The Power of Positive Teams

“Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.”
— Steve Jobs, Former CEO of Apple

All of us in leadership roles would like our teams to perform at a higher level over time. We know from studies and our own experiences that positive teams outperform teams that are less positive. Recent research by Kim Cameron and his colleagues at the University of Michigan found that teams who institute positive practices achieve significantly higher levels of productivity, customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and profitability. This begs the question: How can we develop more positive teams? We don’t need to guess at the answer. Research by Cameron, thought leader Jon Gordon, and others can show us how to apply the steps needed to create positive teams.

Steps to Building Positive Teams

1. Provide Positive Leadership

Positivity starts at the top. Being a positive leader will greatly support having a positive team. Leaders create a “shadow” and set an example with their words and, even more importantly, with their actions. As leaders, we need to ensure we are happy, emotionally healthy, and positive! Positive psychologist Martin Seligman has developed the PERMA model to highlight the five essential elements we need to be happy. PERMA is an acronym that stands for:

• Positive Emotion
• Engagement
• Relationships (positive)
• Meaning
• Accomplishments/achievement

We also need to work on our emotional intelligence. It is important to be aware of our own emotions and how they affect other people. For example, when we are feeling stressed or angry, we can learn how to avoid passing on these negative emotions to our team.

2. Understand and Apply the Pygmalion Effect

The reality of the Pygmalion effect has been proven by research in the military, educational settings, and elsewhere. In a nutshell, the Pygmalion effect is a self-fulfilling prophecy where the performance we expect from an individual (or team) becomes a reality. One of my sayings is, “People tend to live up, or live down, to the expectations placed on them.” Leaders get the performance we expect, so we need to have higher expectations from our teams and build their confidence so they can meet those expectations. Jim Goodnight, CEO of the software developer SAS, summarizes the approach: “Treat employees like they will make a difference, and they will.”

3. Create a Positive Culture

Cameron found that workplaces characterized by the following positive and virtuous practices did have positive cultures that helped the team excel:

• Caring for, being interested in, and maintaining responsibility for colleagues as friends.
• Providing support for one another, including offering kindness and compassion when others are struggling.
• Avoiding blame and forgiving mistakes.
• Inspiring one another at work.
• Emphasizing the meaningfulness of the work.
• Treating one another with respect, gratitude, trust, and integrity.

Cameron explains there are three reasons these practices benefit the company. Positive practices:

• Increase positive emotions, which broadens employees’ resources and abilities by improving their relationships with one another and amplifying their creativity.
• Buffer against negative events like stress, which improves employees’ ability to bounce back from challenges and difficulties.
• Attract and bolster employees, making them more loyal and bringing out the best in them.

4. Remove Obstacles to Positivity

To really boost positivity on our teams, we need to remove things that stand in the way. Dr. Frederick Herzberg, a psychologist with expertise in management, as well as other researchers have found work environments contain “hygiene” factors that — if not taken care of properly — lead to job dissatisfaction. It’s important to remember that not doing well on these hygiene factors will contribute to job dissatisfaction. However, note that doing well on these factors will NOT lead to job satisfaction, but instead will keep motivation neutral.

The primary hygiene factors that contribute to job dissatisfaction are:

• Company policy and administration.
• Supervision.
• Relationship with supervisor.
• Work conditions.
• Salary.

The key here is to actively engage with employees and develop policies, practices, and work conditions that are viewed as fair and positive. By itself, this will not be contributing much to the satisfaction and motivation of our employees. But we will avoid fueling dissatisfaction and demotivating them.

Herzberg also discovered a set of factors that are considered “satisfiers” or “motivators.” Assuming that hygiene factors are being satisfactorily met, these factors are what truly inspire and motivate employees. These factors have a strong “intrinsic” bend to them — they speak to our heartfelt psychological needs and can be intrinsic to the job. There are six major motivators:

1. Achievement. Employees need to have a sense of achievement, and that they are accomplishing something that matters.
2. Recognition. People desire to be appreciated and recognized by their bosses and others for their contributions.
3. Work itself. The work should be meaningful, interesting, and challenging for the employee to perform, which will help them feel motivated.
4. Responsibility. The employee must hold themselves responsible for the work. The supervisors should give them ownership of the work and minimize control, but still retain accountability.
5. Advancement. Employees should feel like they are excelling in their current work, and that they have the opportunity to advance in responsibilities and into other positions they find appealing.
6. Growth. Employees should feel they have opportunities to grow their skills and develop as value added members of the organization.

We also need to weed out negativity whenever we can. One practice is to have a “no complaining rule.” This rule says that no one can make a complaint unless they also have a proposed solution.

5. Encourage Connection Within the Team

Google recently completed a five-year study called Project Aristotle, which revealed the keys to their most productive and inventive teams. Surprisingly, the top teams were not the A teams composed of their top scientists, but B teams containing people not considered the smartest or most knowledgeable. The top-performing teams had the best sense of connection between team members (fostered by interest in teammates’ ideas, empathy, and emotional intelligence), as well as a feeling of emotional safety. Team members feeling safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other was “far and away the most important dynamic that set successful teams apart.”

Here are some closing thoughts from Jon Gordon, who is an expert in the field of positivity and author of several top-selling books, including “The Power of a Positive Team.” Jon stated, “Being positive won’t guarantee you’ll succeed. But being negative will guarantee you won’t ... No one creates success alone. We all need a team to be successful. We are better together, and together we can accomplish great things.” Go out and pursue building an even more positive team — they will benefit and so will you.