Want a high performing team? Then don’t make teamwork your primary goal. If “creating a great team” replaces the ingenious accomplishment of your mission, you’ll likely miss on both fronts. Collective ingenuity– in service of the mission– is the goal. Develop teamwork to support that goal.

 

Position any teamwork exercises as an enhancement of your team’s ability to act ingeniously in the pursuit of your mission. This will keep people from a preoccupation with an elusive “perfect state” they need to find with each other. That’s not the goal. The goal is collective ingenuity aimed at the mission. Place the idea of teamwork, and development of it, in that context and you give people a better reason to team well.