Team Scripts – Rewrite them to improve performance
The concept of “scripts” we have written for ourselves is a core part of individual therapy. When someone embarks on self reflection to work through a difficult situation or to help them achieve new goals they often need to focus on areas of their life that repeat the same behaviour or achieve the same outcome over and over again because the feel it is an inevitable outcome, they are powerless to change the “script” as it is already written.
This of course is almost always not the case but self defeating scripts are generally very ingrained and not a quick fix for anyone. The purpose of this post is not to sign everyone up to weekly therapy but to borrow the concept and apply it to the team.
Just as individuals are a combination of their basic temperament – the core skills/preferences they are born with and life experiences that shape their personality, so are teams. If you have a team that is struggling in general, it would be a good exercise to flush out the team scripts that are holding the results back. What are the preset notions that people have in their mind about what the team can achieve and what they can’t. Zero in on one and take action to re-write the script in peoples minds and build on small wins to challenge the concept of “it is inevitable or impossible for this team to change”.
So for example if the script is “we always start meetings late because it is impossible for us to get everyone together before the set time” Highlight the goal and create conditions for success. Once you have enough evidence to support the “script” has been re-written, tackle a harder script, one at a time, until you have a team that believes in their ability to change and deliver results they have not delivered in the past.
Lynn
Team Enthusiast
