Extra-Dependent Teams: Realising the Power of Similarity Paperback – 23 July 2018

Takeaways from reading the book:Why do we need to challenge how people work together?- Page 6: Having a team is often worse than having no team at all.- Page 6: In teams, it is not uncommon that the sum of the whole is less than the potential of the individual parts.- Page 16: Organizations constantly demand managers to achieve more with less, for example more output, efficiency or productivity with less time, money and people. Teams promise a way for doing more with less.- Page 55: When it comes to teams, collaboration has too often become an end in itself. There is a need to challenge this, because performance is the primary objective. A team is a means to an end.What characteries an inter-dependent team?- Pages 19, 38 and 56: A clear, common goal that that the team needs to reach is defined. The common goal strengthens accountability and holds the team together.- Page 56: The common goal is defined before team members are chosen.- Page 56: Ask what core skills and experience are needed so that the team can reach it's goal.- Pages 32 and 56: Choose team members by focusing on individual strengths / expertise - thereby making the best use of what people are best at.- Page 34: Team members have different skills because these different skills are required to achieve the common goal.- Pages 18 and 35: Difference among team members, for example regarding knowledge and skills, is key to success in inter-dependent teams.- Page 34: Members on an inter-dependent team depend on each other to reach the common goal.- Page 34: By working together team members improve the combined performance. 1 + 1 = 6.- Page 38: Members on an inter-dependent team are mutually accountable for results.- Page 56: An inter-dependent team needs the willingness, commitment and trust required to work together to achieve the common goal.What characterizes extra-dependent teams?- Page 56: The definition of an extra-dependent team is to work together to develop a common practice.- Page 24: Participants share an interest in a particular field of knowledge.- Page 24: Participants share mutual problems, learnings, tools and advice.- Page 25: By being part of an extra-dependent team, people feel a sense of belonging.- Pages 7 and 34: To perform team members depend on external people.- Page 34: Members of an extra-dependent team want to learn from each other because they have similar problems, similar knowledge, similar skills, similar language, do similar work and because they each want to improve the way they do their work. Example 1: Educators. Example 2: Software developers.- Page 38: Members of an extra-dependent team have individual accountability because each person has an individual goal.- Page 88: Members of an extra-dependent team need to be accountable for their own performance and find their own ways of solving problems they have.- Page 111: Action learning is the simplest way to support collaborative learning in an extra-dependent team. It involves learning together in groups on real problems that require action and for which there is no clear answer. One person shares a challenge, and the group explores it together, with everyone learning from the questions, challenges and reflections shared by the group.What does a team coach do?- Pages 12 and 91: He or she asks lots of questions. This is at the center of coaching and facilitating learning.- Page 32: He or she enables people to share a) how the team is progressing towards the common goal, b) challenges, c) ideas to do better, d) how people make decisions.- Page 88: A coach provides tangible support that keeps responsibility and accountability with the person being coached.- Page 88: A coach helps people make decisions for themselves.- Page 92: A coach expresses appreciation for contributions people make - rather than criticizing what people do not do and/or cannot do. In other words, a coach draws out the best in people.- Pages 103-106: A coach has conversations with people. Examples of focus areas of a conversation: A. The person's goal progress. B. Strengths that the person has. C. What the person is learning. D. What the person can offer. E. Ways to communicate better with others. F. What the person needs to strengthen self care. G. What the person needs to feel that he or she matters.- Page 123: Facilitate reflection. Reflection can be done by individuals in silence, by pairs and/or by small groups.- Page 139: Facilitate a role play during which a team member plays a particularly negative manager. Other team members try different techniques to make progress with the conversation. The techniques that make the most progress are practiced again.

It's a concept that makes perfect sense once explained to you and you can't help but wonder how you didn't realise something so simple before. The understanding it affords you as a leader delivers the edge between an averagely performing team and true high performance, you just have to be prepared to challenge all you've ever been taught about how to build a team!