This saying – ‘there is no I in Team’ – is a well-known one, and the ‘I’ refers to someone whose behaviour runs counter to engagement, collaboration, support and synergy.
This TED talk ‘Why it’s time to forget the pecking order at work’ gives great insight into how the performance of teams rests on the quality of the relationships people have with one another.
Developing people’s ability to collaborate, focussing on that arena deliberately, yields higher returns in terms of team and business performance than spending time, effort and money on getting star performers on the team.
In your plans to develop and cultivate high-performing teams ensure that you do more than just ‘get to know one another’ sessions. Developing people’s ability to collaborate includes giving them opportunities to learn about and understand one another but also requires giving them the tools to identify when trust has been broken and how to restore it.