The five behaviours of effective teams

If your teams don’t work well together, it follows that there will be a negative impact on your organisation’s culture and client outcomes. When Total Construction realised it had some internal communication challenges recently, our senior managers decided to tackle the issue by participating in a team development program called Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team™.

According to Adrian Seymour, General Manager – Victoria, “The single biggest thing we did was flesh out what we consider acceptable behaviours and not acceptable behaviours and hold each other to account on those behaviours. We wanted to emulate quality behaviours and support each other throughout the business to get the best outcomes for our people and clients. The positive vibe and the support we now feel for each other is amazing. We walked out of there with this incredible bond and I seriously felt like we were a united front.”

The program looks at the application of five key organisational behaviours, namely trust, conflict, commitment, accountability and results. “Together, these behaviours form a strong foundation for great cultural and thought leadership outcomes that can benefit any company,” says Adrian. “Trust is the cornerstone of the program. Once you create trust, a lot of the other stumbling blocks, like people’s agendas, get pushed aside. There has to be an element of emotional vulnerability, in order to build understanding about what makes everyone on the team tick.”

Healthy conflict resolution is the next step in the process. “Sometimes people need to be challenged. By establishing trust up-front, you can have those difficult discussions, but you know they’re for the right reasons. There’s no follow-on angst. It’s healthy and constructive.”

The third behaviour – commitment – is about identifying a goal and doing what you say you will. After commitment, we explored accountability. Sometimes things get away from you, but the idea is that you hold each other accountable and support them if they need a hand, so things don’t slip. Finally, if you embrace all the previous four behaviours, the results are a better place where people want to work, and a more efficient, productive and rewarding relationship with our clients.”