Are you ready for a surprise? You blink about 15-20 times every minute —so frequently that our eyes are closed for roughly 10% of our waking hours. Now, consider the 10 blink per minute average applied to a 15-minute drive, you would have blinked 150 times. That means on average you drive with your eyes closed about 10% of the trip. Who knows what you missed out on in those 150 blinks.
The phrase ‘Blink and you will miss it’ is very apt when it comes to the subtleties a leader needs to monitor to ensure team performance. Some of the subtle hindrances to team performance can easily go unnoticed.
Every team has ‘plateau points’ where they come up against a glass ceiling hindering their potential. Points where the performance will begin to Plateau for reasons that seem irrational. They are very subtle and if they are not monitored they cannot be remedied. This can leave you frustrated with why your team is not performing to the level that you know it is capable of. Being aware of these six ceilings enables the appropriate actions to be taken.
In the last Blog, we dealt with the first glass ceiling, ‘The Communication ceiling’. Today we will cover the remaining five.
2. The Energy Ceiling – Do you have an Energy Vampire?
Teams have an invisible reservoir of energy that everyone draws from on a daily basis. There is a degree of emotional replenishment and satisfaction that people gain from being part of a team. Unconsciously, team members ask a “Cost Benefit” equation, ‘Is it better to be in the team or away from the team’?
Imagine there is a reservoir of 100 units of emotional energy for each team and these units needs to be distributed to the team members. Weekly, people arrive at the team and draw energy out of the reservoir as they launch into their tasks for the week.
The problem arises in two situations. Firstly, if it is a busy time of the year, projects are at a critical point and people are feeling drained. People want to draw energy from the team to help them get through the busy season. However, if they come to the reservoir and find it bone dry they cannot replenish and struggle to get through the work which then impacts on team performance.
Alternatively, you may have an ‘energy vampire’ on your team. This is where one person is drawing most of the energy out of the reservoir on a regular basis. An energy vampire draining 80 units of energy for themselves leaves the rest of the team to share a meagre 20 units. That may be ok on the odd occasion such as when a person on the team is going through a personal crisis and the team rallies to support them. But it cannot continue indefinitely. There will not be enough emotional support and energy for the group to share. A team suffering from an emotional drought will soon find that its members will regress into self-interest as they find the cost of being a part of the team is greater than the benefits of working together.
Application
- If you have someone going through a crisis, set up extra support for that person outside of the team meetings.
- People find energy in purpose and leaders need to revisit the vision and goals you are trying to achieve. Remind each other ‘WHY’ are you doing what you are doing.
- Have some fun activities to boost the emotional levels.
3. Growth Ceiling
People want to experience personal growth and this is particularly true in teams. When people have defined roles they will want a degree of empowerment and growth to be part of their personal journey. Feeling stuck in their personal development will leave members looking elsewhere for their growth.
Application
- Provide personal growth opportunities that are a stretch to their personal skills
- Note* ensure it is not deep end learning
4. Leadership Ceiling
A healthy team will see its members develop in their personal leadership and begin to seek out greater levels of leadership expression. Leaders will emerge from within the team and will begin to seek out opportunities to develop their leadership abilities. Bizarrely, this can often be identified by someone complaining about an issue that they believe they can be involved in remedying.
Application
- Provide personal leadership growth opportunities.
5. The Unsafe Ceiling
As teams progress, there are challenges and issues that need to be dealt with regularly. Should these not be handled correctly the trust levels in the team may slowly erode away. At this point, team members will not feel they are safe enough to contribute to discussions, be honest about issues or share their true feelings about a situation.
Application
- Address the “elephant in the room” if there is one
- Make sure there are rules around open communication.
6. The Friendship Ceiling
This principle is closely related to Ceilings one and ceiling two. An unconscious question every member asks when joining a team is “Can I make Friends here?” The answer to that question is often more powerful than any tasks they may be engaged in. The larger a team becomes the more complicated and the more difficult it is for people to build relationships which is the the glue that holds teams together.
Application
- Provide scope for team members to have fun together and get to know one another.
Any one of these six ceilings can hamper team performance. I’ve seen teams slowly whittling down their performance because of one energy vampire. That vampire actually needed professional counselling but it was decided to try and deal with the issue as a team. He drained the emotional energy out of that group so eventually, the team disintegrated. If only the leader had monitored the Energy ceiling.
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