dependent Teams then:

• Participate in our Community of Practice on Extra-Dependent Teams
• Check out articles, videos, case studies and tools on our Resources page
• Share your own experiences on our Teaming Community discussion forum.