Latest news with #highperformingteams
Harvard Business Review
14-07-2025
- Business
- Harvard Business Review
New Research on the Link Between Learning and Innovation
Have you ever sensed your company's innovation efforts stalling—not because of a lack of effort, but because something in the process feels off? Most leaders understand that innovation requires learning. Yet too often teams juggle multiple learning activities—ranging from interviewing customers to brainstorming ideas to after action reviews—without clarity on how they intersect, causing confusion and undermining innovation. Through our research involving more than 160 teams, we found that successful innovation hinges not only on how much teams learn, but on when—and in what order—they engage in specific forms of learning. Just as music relies on rhythm and harmony, effective team learning requires structured, harmonious sequencing. Four Essential Ways Your Team Should Be Learning Innovation is not accidental. Our research highlights four distinct types of learning behaviors used by high-performing teams and examines variations in the sequence and blend of these types of team learning. Together, these comprise a toolkit that enables teams to innovate: Experimental learning: A team deliberately tests ideas, expecting failures along the way, as part of developing new knowledge and occasional breakthroughs. Experimental learning includes activities like brainstorming and prototyping. Vicarious learning: Teams consult with other teams or individuals who have done similar work to avoid reinventing the wheel. Contextual learning: A team's members scan their environment to detect market shifts, emerging trends, or competitor strategies. Reflexive learning: A team deliberately engages in self-examination, such as by assessing strategies, revisiting goals, and discussing current challenges. Our research reveals a likely culprit of stalled innovation: Teams are blending incompatible learning activities at the wrong times. Cognitive neuroscience confirms what experienced leaders intuitively know: Our brains need structured breaks to turn experiences into actionable knowledge. Just as sleep helps consolidate daily experiences into long-term memory, structured reflection allows teams to integrate insights gained during exploration phases into strategies and plans. Without these deliberate rhythms, teams risk becoming overwhelmed by continual information intake—akin to endlessly inhaling without pausing to exhale—leading to confusion and burnout. By intentionally embedding reflective pauses within structured learning cycles, teams can harness their full innovative potential. In two studies—one with 102 innovation teams in a Fortune Global 500 company and another with 61 MBA project teams—we found that all combinations of team learning were not equally effective. When teams paired reflexive learning with vicarious learning, performance improved. But when teams they mixed reflexive learning with more exploratory activities—such as experimental learning or contextual learning—in the same phase, performance suffered. The highest-performing teams didn't try to do everything at once; instead, they separated learning activities into clear episodes, establishing a rhythm that alternated thoughtfully between exploration and reflection. This sequencing helped them reduce confusion, resolve tensions, and sustain momentum. Contrasting Stories of Team Learning Consider two innovation teams from a large telecom company. The first, Team Alpha, delivered an innovative solution on time and on budget. From the outset, team members set aside dedicated meetings purely for reflection, where they openly discussed their project's direction, identified clear roles, and refined their goals. When it came time for creative thinking, they shifted gears entirely, launching energetic brainstorming sessions filled with vibrant discussions and hands-on experiments. Keeping these activities distinct allowed the team to focus and avoid unnecessary tension. Each time the team regrouped to refine strategies, it made noticeable progress. Team Alpha's careful orchestration made innovation look smooth, predictable, and almost effortless. Team Omega, meanwhile, seemed caught in a perpetual storm. Individual meetings toggled between high-energy brainstorming and detailed task planning. Members attempting to refine strategies sometimes found their thoughts drowned out by teammates excitedly pitching new ideas. At the same time, others brought in fresh insights from the industry, further complicating the discussion. Meetings started to feel chaotic, leading to frustration and confusion. Without clear distinctions between learning activities, Omega team members frequently experienced cognitive overload that sapped energy and morale. Progress stalled, deadlines slipped, and promising ideas never fully materialized. Creating a Harmonious Learning Rhythm Our research shows that the highest-performing teams don't just engage in learning—they structure it intentionally. As a leader, here's how you can practically establish a clear, harmonious rhythm within your team: 1. Set a solid foundation for reflection. Begin by consistently scheduling dedicated reflection meetings. Use this time to revisit your team's overall objectives, evaluate the effectiveness of your current approaches, and reaffirm everyone's roles and responsibilities. Encourage open dialogue to uncover blind spots and make necessary adjustments. 2. Clearly distinguish exploration from refinement. Establish distinct sessions dedicated exclusively to creative exploration—such as brainstorming, experimenting, or searching the environment to discover alternative ideas and technologies—and clearly separate these from meetings dedicated to idea refinement and detailed planning. For instance, using clearly defined sprints, you might dedicate one week to free-flowing idea generation and external market exploration, followed by another week strictly focused on refining ideas, selecting the best options, and formulating detailed strategies. 3. Implement predictable learning cycles. Structure is key. Create a recurring schedule that alternates predictably through reflection, exploration, and refinement phases. Clearly communicate this rhythm to your team, set expectations, and enforce boundaries around each phase. Doing this ensures team members can mentally prepare, reduces confusion and cognitive overload, and helps maintain a strong strategic momentum throughout the innovation journey. You can think of a team's learning activities as elements of a musical masterpiece. Just as great compositions—like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony—skillfully balance moments of tension with moments of powerful resolution, effective team learning thrives on the structured interplay between building up and then releasing tension. Harmonious learning occurs when complementary activities, such as team reflection and external expert consultations, reinforce one another, creating moments of clarity and alignment. Conversely, dissonance arises when conflicting activities, like simultaneous experimentation and detailed planning, collide and cause confusion. An unstructured approach—such as multitasking or forming multiple sub-teams without clearly defined goals—is akin to playing all musical notes simultaneously, creating cacophony rather than harmony. High-performing teams intentionally orchestrate their learning activities to establish predictable rhythms that balance tension and relaxation, driving sustained innovation. . . . Innovation thrives not through increased effort, but through smarter, more structured effort. Clearly sequencing and distinguishing your team's learning activities—reflection, exploration, and refinement—turns potential chaos into strategic clarity, unlocking better decision-making and sustained innovation. Like a conductor guiding a symphony, mastering your team's rhythm of learning transforms everyday interactions into a powerful competitive advantage, positioning your organization for sustained growth and innovation leadership.
Entrepreneur
10-06-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
How Consistency Shapes a Strong Company Culture
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. If you've ever walked into a workplace with a high-performing team, you can immediately feel it: a shared sense of purpose, a rhythm in how people communicate and clarity about what matters. That kind of culture doesn't happen by accident. It's not the result of a single all-hands meeting or a set of company values on a poster. It's built through something far more subtle and far more powerful: consistency. As the founder of ButterflyMX, I've learned that the small things you repeat every day shape your company more than the big things you announce once in a while. The way you recognize a win, the stories you tell, the questions you ask: those moments become the fabric of your culture. And the secret to making them stick? Repetition. Related: Consistency Is the One Rule in Building a Great Company Culture The misconception about culture When leaders think about building culture, they often imagine big moments: mission statements unveiled at all-hands meetings, team offsites with whiteboard sessions or company-wide emails outlining values. Those things can help, but they're not what culture is made of. Culture doesn't live in a slide deck; it lives in the everyday interactions people have with one another. It's in how meetings start and end, how performance is discussed, how wins are recognized and how setbacks are handled. In short, culture is what people come to expect, day after day. And that expectation is shaped through repetition. What's said and done repeatedly becomes what's believed. Over time, that belief system becomes your culture, whether it's intentional or not. Repetition builds identity Think about the most iconic brands. They have strong branding and strong repetition. The same logo, the same tagline and the same emotional message are reinforced again and again until it becomes part of how people identify with the brand. The same principle applies to teams. When leaders consistently communicate the same values, language and expectations, they're doing more than just messaging; they're helping people understand what the team stands for. For example, if a leader opens every Monday standup by asking, "What did you learn last week?" Over time, the team starts to value curiosity and growth. If recognition always focuses on collaboration, people learn that team success matters more than individual wins. Repetition isn't boring. It's how identity takes root. Related: 3 Tips for Building a Thriving Company Culture Rituals that anchor behavior Rituals are the bridge between intention and culture. They're the small, consistent behaviors that turn values into action. And the best part? They don't have to be complicated. A ritual could be as simple as ending every meeting with a round of shoutouts. Or kicking off a monthly all-hands with a customer success story. Or closing the week with a short message from leadership reinforcing a core value. These micro-moments create continuity, even when the business is growing fast or navigating change. When leaders commit to rituals, they give their teams something to hold onto. Over time, these repeated behaviors become cultural anchors. They provide rhythm. They build trust. And they remind everyone what matters most, without needing to say it out loud. How to reinforce messages without sounding like a broken record The challenge with repetition is that leaders sometimes worry they'll sound stale. But the trick isn't changing the message — it's changing the delivery. You can reinforce the same cultural idea in different formats. Tell a story one week. Share a data point the next. Highlight a team member who exemplifies a core value. Ask your team to reflect on a question that ties back to your principles. The content evolves, but the underlying message stays consistent. The key is to stay aligned, not robotic. When people hear the same themes reflected in different ways, through leadership, peers and even customers, it stops feeling like a mandate and starts feeling like shared truth. Related: What Makes a Great Company Culture (and Why It Matters) Start small, stay consistent You don't need a full playbook to start shaping culture. Pick one message you care about, maybe it's ownership, kindness or resilience, and start reinforcing it intentionally. Find a way to bring it into your 1:1s, team meetings or recognition moments. Then do it again. And again. Consistency builds trust. And trust builds momentum. When people know what to expect from their leaders, they're more likely to mirror those behaviors and take initiative themselves. The strongest cultures aren't built in a burst of inspiration. They're built through deliberate, repeated action. Start small and don't stop. At its core, leadership is less about grand gestures and more about what you choose to repeat. Every small action, every consistent message, every intentional ritual — it all adds up. That's how culture takes shape. So, if you want to build a team that knows what it stands for and shows up accordingly, don't just say it once. Say it often. Show it often. Lead by doing, again and again. Because the most powerful cultures aren't built by accident; they're built by leaders who understand the hidden power of consistency.
Forbes
18-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Psychological Safety Drives Team Performance. Here's How To Track It
Psychological safety is essential for high-performing teams and it's up to leaders to create—and ... More measure—it. Psychological safety, defined by McKinsey as the absence of interpersonal fear, is often cited as a defining trait of high-performing, innovative teams. But for many leaders, it remains abstract—easy to endorse, harder to recognize and even harder to measure or quantify. That's a problem, especially when the research is this clear. A major meta-analysis from M. Lance Frazier and colleagues identified three conditions that foster psychological safety: a positive team climate, thoughtful work design and strong leader relationships. A McKinsey Global Survey later found that the most impactful factor is a positive team climate, which team leaders have the most influence over. Separate McKinsey findings highlight the payoff: when psychological safety is present, teams adapt faster and perform better. Gallup research backs this up, pointing to engaged managers as the key to team resilience and productivity. Put simply, how people feel and perform at work is deeply shaped by their manager's leadership. That makes psychological safety more than a pie-in-the-sky ideal—it's a core leadership responsibility. The real challenge is knowing whether you're actually creating it. So how do you tell if your team feels safe to speak up, challenge ideas or take risks? And how can you monitor that over time? Here's how to make psychological safety measurable—and meaningful. One of the most reliable ways to measure psychological safety is through validated survey tools. Amy Edmondson's Psychological Safety Index is widely used and includes prompts that explore team dynamics and norms around making mistakes, taking risks and social acceptance. Some teams may prefer to use Gallup's 12-item engagement survey, paying particular attention to the questions related to trust, voice and acceptance. Before administering any team survey, explain its purpose clearly and commit to sharing insights from the data gathered. Results should be anonymized and ideally benchmarked across time. That will give you an accurate sense of whether psychological safety is improving—or if the conversation is going in circles. A team's real-time interactions often reveal more than any survey. Take note of who tends to speak first and most often. Who rarely speaks unless called on? What happens when someone pushes back—or admits a mistake? Patterns of silence, interrupting or constant agreement may signal that dissent feels risky or unwelcome. You can track this qualitatively or use AI notetakers to identify whose voices are being heard. If most discussions are dominated by a few voices, or if disagreement is rare, that may indicate low psychological safety—regardless of what survey responses say. A safe team won't just be busy (or pretend to be busy)—they'll be vocally engaged, even when stakes are high. Psychological safety is nuanced and personal. What feels comfortable to one person may feel risky to another. That's why qualitative check-ins are essential. In one-on-one conversations with team members, go beyond the surface-level 'How's it going?' Instead, try: 'Are there moments when you hesitate to speak up here?' or 'What would make you feel safer to take risks in your work on this team?' In team check-ins or debriefs, try opening with:'What helped you feel seen, heard or valued this week?' or 'What would help us be more collaborative and supportive as a team?' The goal isn't to force emotional vulnerability, especially if baseline trust hasn't already been established. That kind of approach can easily backfire. Instead, these questions are meant to normalize and build a team practice of open reflection and candid communication. Over time, this kind of consistency will build a culture where psychological safety becomes a shared value, not just the leader's responsibility. When psychological safety is present, you'll usually see it in the team's output—what's being created, tested and improved. Teams that feel safe tend to float more new ideas and run more experiments. Feedback loops feel functional instead of fear-based. Problems are raised early and dissected without assigning blame. This doesn't mean everything is perfect. But you'll likely notice more learning behavior: postmortems that lead to insightful questions and important adjustments instead of finger-pointing, or candid conversations that spark process changes. On the flip side, if people stay quiet in the face of obvious issues—or stop taking initiative altogether—it may be a sign that psychological safety has eroded. While engagement, retention or performance scores can reinforce these patterns, they shouldn't be your only data points. When you rely too heavily on surface-level metrics, you miss what's happening underneath. If you're serious about measuring psychological safety, start with your impact as a leader. Encourage feedback that speaks to how your behavior affects the team climate. This can be done through upward feedback, peer reviews or 360 assessments. In reviewing and analyzing the data from upward or peer feedback, look for consistent themes over isolated opinions. Do people describe feeling dismissed or micromanaged? Are there patterns in how mistakes are handled or how conflict is managed? It's not always easy to hear, but this kind of feedback is one of the most direct indicators of whether your leadership is fostering—or flattening—psychological safety. Collecting feedback is only useful if it leads to change. Without follow-through, even the best-intentioned efforts can create frustration, cynicism or break hard-won trust. Once you gather insights, don't keep them to yourself or let them collect dust on the shelf. Start by sharing high-level takeaways with your team—transparently and without spin. Engage with your team as you co-create the path forward. Let them know what you plan to change or test and see how they respond. Invite input on next steps to build investment and buy-in by asking them: What should we try differently? How will we know it's working? Commit to revisiting these questions regularly. Effective communication in the age of a broken social contract at work is tricky, but focus on deep and empathetic listening, consistent and aligned action and practical transparency. Psychological safety is dynamic—and it directly impacts business outcomes. When it's present, team members speak up earlier, collaborate more effectively and recover faster when things go wrong. They don't just get more done—they get better at how they do it. But psychological safety can erode just as quickly as it's built. That's why measuring it can't be a one-time exercise. It has to become a leadership habit. Leaders who understand this don't treat psychological safety as a 'nice-to-have' afterthought. They monitor it as closely as they do output and engagement. And when they notice something slipping, they intervene—not with platitudes and empty promises, but with clear, visible changes in how they lead. That's what transforms psychological safety from a buzzword into a competitive edge.
Times
12-05-2025
- Science
- Times
What sets apart the most productive, innovative teams?
Twenty years ago I became fascinated by the question: why are some work teams more productive and innovative than others? That began a multi-year research programme looking carefully at what these high-performing teams actually do. We surveyed teams over time — some based in the UK, others spanning other countries; we observed how team members behaved; and we took measurements of the flows of information within and between the teams. We found that the most productive and innovative teams were 'hot spots' of energy. This was clear from my observations. I could sense their energy, while less productive teams in comparison felt dull and negative — people simply going about their tasks without real conviction. It turns out that the magic of these hot spots
