A long time ago, I created a little framework for improving teamwork in organisations. I had forgotten about it until a recent conversation! So here it is, the TRAC to Teamwork
- Trust: Develop a culture of transparency and honest communication.
- Role Clarity: Ensure all team members understand their roles clearly and where the boundaries are between their roles and the roles of others.
- Autonomy: Empower everyone to work independently within their roles and ensure they feel confident enough in their team to collaborate where needed.
- Competence: Ensure all team members have the correct skills to achieve their goals and perform their roles successfully. Offer additional development where needed.
- Each of these pillars is essential for teams to work well together, with each being as important as the last. Without Trust, no one will share information and there can be no autonomy.
- Without Role Clarity, people either step on each other’s toes or they begin to create silos based on what they think they should be doing – then refuse to do anything beyond that!
- Without Autonomy, people feel they are being micromanaged and undervalued / untrusted.
- Without Competence, people are unable to be autonomous as others will not trust them to work effectively without extra support.
Essentially, everyone needs to know what their job is, know how to do it, be free to work in the best way for them and the teams they work with and be trusted and trusting within their team!
Let me know your thoughts on this!
