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Hi! I'm Michael.
Welcome to this week's useletter.
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The newsletter that's useful. Focussed on your future not my past.
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What do you know about teams?
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Apparently, I don’t know as much as I thought.
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I’ve been researching teamwork over the last couple of weeks and learning lot’s.
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They’re an important part of architectural practice and yet most architects aren’t trained in how to work as a team, or assemble one. (To be fair architects aren’t alone here.)
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The thing that’s presently got my attention is Collective Intelligence (CI).
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It’s the shared or group intelligence emerging from collaborations among individuals and allowing teams to work more effectively than individuals. The important point is architectural teams leveraging CI will enhance creativity, problem solving, and project outcomes.
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Seems like a no brainer, right?
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Like every team should strive for it.
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There are challenges, but the benefits are significant.
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PS: What do you think could be better understood or taught to the architecture profession? Please let me know. Happy to go down the rabbit hole with you.
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The challenge of Collective Intelligence
To address the challenges and develop strategies for overcoming them you must first understand the obstacles.
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A lack of diversity management
Let's start with gender diversity. The research shows teams with a close to equal number of women, to be substantially more effective. There's evidence to suggest that this relates to the EQ of women. On the other hand, when diversity is not managed well, the differences between members might lead to friction and ineffective teamwork.
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Social sensitivity
Similar to diversity, it’s critical team members are able to perceive and respond to the emotions and behaviours of other members. This can hinder collaboration and diminish the effectiveness of the team. And as described above, gender diversity can assist with social sensitivity and performance.
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Communication
To allow for a diversity of inputs, everyone in the team must be allowed to be heard, not just a few. Similarly knowledge must be shared so that everyone is working with the same information. Effective communication essential for CI.
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Adopting prosocial behaviour
Everyone should be working for the team, not for themselves. It’s essential to focus on on collective processes, rather than individual skills.
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Dominance of individuals
When a small numbers of individuals dominate the work it prevents others from contributing and limits a diversity of input. Everyone must feel safe to contribute, without fear of repercussion or ridicule. A team’s performance is improved by the opportunity for all members to contribute equally.
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Complex problems
Understandably when the task is complex, teams may struggle to coordinate and collaborate. They'll need to find a way to work through this challenge, so that they're able to align their processes and work.
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Structured processes
A failure to establish agreed processes for collaboration and decision making, hinders effective progress. It’s essential to establish norms and procedures for team interactions so that actions are guided, enhancing CI.
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By recognising these roadblocks and addressing them, architectural teams can work better together and enhance their collective intelligence. This results in more effective teamwork, enhances creativity, problem-solving and project outcomes.
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The culture of practice workshops
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Workshops ending with better practice
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Master practice skills, leadership and elevate your team’s culture.
Build a more efficient and adaptable practice, with a plan for the future.
Level up team skills to amplify practice capabilities, wellbeing and passion.ion.
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Free 45 minute Practice Clarity Consultation
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recent useful blog posts...
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It might be time for the architecture profession’s leaders to starting learning form the ground up.
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There’s two main ways to stand out. Be different. or Be better. Copying is the route to unexceptional.
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Or…
do architects do too many of the wrong things?
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“In toxic cultures, people prove their intelligence by tearing others down. In healthy cultures, people use their intelligence to build others up.” - Adam Grant
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