By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
Building effective work teams in healthcare is a challenging and often frustrating part of the nurse leader’s role. Many new leaders tell me that they struggle with dysfunctional teams that have often worked together for years. As the late, great baseball coach Casey Stengel was once quoted as saying, “Hiring great players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story.”
Google has defined a team as a group of staff that are highly interdependent – they plan work, solve problems, make decisions, and review progress on an ongoing basis. Team members need one another to get work done. In healthcare, the work is complex and highly interdependent. Work teams today are more diverse in every way. At the same time, who is on the team changes on a shift by shift basis. We know great teamwork when we see it. These teams do the following:
- They have a common purpose and are focused on achieving that.
- They respect the role and contributions of every team member.
- They provide team back-up to one another when needed.
- They make it safe to ask questions and make mistakes.
- They recognize that different team members have different work styles on teams and each is important.
It is number 5 that nurse leaders sometimes don’t think about. They expect that new staff will join their team and absorb the values, behaviors, and beliefs of the other team members. Kim Christfort and Suzanne Vickberg are two leading experts in the business chemistry division of Deloitte consulting. Their research which has been reported in the Harvard Business Review reveals that most of us adopt one of four distinctive team member styles as shown in the illustration below:
| PIONEER
•VALUE POSSIBILITIES •WILLING TO TAKE RISKS •BIG PICTURE THINKERS •LOVE BOLD IDEAS AND CREATIVE APPROACHES |
DRIVERS
•VALUE CHALLENGE & MOMENTUM •WANT RESULTS •TACKLE PROBLEMS HEAD ON – OFTEN USING BLACK/WHITE THINKING •LIKE LOGIC AND DATA |
| GUARDIANS
•VALUE STABILITY + HISTORY •WANT ORDER AND RIGOR TO DECISIONS •WANT DATA AND FACTS |
INTEGRATORS
•VALUE CONNECTION & RELATIONSHIPS •WORK TO GAIN CONSENSUS •DIPLOMACY IS IMPORTANT |
What is so intriguing about their work is that they acknowledge that one of the reasons why teams struggle with a lack of trust or team backup is the failure to recognize different work styles. To build true psychological safety on teams, both the leader and team members must understand the key motivations for each work style. Nurses who have a pioneering style may have challenges understanding why those with a guardian style of working process change more slowly. Nurses who have an integrator style of working on teams may not understand the working style of a driver who is focused on completing the task at hand sometimes forgeting about relationships.
The work of Christfort and Vickberg is important because it provides a different dimension in how leaders should think about teamwork. Through understanding work styles, leaders will be more empathetic and able to foster stronger team relationships.
Read to Lead
Christfort, K, & Vickberg, S.(2018) BC Business Chemistry: Practical magic for crafting powerful team relationships. New York: Wiley Publishers.
Read Rose Sherman’s new book – The Nurse Leader Coach: Become the Boss No One Wants to Leave
© emergingrnleader.com 2019
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