What if I told you, if you are a member of a team or a group, that holding Circle meetings could up your creativity and innovation? Would you believe me?
Let me take you on a journey to show you how I came to that conclusion!
Let’s start with a key finding from a leadership book I came across recently: The Captain Class: The Hidden Force Behind the World’s Greatest Teams, by Sam Walker.
Walker based his data on compelling case studies profiling the men and women of seventeen of the greatest sports teams in sports history. He also conducted personal interviews and coached many high performing sports teams himself. Walker contends the key ingredient in the success of all these teams he’s studied and coached is:
the character of the leader – the captain of the team.
He created a list of character traits of these leaders and I want to highlight one: all these captains possess a low-key, practical, and democratic communication style. They encourage each team member to take a turn and they foster “a stream of chatter that is practical, physical, and consistent.”
Let’s now go to Google, where they’ve conducted extensive research into what makes teams great. What trait did they find that the best managers shared?
Good communication.
Then there’s Kouzes & Posner, my favourite leadership researcher duo, having studied over 100,000 pieces of discreet data. They found that leaders who could “enable others to act” and “recognize the heart” of their team members, were exemplary leaders.
Let’s take one more example. The research conducted by Alex Pentland, who I first heard about from my colleague, Gordon White, is noteworthy. Pentland is a computer scientist and has run MIT’s Human Dynamics Lab. Pentland applies his mathematical computation skills to uncover the secrets of great teams – using precise measurements. In The New Science of Building Great Teams, Pentland and his researchers studied teams with varying performance across many industries, including senior management teams, hospital teams and call center teams.
They equipped all the members of those teams with wearable electronic sensor technology that collected data on each individual’s communication behaviour. The wireless sensors captured people’s tone of voice, body language, whom they talked to how much, and more. They tracked 2,500 people and some for as long as six weeks, generating 100 data points every minute. That’s a lot of data.
What they found was so consistent that they can predict a team’s success simply by looking at the tracked data—without even meeting any of the team members. What was the one clear predictor of a team’s success?
It was how the teams communicated with each other. Their pattern of communication was as important as all of the other factors they studied combined.
A key characteristic of these successful communication pattern was that every person on the team talked and listened in roughly equal measure and connecting directly with one another—not just with the team leader.
The Lab found that teams could improve performance when a manager actively encouraged equal participation and members started doing so. One team found making the change to how they participated increased their energy and engagement vastly and all within just one week.
There were also data patterns that showed some team members were “charismatic connectors.” These members circulated actively, engaging people in short, high-energy conversations. They were democratic with their time, communicating with everyone equally and making sure all team members got a chance to contribute. The best team players also connected their teammates with one another and spread ideas around. And they were exploratory, seeking ideas from outside the group but not at the expense of group engagement.
So, if you are a team member, you could increase your charismatic connection.
If you are a leader, or a team member, you could also suggest experimenting with using Circles. Using Circles for some of your team’s meetings, or part of a meeting, is an easy way to increase and encourage multiple voices, participation and engagement. A Circle is an equalizer – all members are equal, providing each participant the opportunity for an equal voice, equal space, equal time.
What became clear to me as time went on, Circles are a natural way of communicating. They can bring cohesion and often work like mediators themselves. The conversational container of a Circle can create its own magic.
If you’d like a handout on how to conduct a Circle for your team, Gordon White and I put together a variation of this resource years ago (we both keep updating in our own way). I first learned about Circles when involved with Restorative Justice where Circles were part of the process. I also took various training including from Retired Chief Justice Barry Stuart & Dr. Evelyn Zellerer and the accessible Way of Council – which brings together many Circle traditions.
With the stories above showing the importance of flowing communication for a team, perhaps you too can step forward with the idea of Circles with your team. Whether you’re the leader or a charismatic connector, I want you to receive the goodness and wisdom that can emerge from collective voices flying in formation.
Let me know your stories!
“The circle and sharing stories arise inseparably together from the depths of the Hawaiian/Polynesian tradition. When humans were first created, their essential spirit was held in the umeke, the bowl that holds the breath of life. The rim of the bowl represents the circle in which open, authentic dialogue—ho’oponopono—can take place to clear the bowl from human failings such as using free will as a weapon rather than in service of compassion. The ubiquitous tradition in Hawaii of “talking story” grows out of the practice of ho’oponopono. In this sacred ceremony it is understood that everyone is telling their own story from their unique perspective and so differing points of view are welcome as critical information.” ... Kahu M. Kalani Souza, Hawaiian Story Teller