⁉️ What on earth is a team of teams

I had someone edit my writing a few years ago (back before AI was a thing) and the term “team of teams” was highlighted as a typo.

It wasn’t a typo! I was talking about organisations being interconnected teams. McChrystal published a book about it arguing that traditional organisations are too slow and siloed to deal effectively with our VUCA world. He suggested interconnected smaller teams are more agile, responsive, innovative and hence more effective.

That was back in 2004. I would say that since then our world has become even more VUCA!

Teams of teams aligns perfectly with team coaching. Professor Peter Hawkins describes it as “An integrated approach for developing organisations into adaptive, networked systems. It builds upon the foundations of Systemic Team Coaching but expands the focus from a single team to the entire organisational ecosystem.”

And I’ve worked in this space myself. I coached several teams within the same organisation in parallel. The result – observable changes in culture, ways or working and ultimately performance. The impacts rippled through the organisation far and wide.

If you’d like to learn more about team coaching approach as the catalyst for organisational change, please get in touch. I’d love to have a chat.

Or, if you’re a member of the New Zealand Team Coaches Connect Group - we have a session this Friday at 9am on the topic – see you there!

🎩 De Bono’s Hats endure!

I met Edward de Bono, and his six thinking hats, at a seminar in Auckland more than 20 years ago. I was an accountant then — with absolutely no sign of my current career on the horizon.

Yesterday, I asked a team I was working with to wear the hats pictured below.

What I like about the approach is how it encourages more balanced, collaborative thinking. It reduces conflict, helps different perspectives be heard, and stops people becoming too personally attached to their own ideas. It can also unlock creativity and more systemic thinking — all things this team is actively working on.

We explored the hats yesterday using a mix of hypothetical and real workplace situations, and talked about ways the team could actively use the approach in BAU conversations and decision-making. I can’t wait to hear what happens next!

Because there were more than six people in the team, I added two extras:

🎩 The Invested Hat — wants to make it happen. Failure is not an option.

🎩 The Wild Hat — can be anything. Completely random..

I suspect there’s room for even more hats in some teams. Some ideas:

🎩 The Pretending Hat — “I’ve already decided but I’m pretending to collaborate.”

🎩 The Delay Hat — “Can we circle back to this later?”

🎩 The Reluctant Hat — “I’m only here because my manager told me to be.”

🎩 The Agnostic Hat — “I really don’t care what we do.”

Like any framework, the hats are not for every situation. But when a team needs to slow down, think differently, hear multiple perspectives, and loosen attachment to fixed positions… they endure!

If you’re curious about the hats - or other approaches that helps teams think, collaborate differently and build psychological safety - get in touch. I’d love to have a chat.

🌳 This Ginkgo is getting into the spirit of autumn!

In a few weeks all the bright yellow leaves will be gone - a fast, dramatic shift from green to gold to bare branches.

Other trees are different. Some shift in bursts at this time of the year - flashes of red and orange, like Maples.

Some barely change at all - they pretty much stay green, like Pine.

Some change slowly, layer by layer - a mixture of many colours, like Oaks.

Differences between trees seem most stark in autumn.

Change in teams happens the same way.

Some move fast - change is visible, decisive, almost sudden, like Ginkgo.

For some change is subtle and hardly noticeable, like Pine.

But most evolve slowly - old habits loosen as new ways gradually emerge, like Oak.

I’ve also observed teams switch “species.” Seemingly solid Pines, with deeply rooted ways of working, suddenly transform into colourful Maples overnight! Amazing!

When I begin working with a team, I can’t predict which way it’s going to go. Are we talking Ginkgo, Maple, Pine, Oak… or something else?

I can’t force change or make it happen faster. After all, teams are complex adaptive systems, nested within other complex adaptive systems - by definition they are complicated and unpredictable.

But I can hold space for insight, help teams explore alternatives, let go of what’s no longer serving them, and embed what’s emerging in their systems.

If you’d like to talk about seasons, types of trees, or anything relating to teams and embedding team change, please get in touch. It's my passion 🌳.