Mutual Understanding: The Skill That Turns Good Teams into Great Ones

The best performing teams demonstrate an almost unnatural awareness of what drives individual members and a fluid ability to shift support where it's needed. We all know those teams, whether it's sport or business, current or historical, that have transcended their potential to achieve greatness, and we can probably all recognise that it didn't happen by accident - they all took careful rehearsal and orchestration. Here are two exercises that will allow any team to explore and experiment with the levels of understanding that support better team performance.

My first suggestion may be observed as being ludicrously simple, yet it's the sheer simplicity of what's required that makes it such a powerful activity. Helium Stick has been used in just about every imaginable setting to show how achieving a simple task can be made frustratingly difficult by the need for every team member to be acting with common purpose and understanding. I've seen groups reduced to hysterical laughter, or frustrated annoyance by their apparent inability to achieve a task that is, on the surface, very easy. Translating the humour, or frustration, into a positive result needs a measure of leadership, and an open discussion that establishes the understanding that is their platform for success.

Learning Squared (both activities in this package: Hollow Square and Broken Squares) addresses some of the same learning outcomes, but adds complexity in the form of restricted communication between team members. Many experiential learning tools use this device, placing constraints on how team members can communicate, and not without good cause; it's an excellent way to develop consideration and mutual understanding. A key indicator that team members are displaying a sensitivity to the needs of colleagues is the subtle ways in which they tailor their inputs to the needs of others; ways that recognise team role and individual preferences. The Learning Squared package (and the Hollow Square activity in particular) brings focus to this skill set, pushing individuals towards asking themselves the question "What's the best way for me to communicate this information, to this person, in a way that allow them to act upon it?"

I always class an intervention that seeks to develop mutual understanding in working groups as 'team-building skills' rather than simply 'team building'. The reason for this is that I see the ability to develop mutual understanding within a team as a skill that an individual possesses, and, by implication, something that travels with the individual to any team they might belong to in future. This makes for organisations comprised of individuals who carry with them the skills they need to elevate any team - and surely that's a situation which merits introducing some experiential learning tools to start to build capacity?