Your Organisation’s Secret WeaponActive Listening is crucial for Agile teams
- February 19, 2026
- Posted by: Parveen Sandhu
- Categories: Facilitation, Learning
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The biggest lever for organisational success isn’t hiring smarter people or creating better strategy. It is in fact enabling a group of people to come together as an effective team to do their best work.
Research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development unpacks the characteristics of effective teams. It’s all about team dynamics, how people relate to each other, organise and share knowledge, engage in robust discussion with positive friction, disagree and be able to commit to decisions made. When building your dream team, remember team dynamics, more than individual traits, positively impact how teams actually perform.Yet organisations continue to invest in recruitment and individual development through leadership and coaching programmes whilst ignoring team effectiveness. Three conditions enable high-performing teams: mutual trust, sense of team identity, and team efficacy. When these exist, teams are more creative, productive and resilient.In 20 years of people development working with both private and public sectors, I have rarely seen organisations actively build the environments that promote high performance teams. Instead, we typically assemble a bunch of people and call them a team. Without explicit attention to building trust, psychological safety and belonging, we end up with a group of people going through the motions of their daily work, holding back on their best ideas and not giving their fullest contribution. At best. Usually, though, there is also disharmony, broken spirits, poor results and attrition.I know we can do better. I get fired up being a part of and building high performing teams.
Imagine what it would be like to work every day feeling excited about what your team is doing, what you are learning, ideas you are trying out, and what you are achieving together.When did you last feel this teamship? If it’s been a while, why not make 2026 the year to unlock your organisation’s secret weapon? Build your team. Team results and life will definitely get better!
Research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development unpacks the characteristics of effective teams. It’s all about team dynamics, how people relate to each other, organise and share knowledge, engage in robust discussion with positive friction, disagree and be able to commit to decisions made. When building your dream team, remember team dynamics, more than individual traits, positively impact how teams actually perform.Yet organisations continue to invest in recruitment and individual development through leadership and coaching programmes whilst ignoring team effectiveness. Three conditions enable high-performing teams: mutual trust, sense of team identity, and team efficacy. When these exist, teams are more creative, productive and resilient.In 20 years of people development working with both private and public sectors, I have rarely seen organisations actively build the environments that promote high performance teams. Instead, we typically assemble a bunch of people and call them a team. Without explicit attention to building trust, psychological safety and belonging, we end up with a group of people going through the motions of their daily work, holding back on their best ideas and not giving their fullest contribution. At best. Usually, though, there is also disharmony, broken spirits, poor results and attrition.I know we can do better. I get fired up being a part of and building high performing teams.
Imagine what it would be like to work every day feeling excited about what your team is doing, what you are learning, ideas you are trying out, and what you are achieving together.When did you last feel this teamship? If it’s been a while, why not make 2026 the year to unlock your organisation’s secret weapon? Build your team. Team results and life will definitely get better!