Highly adaptive teams have managed to integrate the 6 evolutionary stages that constitute us as humanity.
In our new world, adaptability, or the ability to adjust strategies, practices, competencies, and, deep down, cultures and value systems, is desirable and imperative for survival.
That mainly happens because adaptation is a permanent process that occurs in the interaction between the conditions of life and the coping mechanism to deal with those conditions.
So, in a world in which our capacity for effectiveness makes it change at increasing speeds, the conditions of life are mutating at a rate that puts a tremendous strain on the mechanisms we use to solve those conditions, keeping us in an almost permanent adaptive mismatch.
This tension has to be incorporated as a key element of the strategy since it is mobilizing it generates change.
In this case of adaptive change, if it is not addressed or not listened to, we end up “not seeing coming” the social, economic, and environmental phenomena that are disrupting our living conditions.
A significant contribution and necessity lies in the constitution of highly adaptive teams capable of generating collective intelligence to solve new problems.
The 6 domains of highly adaptive teams
For this, teams must integrate into their practices 6 main domains, which align with the 6 central evolutionary stages we have gone through as humanity to get to where we are.
1. Safety
The first domain is security, which is achieved through belonging. This domain is the basis for generating high-performance teams. It requires explicitly setting the conversation that produces the conditions to feel psychologically safe and, from there, to deploy ourselves.
2. Power
The second domain is power. This domain is one of the critical elements in teams, learning to sustain it, delegate it, and share it. It is the basis for greater autonomy and innovation.
3. Order
The third domain corresponds to order, a domain that highlights the team’s ethical and procedural framework necessary for clarifying roles and responsibilities.
4. Strategic achievement
The fourth domain is a strategic achievement, which places meritocracy, competition and ambition to exceed standards as one of the team’s pillars. This domain is fundamental in sustaining the pursuit of objectives and goals.
5. Sensitivity
The fifth domain is sensitivity, which makes it possible to recognize, listen to and value the team’s diversity, broadening its gaze to new observers and thus illuminating individual blind spots.
It is also essential to get out of the classic vertical management pyramid and explore horizontal circles as a management possibility.
6. Integration
The sixth and final domain is integration, which will focus, like a conductor, on integrating the previous levels. It enables diverse teams connected to their environment, effective, meritocratic, and focused on the objective, with a shared ethic and transparent processes.
People can express and sustain their power and feel safe to bring their vulnerability to the team, participating integrally. This is the domain that sustains purpose.
Many times we over-focus on some of these domains, bypassing the rest. This is highly maladaptive and needs to improve the team’s capacity for action.
Are all these domains addressed in the conversations you have in your teams? If the answer is no, the recommendation is to open up each conversation and build the narrative that empowers you to be a highly adaptive team.
Which of these domains are present in your organization?
The article was initially published in Clase ejecutiva UC on May 29, 2021
