4 Types of Teams. Duct Tape Teams & 3 Others.

You know how some teams are like a finely tuned orchestra, each member in perfect harmony with the others? That's the dream, right?

Most teams, though are more like an open audition for a garage band thrashing to try to get in a groove and play well, but having very different opinions on what is good and how to bring it all together.

I want to unpack the four types of teams I most frequently see.

1. Terrible Teams

2. Duct Tape Teams

3. Developmental Teams

4. High-Performing Teams

To further mix our analogies, think of it like choosing a ride: skateboard, bike, motorcycle, or a sleek sports car. They'll all get you somewhere, but they won’t work or feel or perform the same way.

Let’s start with the most challenging; Terrible Teams.

Terrible Teams

Plagued by: Toxic culture, zero trust, selfishness, hostility, stagnation.

Characteristics

• Dysfunctional Communication: Infrequent, often combative and usually not constructive or helpful.

• Lack of Trust: Zero vulnerability and no trust among team members.

• Conflict Avoidance: Conflicts are neither addressed nor resolved and people are defensive and deflect accountability.

Focus on results? No, they focus on avoidance. Avoiding conflict or blame rather than achieving results. A lot of ego management and posturing.

If this is your team, as a leader you might focus here first:

1. Conflict Management: Equip the team with conflict resolution tools and a shift from blame to achieving shared objectives.

2. Openness and Transparency: Foster an environment where team members can speak freely with appropriate boundaries that enable healthy debate not personal attacks or defensive monologues.

    

This is the type of team I see most frequently; Duct Tape Teams.

Duct Tape Teams

Stuck with: Fragile relationships, avoidance of accountability, lackluster meetings, misalignment.

Characteristics

• Fragile Trust: There is some trust, but minimal vulnerability.

• Communication Conflict: When more than ‘business as usual’ and facing challenging work discussion devolves into personal criticisms and justifications.

• Lackluster Engagement: Meetings and discussions lack energy, enthusiasm, or passionate debate and tend to ‘go with the flow’ and often don’t speak up.

Focus on results? No, they focus on task completion. Often heavily focused on completing tasks and checking boxes to show individual work being done rather than achieving overarching objectives as a team. Tend to suggest ‘divide and conquer’ approaches where the team doesn’t have input and the individual can ‘do their thing’.

If this is your team, as a leader you might focus here first:

1. Alignment of Goals: Ensure team goals align with organizational strategy so there is clarity of an objective everyone is working toward and openly discussing as a team.

2. Engagement: Create compelling meetings, workshops and collaborative spaces that can energize the group and collective problem solving rather than dividing and delegating.

The emphasis here is the leader leaning in to cultivate a working environment they can collaborate more and further invest in team-based work more so than individual only work in a vacuum.

This is the type of team I see with leaders being more intentional around culture and performance; Developmental (Emerging) Teams.

Developmental (Emerging) Teams

Progressing: Emerging collaboration, positive but inconsistent engagement, loose strategic alignment, skill building toward better teamwork.

Characteristics

• Emerging Trust: Team members will open up and share but not consistently (yet).

• Functional Conflict: Conflicts are addressed but there are inconsistent patterns of success as they address conflict and debate.

• Moderate Engagement: Fluctuating energy and commitment levels where some meetings or work efforts flourish and others do not.

Focus on results? No, they focus on process and routine. Typically there is a sharp focus on processes, procedures and routines rather than end results. So rather than having accountability as a team on the results, they will often retreat to process, tools, technology or other ‘enablers’ of success rather than themselves.

If this is your team, as a leader you might focus here first:

1. Cultivate Trust with Healthy Conflict: Continue to deepen trust among team members with an emphasis on psychological safety for the team to engage in virous problem solving and healthy debate oriented to resolution that can benefit the team.

2. Activate Accountability and Ownership: Bring the focus from processes to ownership among team members so they can personally accept accountability of shared objectives and the intended results those objectives aim to produce.

High-Performing Teams

Excelling at: Collaboration, candor, cohesion, empowerment, problem solving, continual improvement, and maintaining resilience.

Characteristics

• High Trust: Completely trusting of the team with high level of vulnerability and mutual respect.

• Healthy Conflict: Conflicts are embraced and seen as catalysts for growth and progress. Often seen as ‘the way’ to solve hard problems and bring alignment and shared commitment.

• Results Oriented: Focused on results and delivering on prioritized commitments around objectives and the outcomes they need to produce.

Focus on Results? Absolutely. A strong focus on achieving results and objectives is obvious and consistent.

If this is your team, as a leader you might focus here:

1. Sustained Progress: Regularly engage in open communication, collaboration, and clarity of the prioritized work with a focus on blocker removal and direct engagement of challenges as they come up (as near to real time as possible).

2. Continual Learning: Foster a sense of safety with experiments that may fail but produce learnings and continuous improvement without damaging the teams or individuals as you learn and grow together.

    

We all start somewhere, my hope is seeing these four types of teams, you can diagnose and dial in to move the team forward.

The Path Forward

Terrible teams require turnaround intervention. Duct tape teams need cultural transformation and more direction. Developmental teams need nurturing and coaching as they upskill as a team. High performance teams should be continuously enabled and supported as needs arise.

As a leader, diagnosing your team is the first step.

The big hack to all this remains consistent. Leaders must provide:

• psychological safety

• constructive conflict

• strategic clarity

The healthiest teams exhibit mutual trust, they embrace hard conversations, they seek clarity so they can align to vision and focus on results.

It may feel like an uphill battle. But through redefining the team dynamics, mindsets and processes, the most dysfunctional teams can transform into collaborative, empowered high performers who do meaningful work and create value for the team, company, and customer.

Take stock of your team's traits, challenges, and needs. The first step is awareness. There are no quick fixes, but the right interventions can set change in motion. The rewards are realized by exponential growth and value creation. It’s not just ‘better teams’, it’s extreme value creation with more quality, progress, and performance in less time.

For more on these themes, check out part 2 on the path to potential and also my post on how to be a guide that creates conditions for high performing teams.

Do you see any aspects of your team in this?

What can you apply today in your next steps to improve the team work?

You got this!

#GSD

I appreciate you,

Justin