I am a movie buff, specifically movies that celebrate true stories of transformation. One such movie is The Boys of ’36 – the story of the University of Washington rowing team that achieved an extraordinary and unlikely win in the 1936 Olympics. Together they overcame all leaders in the field – the Germans, Brits, and Italians.
Similar challenges exist in business today, particularly among leadership teams in middle to large market companies. Leveraging the power of your senior leadership or key organizational teams can provide an elemental advantage over your competition.
Team power leverage is determined by the way interactions and team dynamics are navigated. For instance, unproductive conflict (team dynamic) costs American companies $435 billion annually along with significant losses in terms of time and opportunity costs. Conversely, teams thrive by embracing change, innovation and collaboration, and engaging in healthy conflict and debate. These dynamics typically yield an 83% increase in the quality of decision-making and the speed with which decisions are made.
Individual team members’ behavioral patterns determine the team dynamic, for instance:
- If one member shies away from conflict, that individual may be an obstacle to the entire team’s participation in healthy conflict.
- A star performer may function well on their own, but fail to foster and facilitate top-level work from others.
- If an individual feels insecure about their ability or ideas, they may be reticent to speak, holding back what can be the best ideas.
A team’s leverage is defined by the interwoven behavioral patterns of its individual members. An environment that allows low levels of trust, shaming/blaming or hiding feedback sets you up for a low performing team – the opposite of what you want and need. If these elements exist, they will not improve on their own or with time. Instead, they will continue to worsen, taking a toll on both individual team members and the company, and may ultimately lead to team member resignation or termination.
The key to creating a high-performing team dynamic and an environment enabling business growth starts with helping individuals change their deeply rooted behavioral patterns. This is where neuroscience-based coaching comes in. Helping each leader become more effective and impactful through opening unconscious blocks empowers them to definitively create new and lasting neural pathways to success. This means they approach challenges, conflict, and other team members differently, which paves the way for a new team dynamic.
As the individuals in a team follow the same neuroscience-based coaching approach at the same time, they simultaneously uncover their blind spots. The team grows as a unit and, as a result, the company culture shifts and the economic gains are both exponential and substantially accelerated.
As a coach and the owner of Velocity Leadership Consulting, I am continually impressed to see how highly effective this methodology is with individual leaders. That said, it’s hard to even put into words how utterly astounding it is to see the speed of transformation when every member of a company’s senior leadership team participates in Power Pathways™ coaching simultaneously.
Many leaders are asking how they can best prepare their business for the next stage of its growth in an unpredictable world. My experiential evidence is that the number one thing you can do is involve your entire team in a transformative process that will result in lasting change in their thought and behavior patterns. This transformation will yield relational capital and the ability to quickly respond to whatever challenges your team may face. Much like The Boys of ’36, you can beat insurmountable odds, but only when the entire team rows in sync.