Aligning a Team's Collective Intention

Have you ever been in a team that is actively meeting, communicating, working collectively and individually toward the team's goals, and yet the team is not moving forward in accomplishing the goal?

It is time for a team reality check. Ask questions to get honest answers from all team members (do this anonymously for newly-formed teams that have not established a high level of trust yet). The questions may include:

- What is our team goal?

- What is your intention toward the team?

- What effect are you having on the team?

- What adjustments can you personally make to align with the team goal?

- How do your past and future actions move away/toward the team goal?

- Do you or others have other goals that differ from the team goal?

- How has the team been more aligned in the past? What changed?

- What would make the team more aligned, combine individual intentions?

The purpose of this exercise is to get the team aligned in the same direction toward a collective goal. Often team members don't know why their team is not performing well together, or they may blame others -- which doesn't help align the team, but they can answer questions about themselves to be aware individually and to be accountable to the team to resolve their own issues.

Once this exercise is completed, agree as a team to start each team meeting by everyone stating his/her individual intended meeting outcome, align into one outcome and redirect any divergent intention during the meeting. This should keep the team intention aligned going forward and working toward accomplishing the team goal.