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04 / Collaboration
Key question
What makes a team strong?
Good teams are not just made up of good people. They have clear goals, reliable agreements and a climate where everyone can speak openly. All of this can be consciously shaped.
Learning objective: You are able to clarify goals, roles and agreements, assess psychological safety within a team, and make decisions collectively.
Clarity is a form of kindness.
4.1 / Goals, Roles, Agreements
Clarity brings relief.
A lot of friction in teams arises because things are left unsaid. Three clarifications take off a lot of the pressure:
01
Clear goals
Everyone knows what the team is currently working on and what success looks like.
02
Clear roles
Who decides what, who does what, who is consulted?
03
Clear agreements
How we work: response times, meetings, handovers, dealing with errors.
Agreements don't need to be long. A single page, written together by the team and reviewed every three months, is often enough.
Things left unsaid create friction.
4.2 / Psychological safety
Speak openly, without fear.
Harvard professor Amy Edmondson describes psychological safety as the shared belief that it is safe to take interpersonal risks within a team: asking questions, admitting mistakes, and sharing ideas without fear of being punished or humiliated.
In a major internal study by Google, Project Aristotle, it was the most important factor for effective teams. It does not mean that everyone is always nice, but that you can also say uncomfortable things.
Security doesn't mean harmony, but openness.
4.3 / Deciding together
Who decides, and how?
Not every decision requires everyone's involvement. It is helpful to clarify beforehand how the decision will be made: by one person after consultation, by a majority, or by consent, where a decision is reached as long as no one has a serious objection.
Consent comes from sociocracy and is well-suited to small teams. Instead of asking “Is everyone thrilled?”, it asks “Can everyone live with this?”. This makes decision-making quicker, without leaving anyone out.
First clarify how decisions will be made, then decide.
Exercise
Your team agreement
Task: Write a one-page team charter together, with a real team or a project team.
STEP 1
State the most important goal for the next three months in a single sentence.
STEP 2
Clarify roles: Who decides what, who does what, who is consulted?
STEP 3
Have everyone complete the Team Pulse individually, then discuss the two weakest points.
STEP 4
Write down five agreements and set a date to review them.
Evaluation: Does everyone know the goal, their role, and the agreements after the exercise?