Achieving team balance: everybody rotate!

Teams achieve balance when individual team members rotate among the behaviors rather than getting stuck demonstrating the same behavior repeatedly.

My daughter Hannah plays volleyball. It's a significantly more complicated version of the game I remember playing in gym class. It still involves six players on each side, but once the ball is served, they move around the court in choreographed sprints that look fairly chaotic to the untrained eye. I seem to remember standing in my designated spot until it was time for our team to serve the ball and then somebody would shout, "Rotate!" The shouter was often the same helpful person who would push you into the next position when you couldn’t remember whether to move left, right, up, or back.

Individuals on work teams, it turns out, also have a need to rotate. Over time, teams fall into patterns of behavior which create barriers to productive collaboration. David Kantor, a Psychologist and Consultant identified four basic behavior patterns which teams need in equal measure in order to get the best from each of its members. Teams achieve balance when individual team members rotate among the behaviors rather than getting stuck demonstrating the same behavior repeatedly. The exercise described here [5] is based on Kantor’s work and provides a quick way for a team to identify behavior patterns and develop working agreements to help bring out the best in each team member.

The Four Representative Behaviors
Consider four behaviors team members could demonstrate during a team discussion:

1) Taking charge, offering ideas and leading the discussion.
2) Agreeing and going along with what's being proposed.
3) Disagreeing and challenging what's being proposed.
4) Quietly paying attention to what's being discussed.

From the point of view of productive teamwork, each of the four behaviors is simultaneously useful and problematic. When the team can't seem to get going or loses focus, it's critical that someone take charge. On the other hand, when the team is engaged in a productive dialogue on a difficult topic, team members will resent someone intervening to take charge in order to move things along. Kantor points out that each behavior provides a specific benefit to the team. Taking charge provides direction, going along provides completion, challenging provides correction and paying attention provides perspective.

Over time, a team that lacks one of the behaviors will miss out on the attendant benefit. They might describe their team as lacking direction, (in other words, insufficient supply of taking charge) or settling for half-baked solutions (in other words, a deficiency of disagreeing and challenging). The behaviors can also feel out of balance when individuals get stuck demonstrating the same one or two of the four behaviors. While each behavior provides a specific benefit, repeated demonstration of the behavior by the same individual creates dysfunction.

There is a significant risk that other team members will make less than flattering judgments about individuals who only bring one type of behavior to the team. Team members will use words like, bossy or dictatorial to describe individuals who only ever take charge. The individual who always agrees and goes along looks wishy-washy to the rest of the team. Someone who only ever disagrees or challenges will quickly develop a reputation as negative or critical. The team member who never says anything during the meeting will be viewed as disengaged or aloof.

The 4-Behavior Map
Before your next team meeting, have team members build their 4-Behavior maps [5]by rating the frequency with which they demonstrate each of the four behaviors. Post the maps and have a conversation about what the different shapes mean.

Here are some suggestions for how to use the 4-Behavior Maps [5] at your next team meeting:

- Pair up individuals with opposite shapes and have them talk about what they’re thinking or feeling during typical team discussions.
- Build a team map based on the average scores of each team member
- Have each team member answer the following question: What would it take for you to demonstrate more of the behaviors you rated low and less of the behaviors you rated high?
- Build a few team agreements based on a team discussion of the maps that will bring more balance to future team meetings.

When your team becomes sophisticated enough to move in and out of the behaviors the way my daughter’s volleyball team covers the court, you’ll be sure to get the best each team member has to offer. Until then, you might want to designate someone to shout, "Rotate!" now and again.

For More Information:
Learn more about David Kantor and his model: called the Four Player Model, on the web here [6].
or The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, Senge, et al., Doubleday 1994, pp. 407 - 416.