The team quotient: Becoming expert teams

Our world is not only hyper-specialized, it is becoming exponentially more so each day. There are jobs today that didn’t even exist just a few years ago. Each of these specialty areas can contribute significant value to the market, but only to the extent that we contextualize these specialties in meaningful ways. We can’t just be a team of experts—we need to be expert teams. Therefore, we have to improve our team quotient.  

It’s a well-acknowledged practice that we tend to promote people out of their specialty or technical area of expertise. We take the best clinician, the best software engineer, the best accountant or the best customer service representative and promote them into management. The reason, we tell ourselves, is that we believe that technical expertise will, somehow, translate into managerial or leadership expertise.

However, that is not always the case. This approach is flawed in two very important ways: First, technical expertise does not translate to the skills necessary for leading a team and managing a department. Second, we often promote people without proper investments in these same skills, or the ability to work in a highly specialized team environment. 

Without team skills, each of these specializations can often create unintentional friction, not only on our systems but also on our outcomes. Rightfully so, each specialty area often becomes hyper-focused on its value and specialty. However, the consequence of this is that their focus is often without regard to the system in which that specialty operates.

What is needed is a culture of collaboration. A culture that leverages the synergy of these specialties. In the world of business, culture is king. A team-based, collaborative and leader-like culture is by far the best way to achieve competitive advantage. Therefore, it is imperative to collaborate amongst varying specialties to achieve exponential results. These results can only be realized when we foster shared meaning. This does not happen by chance; it can only be done when we endeavor to create the environment for meaning-creation. 

Becoming expert teams

To do this, an intensive, interdisciplinary and experiential leadership development program is necessary. This allows teams to achieve higher levels of performance that complement rather than compete amongst their various specialties. The approach is a facilitated team development program that focuses on the application of management and leadership principles as it relates to an interdisciplinary team. The proof of concept for this was achieved through the High Performing Care Collaborative piloted at UAB Medicine. 

The concept of “team” is often misunderstood. We tend to think of any group of co-workers as a team. While loosely considered we can argue that we are all part of the same, missional team, it is important to distinguish what a real team is. The “team” in this sense is a core group of people that are collectively needed to achieve a shared outcome.

When the High Performing Care Collaborative was piloted, it was important to define the core team members that were co-responsible for the outcomes of a defined unit or service. This translated into a medical provider such as a medical doctor advanced practice provider,  nurse manager or operations manager. This core team, however, simply served as a basic model.

In reality, the core team may include an allied health professional such as a social worker, rehabilitation or pharmacy liaison. The key is to find who should comprise the basic team across disciplines that were necessary to achieve unit-based outcomes. This team would then be immersed into the High Performing Care Collaborative and be expected to work with the larger unit to achieve overall outcomes. 

Program overview

The program enrolls interdisciplinary teams through a nomination process. While the program is open to a wide array of these teams, the nomination process helps to ensure supervisory support of the program and also reinforces learning post-program. Given the nature of this team-based program, teams without full participation are not admitted.  Since our current delivery cadences is two times per year, teams whose members cannot fully participate in the spring may be able to do so in the fall. 

During the two-day intensive boot camp, each represented team is exposed to a variety of leadership and management principles. These conversations allow the teams to discuss how the principles are or should be applied to their unit or service.

It is emphasized throughout the program that the team is responsible for driving outcomes and not waiting for or relying on others to drive their success. Examples of topics in the program include building rapport with each other, the work-style DISC assessment, success metrics, coaching, conflict resolution, meeting management, leadership, productivity, team principles and values, strategic planning and performance improvement.

The afternoon of day two is spent codifying these principles into a team-specific action plan. After the program, each nominator is engaged in the process to help review and support the teams they nominated to bring their action plan to fruition. 

This cohort-based program has been delivered three times with approximately six teams per iteration. Each team takes away and applies their learning in a way that makes the most sense for them. For example, some teams have developed improved balanced dashboards, while others have improved their approach to meetings and giving feedback.

Once the program is delivered new opportunities for improvements in the content, sequencing, and delivery are identified for the next delivery. Future revisions include a real-time case study, more trust-building tactics and more detailed conversations around resolving conflict.

Leveraging the team-based model

This program has served as a wonderful model to help leverage synergy between specialties. This leadership development model can also be used to build cohesion amongst similar professionals in multiple geographies. For example, HR leaders of geographically dispersed sites come together to identify and strategize around key HR deliverables.

Overall, the development model promotes a competitive advantage through the development of a synergistic team-based culture.