More than ever, we’re seeing that when teams perform well, so do their organisations. Sadly, the reality is that most teams, whether newly formed or well-established, are not very effective and do not live up to their full promise or performance potential. Teams, and how they become high performing, have been an enduring topic of interest since the 1980s. Yet despite this, few organisations have yet to crack the code of how to achieve this and derive the benefits of effective team working, which impacts organisational performance and team members' engagement.

The traditional focus of streamlining systems and processes, introducing cost-cutting measures, or the founder stepping in and working even harder may bring some improvements, however, the organisation's work is still fundamentally delivered through the same group of people, organised into teams. The greatest gains, therefore, can be made from transforming the effectiveness of teams. These gains can be particularly noticeable to organisations with a small number of teams, such as those in founder-led startup or scaleup firms. In these businesses, team effectiveness can have a disproportionately large positive – or negative – impact on business performance.

The impact of leaving teams untransformed

Left to their own devices, teams are rarely equipped to transform themselves, as their primary focus is delivering ‘the work of the team’ rather than ‘working on the team’. This can mean that deep-rooted, behavioural, cultural, and performance challenges can go unnoticed, unspoken, and untouched. This has been amplified in recent years with the impact of COVID and the shift to more remote and hybrid working environments, which can negatively impact teams’ cohesion and the process of how teams evolve and grow.

There are many factors that impact team performance, and you may recognise some of these symptoms, particularly if your team is newly formed in a startup or scaleup business:

• Everyone is working flat out but progress seems slow
• People are working in their own silos or to their own agendas
• Work is getting 'stuck' between teams
• There is 'finger pointing' and blame when things don't go right
• Frustrations with communications exist between teams and members
• Decisions continuing to be revisited
• Some voices dominate while others remain silent
• Unspoken tensions bubbling away beneath the surface

If these look familiar, they are signs your teams are in trouble and that it's time to act.

The seven drivers to transform teams

Given these indicators, there is a compelling need for a team effectiveness tool built specifically for teams. We created teamSalient as a tool to support any team, that was accessible, actionable and builds accountability to help teams really change.

We researched a range of team types in fast-growth entities across multiple industries, which highlighted the need for a means of helping teams to self-assess their own effectiveness quickly, reliably and in a granular way. We created teamSalient to help teams prioritise and focus on clear, targeted areas that would make the biggest difference to their effectiveness. These seven ‘drivers’ make up our easy to use 'PARTNER' model of team effectiveness:

• Purpose & direction
• Access to resources
• Right team design
• Team leadership
• Nurture psychological safety
• Enable collaboration
• Results orientation

Transform your team

teamSalient has been designed to transform teams from founder-led to multi-nationals organisations and drive measurable performance improvements. So, how does this work in practice?

Each team member completes an anonymous on-line questionnaire and, these responses are collated, into an assessment of the team's overall effectiveness, presented in a bespoke team profile. The team discusses this together using the reflective questions provided and, with the in-built action plan, agree actions they will take to improve. The team tracks their progress and uses the integrated self-help resources to support them to change and transform.

Scaleup firms with more teams have access to an organisational level dashboard showing their overall state of effectiveness and how they compare. This shifts team transformation to organisational transformation.

Why you can trust teamSalient

teamSalient is unique among team tools in that it was co-created with teams and backed by quantitative scientific studies and is the only British Psychological Society-accredited team effectiveness tool globally. This recognition follows an in-depth review of the tool’s validity, reliability, and professional standards. BPS accreditation confirms teamSalient meets the highest standards in psychological testing and gives teams confidence that the insights they receive are evidence-based and robust.

Unprecedented times call for a different approach. I am deeply proud of teamSalient and through it, confident that we will deliver our mission of "Every team. Transformed". Is your team transformed?

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