Are you one of the majority of leaders feeling uncertain about how the dynamic nature of digitization and the fast pace of change will impact on your teams and how they operate?

Artificial Intelligence, more advanced digital tools for managing processes, tools for connecting and communicating and increased customer expectations are just a small part of the puzzle. So, what will a team look like and how will it operate in the near future? Will it be easier to align people to the common team goals? Will problems getting cross functional collaboration disappear thanks to better online connectivity platforms? Will the team environment including issues with work pressures and wellness get better automatically, because we have better systems?

On thing that we can be sure of is that the “traditional” view of a team will not continue to work. If you were to ask anyone to describe a typical work team or to draw a picture describing it, most would still think it terms of a manager at the top and team members reporting to them. This image of traditional teams still conjures up images of team meetings once a week or once a month, managers regularly emailing information to the team, checking up on results and KPIs and if they are lucky team members getting some regular one-to-one coaching or feedback on their performance.

Even without the full impact of digitalisation, AI and robotics Performance Toolbox is already working with future teams. They are often organised in complex matrix structures without clear direct leadership or teams are coming together on a project to project basis or working in ever changing ‘pod teams’. So one thing that is already happening is more is flat structures – flexible teams where team members receive support, coaching and feedback from different sources and mangers help align rather than to control and direct. These sort teams will need to be much more self-directed in this disruptive world. Rather than leaders being exclusively responsible for work culture, team values and engagement, the whole team will be expected to contribute. It has always made sense to have this shared commitment, but with the changes coming, the accessibility of performance data and the levels of agility needed to compete, now is the right time to make some big steps.

A powerful first step into the future is to have your team (yes, the whole team) review their current team performance. What is going well? What is causing pain? How could we communicate more effectively? Do we understand the perspectives and goals of the different departments we reply on? Why do we organise ourselves the way we do? What could be more effective? Talk to Performance Toolbox about tools to make this a great first step towards the future of your team.