Healthy competition in the workplace has its benefits. It can drive productivity, creativity, and innovation. However, when competition produces unhealthy behaviors, it can be damaging to the entire organization.
Total Construction, an Australian based construction company, was accustomed to aggressive internal competition. When Jeff Jones, accepted the role as CEO, he recognized that the competitive nature of his management team was a hindrance to collective success.
Individuals on the management team were highly talented, but trying to outperform each other caused them to underperform as a group.
A silo mentality across the team fueled unhealthy competition. Managers focused on pushing personal agendas, creating side meetings and excluding people from important conversations. This competitive mindset prevented managers from achieving collective goals and experiencing the value of teamwork. Jones needed a way to drive their motivation toward team results.
FINDING A SOLUTION
“As a construction company, we spend so much time building the project, but not building the team that builds the project,” he said. “We’re lucky enough to put this management team together, and it’s got every opportunity to work. But we have to put the time in.”
Jones turned to The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team® to help get his team aligned. The group went through a three-day workshop on The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team®, the team program based on best-selling author Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The Five Behaviors model of Trust, Conflict, Commitment, Accountability, and Results is at the core of a powerful program that helps inspire transformation by putting team behaviors into action.
“The Five Behaviors™ lets teams decide how to behave moving forward to drive performance said the facilitator. “There’s nothing else like it.”
The program pairs with Everything DiSC®, the personality inventory that helps people improve communication and strengthen relationships at work. With insights into their own personality style and that of their peers, participants discover the impact of personality in team development.
The common language of DiSC® helped the Total Construction team navigate The Five Behaviors and discover how to work toward building vulnerability-based trust, the foundation of all high-performing teams.
ADOPTING TEAM-ORIENTED BEHAVIORS
The Five Behaviors surfaced underlying tension on teams, providing a safe space to have challenging conversations, as well as the opportunity to step back and assess their progress. The program begins with Trust, the first behavior of the model. Team members are encouraged to push past the personal boundaries that prevented them from becoming vulnerable and seeing each other as colleagues, not competition.
“There needs to be a level of self-awareness. The Five Behaviors™ empowers teams to confront challenging conversations,” said the facilitator.
Vulnerability came to life during the workshop when one manager apologized for a past situation, alleviating years of built up resentment. This proved how powerful and important Trust is on a team and gave the rest of the managers permission to become vulnerable.
Once a team discovers the high impact that vulnerability-based trust has in their daily lives, the results can be transformational. Over time, The Five Behaviors model became more and more tangible for the Total Construction team, especially in their team meetings. The team accepted healthy conflict as the quickest way to find the best possible solution. They were able to engage in healthy debate about ideas and gain buy-in on decisions, even when there was initial disagreement.
The Five Behaviors™ facilitator attended team meetings and offered feedback such as, “You missed an opportunity to hold someone accountable.” Accountability, the fourth behavior of the model, is the most difficult to maintain. While discussions about accountability often revolve around personal accountability, the emphasis in The Five Behaviors model is on peer-to-peer accountability.
“The sharing of accountability doesn’t fit normally in a structured environment, but if I show that I’m not holding someone accountable in one meeting, it sets a precedence,” said Jones. “That feedback helped me stay on track.”
Having a leader mirror this behavior gave the rest of the team permission to do so as well. “When it’s up to one person, accountability is easily broken. When everyone holds everyone accountable, it’s a powerful thing, but we didn’t learn that right away. We learned it overtime through feedback.”
TRACKING PROGRESS AND RESULTS
As the model became part of their everyday interactions, team perspective was transformed. Teams requested more frequent in-person meetings because meeting content became rich and meaningful within the context of The Five Behaviors™.
One year after their first Five Behaviors workshop, the team went through the Five Behaviors Progress Report. The report’s findings revealed significant improvement in all five behaviors and resulted in high scores across the model. Their progress allowed them to be more productive and think more strategically at an organizational level. By investing in the Five Behaviors, they were able to define their point of difference in the market and as a result, revenue increased by more than fifty percent.
With the management team leading the way, the organization is moving toward a team-oriented culture. The importance of team effectiveness and productivity trickled down through the business with one manager bringing his direct reports through The Five Behaviors program. The Total Construction managers continue to evolve as a team, actively challenging themselves and each other to bring the team behaviors to the table in everything they do.
