Team Potential
The 7 Chakras of Business is analogous to the seven chakras that exist with the human body and are intended to help your business thrive with each chakra and step within the program addressing a different aspect of your business. However, beyond these seven chakras, we also operate through three lenses that measure potential. This three-tier system includes Individual Potential, Team Potential, and Organizational Potential. In our two previous case studies, we outlined this system. However, we figure what's the harm in a refresher course?
Individual/Leadership Potential looks at how you are fostering Leadership Potential within your employees as an individual. Coaching, mentoring and feedback prove to be very helpful tools in doing this. In our Glint case study, we outlined how its CEO, Jim Barnett, was fostering a conscious culture through conscious leadership. Jim is an excellent example of someone who has harnessed Leadership Potential. Through Organizational Potential you will be able to establish values that are core to your organization such as a Mission Statement and Core Values. Organizational Potential is also where we determine what behaviours we wish to enable. For the topic of this case study, we are looking at Team Potential. We spoke about how through Organizational Potential, we determine which behaviours we wish to enable. Team Potential is where we reinforce those behaviours and put our culture strategy into action. Within Team Potential, it is important that you are fostering team cohesion and team dynamics which is done through establishing team rituals and norms, behaviour enablers, and behaviour cues.
Adobe: Harnessing Team Potential
One organization that we consider to be an excellent example of harnessing Team Potential is Adobe. Adobe is a consumer software company known best for editing suites such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects, and much more. The company is based in San Francisco, California. Adobe has been called “the best place to work in the Bay area” by Fortune Magazine and in 2020 Comparably commended them for having the “best leadership teams”.
Adobe is known for having a strong and well-established internal culture. Adobe describes working at the company as “Meaningful work, constant learning, brilliant people, and a community guided by core values that promote quality, creativity, and opportunity in everything we do”. Adobe has created an internal culture that is aligned with these foundational elements, this is particularly evident within its teams.
In terms of its team management style, Adobe’s philosophy leans away from micromanaging and towards giving its teams freedom and autonomy. A study from O.C. Tanner believes this to be the right way to manage teams, they point out that “The 2016 edition of The How Report finds that organizations where employees are more “self-governing” (in other words, they act as leaders regardless of their role or job title) outperform their peers in market share, customer satisfaction, engagement, and long-term business sustainability”.
One of our measures of how an organization is harnessing Team Potential is through mentorship, something that Adobe prioritizes. “We invest in developing your talents with training and mentorship, and we challenge you with engaging work that ensures you can make an impact and build your skills”. Adobe also has a mentorship program it calls “Check-In”, it says this is “where ongoing feedback flows freely”.
A key process that can help teams be as effective as possible is called Psychological Safety, one that Adobe has incorporated into its organization. Amy Edmondson who is a thought leader on Psychological Safety describes it as “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.” The process ensures that all members of a team within an organization know that a workplace is a place of safety, a place where they can speak their minds and ask questions. Mala Sharma of Adobe makes the claim that Adobe’s founders were big believers of Psychological Safety and wanted to start a company “where the most important assets go home every night, where great ideas can come from anywhere, and where people would want to come to work and be their best selves.” This is a belief that is shared by Sharma and radiates throughout Adobe’s corporate culture.
These are just some of the elements of Adobe in which they harness Team Potential. The company has well-defined foundational elements and the processes and programs that we have mentioned are examples of the company being in alignment with those elements.
For more information visit https://www.adobe.com/careers/why-adobe.html
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Sources:
Adobe Inc
TED.com
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7 Chakras of Business