How to Build a Thriving Team Through Empowerment

In brief

• A thriving team has a clear purpose, nurtures and empowers people and delivers productivity in a way that supports the vision and goals of the organisation
• It is critical for organisations that team members are able to independently demonstrate effective processes and behaviours in order to thrive and achieve appropriate outcomes. Not least because organisations often spend too much time managing risk averse teams who over seek direction in pursuit of their desired outcomes. 
• The evidence suggests there are behaviours, structures and processes we can see that give tangible evidence that the culture has become healthier and its teams are thriving.
• Empowerment is an umbrella term for a set of behaviours and processes that can support a thriving team to be appropriately accountable for outcomes which, if done well, produces deep levels of alignment between individual, team and organisation.

What does the evidence say about empowerment?

Empowering people can result in better retention, better knowledge sharing, and high levels of innovation but there are limitations and risks. Done inconsistently, poorly or too quickly it can demoralise, frustrate and stress individuals and paralyse senior leaders with bureaucratic performance management and unnecessary drama.

Empowering individual team members and teams requires high levels of mutual trust and respect. Leaders should ensure that: 

• They delegate enough autonomy and responsibility to all members in their team 
• Involve the team in decision making
• Encourage the team to self-manage its performance to whatever extent possible.

What do empowered people look and sound like?

They willingly take part in objective and rigorous debate and give equal airtime for all views. The important issues are ‘on the table’ so that honest conversations can happen in a timely manner without politics or gossip.

People embrace appropriate levels of accountability and use non-judgemental language to resolve conflict, assess failure and give feedback. They can also articulate the positive contribution each person brings and listen and speak respectfully. 

New ideas or challenges are embraced without acting defensively and they have the courage to experiment with new ideas and know how to manage or escalate risk. 

Where do you start?

First and foremost, the evidence suggests focusing first on empowering teams, given that team empowerment can simultaneously enhance individual empowerment and performance and reduce the possible negative effects of low individual empowerment on performance in teams. Leaders should realise that the individuals within the team matter and should pay attention to motivating and empowering both individual members and teams. However, remember that some tasks and some individuals are not “empowerable” and work better with different levels of direction.

The aim is not to give empowerment randomly but only to give it when systems are in place to support it, and give it conditionally and progressively, for well-defined reasons, only as fast as people can handle it.

What happens now?

Typically there are 3 occasions when teams need to recalibrate:

• When a team is newly formed and wants/needs to accelerate performance and traction.
• When an organisation has restructured (or is scaling) and teams need to realign, refocus and recommit.
• When targets are not being reached or behaviours are not aligned.

FiveAndCo has a range of unique, evidence-based processes for building and sustaining thriving teams in any of the above contexts which focuses on creating clarity of purpose, empowering people, and delivering productivity.

Whether you need an energising kick start for a new team, a professionally facilitated period of realignment and recommitment, or a robust deep dive into the causes of inadequate performance, FiveAndCo has a track record of success in partnering with small and large organisations alike to help them thrive by building thriving teams full of empowered people. 

If you would like to find out more about how to create a thriving team, please get in touch.