High-performing groups and teams are fixated on one big thing – understanding!
The key to understanding is one simple, but not always easy activity – asking questions.
Being high-performing isn’t easy. Ever. It takes hard work, dedication and know-how. It also requires discipline to engage in continuous activities that will foster high-performance. Most teams or groups lack the ingredients, but it’s not technical prowess, or proper structure or even good intentions that are missing. No, the missing ingredients are the things necessary for improved understanding.
High-performing groups or teams lean into the areas of activity that foster great work. And it’s far less technical than most think. Instead, it’s social. It’s about people.
It’s human interaction and our ability to improve those interactions.
Mostly, it’s about our collective ability to have productive discussions. If we’re unable to do that, then it’s over. Any chance we have to be high-performing is out if we can’t have profitable conversations that foster deeper understanding.
High-performing teams.
High-performing groups.
High-functioning relationships. Including marriages and families.
They all depend on understanding.
The quality of our questions determines the quality of our understanding. And the higher our understanding the more likely we can have high-performing groups or teams made up of high-performing individuals.
What happens when you don’t understand?
You have a few options. You can make something up. Assume meaning. Think you know. Don’t work to find out. This is the option taken by many people (which is, in part, why high-performing groups or teams are so rare). The gaps in our knowledge – those things we don’t know or the things we don’t understand – get filled in with what we think or assume.
You can ask questions. You can seek understanding.
Why is that so hard? A few reasons. For starters, you have to admit you don’t understand. Many people would prefer to feign understanding. But that doesn’t work at any level. Pretending you understand is about as effective as pretending you’re a high-performing person. Imagining it won’t make it so.
It’s also hard because we’re human. We have emotions. We react to things. Including words others say.
We can get defensive and combative. Understanding isn’t the initial instinct for most people. Fighting back is. Or running away. Fight or flight. The space between the two is mindful understanding. That just means it’s intentional. We set our minds to understand ahead of time, knowing that during the conversation we’re going to likely be sparked to feel like fighting or fleeing. Special, high-performing people determine in advance to pursue understanding. They can check themselves in real-time to behave in ways that foster understanding instead of conflict for the sake of disagreement.
It’s hard. Very hard. Which is why it’s so rare.
Your team is meeting. The conversation is perfectly fine while the topics are easy, but suddenly a difficult conversation begins. At some point somebody says something that causes another member of the team to bristle. They blurt out, “I completely disagree.” That can derail the entire discussion…or not.
What’s going to happen next? I many cases it turns into a fight. A he-said, he-said ordeal. No increased understanding. No improvement in the discussion. The productivity falls like a rock. The conversation either ends or quickly moves to safer topics. It’s evident the team isn’t going to be able to discuss this tough subject. It’s the mark of a low-performing team. They just can’t handle hard discussions.
What if instead of blurting out,