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Playbook:

More Profitable Teams

An Organizational Psychology Perspective

Author: Jenny Knudson

Purpose

This playbook is a starting point for leaders to begin creating immediate breakthroughs in team performance. Implementing these research-based strategies will help build devoted, successful sales teams.

Author

I’m an incessant learner of how behaviors transform business outcomes. With over a thousand leadership meetings, I specialize in leadership effectiveness, investor relations, high-stakes meetings, conflict management, organizational cohesion and perceptions that affect the bottom-line. I continue to study Industrial/Organizational Psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology and have uncovered critical elements about WHY certain leadership behaviors have a positive effect with specific audiences. I apply research-based strategies with my clients to stretch boundaries, kill doubt, and impress profitable change for their companies.





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Profitability

The importance of in-team collaboration not only produces new sales tactics like sharing unique strategies and crowd-sourcing solutions to road-blocks, it also encourages total teamwork rather than competition between teammates which

Gartner studies show increases sales impacts from 22% to 49%

(Primeeast, 2022).

In a collaborative environment, all employees will view their goal of high production as interdependent and rely on one another to get their jobs done, versus seeing the other team's production as a threat.

(DuFour, 2009)

How Leaders Can Implement:

Group oO People Having A Meeting

01

SHARE INFORMATION

Is this obvious?


No. Many individuals, including leaders, hold valuable information close to the vest for strategic purposes.


Creating an environment where team members are happy to share details is a key factor in achieving superior results.

(Forbes, 2018).


EXAMPLE: Leaders can promote an atmosphere of curiosity and collaboration by prioritizing structured brainstorming sessions to give teams time to create solutions and support a cohesive atmosphere.

Through this practice, teams will understand that acquiring information has great value.

02

'VERBAL' COMMUNICATION

Still obvious?


No. Our post-Covid world is dominated by text, email and video conferencing. Although this is efficient, this form of communication is not optimal for building trust or relationships.


FOR EXAMPLE: Forbes Business Development Counsel describes how their sales teams work together to increase sales by primarily sharing information in real-time, verbal communication.

(Forbes, 2018)


-Sorry Gen. "Z"

Business People Meeting with New Startup Project Pointing

03

SOCIALIZATION

Socialization is about commitment and is an important variable in team building that has been greatly underestimated.

In the development phases of team building, a person goes through a series of role transitions.


The phases are:

  • Investigation
  • Socialization
  • Maintenance
  • 'Re-socialization'


During 'socialization' an individual is evaluating the team and deciding on their level of commitment.


(Levi & Askay, 2021)

Happy Employees Are Productive Employees

How we socialize can determine whether our colleagues feel:

  • Trusted
  • Respected
  • Treated Fairly
  • Heard








(TED, 2019)

Socialization Inspires TRUST On A Team

Teams develop trusting, social relationships among its members through:

  • Encouraging Assistance
  • Sharing a Clear Vision
  • Coaching/Mentoring
  • Active Leadership Participation


(Levi & Askay, 2021)



(Burkus, 2021).

04

BUILD PERFORMANCE


Field experiments from American Marketing Association reveal that salespeople who underwent the individualized AND institutionalized 'socialization' program achieved approximately 23.5 percent higher sales performance than those who only underwent the institutionalized program.

(Wiseman, Ahearne, Hall, and Tirunillai, 2022)



Information sharing and transparency within an organization is linked with higher trust among team members and the ability for the organization to evolve. The practice of sharing information creates loyalty within employee groups and the absence of sharing information leads to greater stress and erosion of trust.

(Kellogg School of Management, 2018)









04

BUILD PERFORMANCE Continued...


Navy Seals say they would rather work with a medium-low performer with 'high' trust, than a high performer with 'low' trust. This person is creating an environment for everyone to succeed.

(Sinek, 2019)



Based on a two year study of teams at Google that analyzed over 250 team's attributes found that establishing group norms was the best predictor of team performance.

(Duhigg, 2016)



Implementing Healthy Norms

Creative Team at Work
Group of People In Dress Suits

05

/Nôrms/:

When a team has established ground rules to help members work together.

(Levi and Askay, 2021)

Office Team Working Together

Team norms begin forming immediately and continue over time.

(Levi and Askay, 2021).

People monitor social cues, tone of voice, gestures and choice of words.

The clearer the norm is, the more members will conform, creating a more efficient team.

How To Implement Team Norms

Patterns and standards of behavior are important to establish as they create the following values within a team:

  • Efficiency
  • Group Identity
  • Differentiation






(Clayton, 2021)

Summary

TEAM VS. INDIVIDUAL APPROACH:

Sales competition between members can be healthy but is significantly improved by adding in-team collaboration. This will help employees view their production goals as interdependent with the team and they will rely on one another to get their jobs done, versus seeing the other team's production as a threat.


SHARING INFORMATION:

Research shows that teams who share information with the group, achieve "superior" outcomes.


VERBAL COMMUNICATION:

Using verbal communication, rather than text or email, improves trust and relationship building. Period.


SOCIALIZATION:

During the socialization process, members are evaluating their level of commitment as they assess group behavior. This foundation sets the stage for HOW an employee will feel about their environment which has a direct impact on performance.


HOW PERFORMANCE IS AFFECTED:

Performance can be greatly affected by how well an individual is socialized into the group. Socialization that emulates a high-level of trust can produce significant improvements in sales performance compared to teams that lack trusting relationships. This seems obvious, but is missing on many teams.


TEAM NORMS:

'Norms' help inform employees HOW to react to situations and gives members a sense of belonging so that the focus can remain on work tasks rather than situational reactions. Healthy norms perpetuate "efficiency".

References

  • Burkus, D. [David Burkus]. (Nov. 2, 2021). Five Ways to Build Trust on Teams [Video]. YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_-SqAACXkI.
  • Clayton, Mike. [Mike Clayton]. (2021). Establishing Team Behavior Norms [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-. October 18, 2022.
  • Duhigg, C. “What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team”, The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html. February 25, 2016.
  • Forbes. “Council Post: Nine Collaboration Tactics to Make Your Sales Team Stronger.” Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2018/01/16/nine-collaboration-tactics-to-make-your-sales-team-stronger/. August 10, 2018.
  • Kellogg School of Management. (January 31, 2018). Why Transparency is Critical to Creating Trust in an Organization | Northwestern University [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do6e1UE4ruI.
  • Levi, D., & Askay, D. A. (2021). Group Dynamics for Teams. SAGE Publications.
  • Primeast. “Why Collaboration is The New Sales Guru, and How to Achieve It.” Forward Focus, https://www.forwardfocusinc.com/ignite-sales/why-collaboration-is-the-new-sales-guru-and-how-to-achieve-it/. August 10, 2022.
  • Sinek, S. [Simon Sinek]. (November 10, 2019). Simon Sinek Performance vs Trust [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJdXjtSnZTITM6kINcUs&lc=UgwsQy9K8cJimHi4k1Z4AaABAg
  • Solution Tree. (2009, Oct 9). Solution Tree: Rick DuFour on groups vs. teams [Video]. YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?
  • TED, 2019. This is what makes employees happy at work | The way we work, A TED Series. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYJ22-YYNW8&t=157s
  • Wiseman, Phillip; Ahearne, Michael; Hall, Zachary; Tirunillai, Seshadri. Journal of Marketing. Mar2022, p1.