Good Team, Bad Team

Good Team, Bad Team Plot Summary

Introduction

Imagine walking into a team meeting where everyone seems to be speaking a different language. Your analytical thinker is deep in data, your idea generator is floating possibilities, your detail-oriented colleague is refining processes, and your action-oriented teammate is pushing for decisions. This cognitive diversity could be your team's greatest strength—or its most frustrating challenge. Leading a team isn't just about managing tasks and timelines; it's about understanding how different minds approach problems. When you can recognize and harness the natural thinking preferences of your team members, magic happens. Productivity soars, innovation blossoms, and workplace satisfaction deepens. This book will guide you through the science of thinking preferences and show you how to transform cognitive differences from sources of friction into powerful drivers of success. You'll discover why people approach challenges differently and how to create an environment where everyone's unique contribution is valued, resulting in better solutions to every challenge your team faces.

Chapter 1: Know Yourself: Understanding Your Leadership Style

Leadership begins with self-awareness. Before you can effectively lead others, you must understand your own natural approach to solving problems. Each of us has innate thinking preferences that influence how we make decisions, communicate with others, and tackle challenges. These preferences act as cognitive filters through which we see the world—and they dramatically impact our leadership style. Sarah Thurber discovered this firsthand when she took over as managing partner at FourSight. Despite her publishing experience and strong work ethic, she found herself overwhelmed. "I spent my days attending meetings, solving problems, fighting fires, fielding customer complaints, quelling rumors, shipping product, and pestering IT to make software fixes," she recalls. "I had no time to focus on the big goals the partners had set." Sarah was caught in a common leadership trap—trying to do everything herself rather than effectively leading her team. The breakthrough came when Kelly, the company bookkeeper, offered to take over customer service while Sarah went on vacation. To Sarah's surprise, Kelly handled customer service far better than she did. Kelly listened carefully to customers, was more patient, more deliberate, and identified problems quickly. Sarah realized they were exhibiting different thinking preferences. While Sarah naturally generated new ideas and wanted to implement them immediately, Kelly preferred to clarify problems thoroughly—the perfect mindset for customer service. This insight transformed Sarah's approach to leadership. Instead of trying to clone herself, she began building a cognitively diverse team where each person's thinking preferences aligned with their roles. She hired Greg for IT development—someone whose methodical, detail-oriented approach contrasted with her quick-paced style but perfectly suited the task of rebuilding their assessment software. The result? A rock-solid platform that supported the company's growth. The key to effective leadership isn't being good at everything yourself; it's understanding your own thinking preferences and building a team that complements them. The FourSight Thinking Profile identifies four distinct preferences: Clarifiers who analyze problems thoroughly, Ideators who generate new possibilities, Developers who refine and improve solutions, and Implementers who take action and get results. Most leaders have strengths in some areas and gaps in others. To lead effectively, start by identifying your own preferences. Are you naturally drawn to gathering information, generating ideas, refining solutions, or taking action? Then consider how these preferences influence your leadership decisions. Do you rush to implementation before fully understanding problems? Do you get lost in possibilities without moving to action? Once you recognize your natural tendencies, you can consciously adapt your approach when needed and surround yourself with team members whose preferences complement your own.

Chapter 2: Recognize Thinking Differences on Your Team

Thinking preferences are like invisible forces shaping how your team members approach every challenge. Understanding these differences transforms confusing or frustrating behaviors into predictable patterns you can work with rather than against. The FourSight framework identifies four distinct thinking preferences that determine how people naturally engage with problems. Blair, a professional team consultant, witnessed this dynamic when facilitating a strategic planning session for a Canadian financial services company. The young president had a strong preference for ideation—he loved generating innovative financial products and his company had recently made the cover of a business magazine for its innovations. But the CFO, a veteran in the industry, refused to attend the planning session, believing that more talk about new ideas would sink the company. What they needed, in his view, was to shore up operations to support existing products. During the session, Blair administered the FourSight Thinking Profile and confirmed the president's strong ideation preference. The team spent the first day developing strategic initiatives that balanced innovation with operational efficiency. At day's end, the president announced, "This has been an interesting exercise, but since this vision isn't going to make the company more innovative, I assume we will do the real vision tomorrow." The next morning, a senior vice president confronted the president: "We need to innovate by getting operational excellence under the new products we've just created. Some of these instruments are coming to maturation within two years, and we've got to be ready." Another executive added, "You've been really successful at coming up with new ideas for this company, but it feels like you've got blinders on. You've got this thinking preference to ideate, and the only way you see us being innovative is to invent new products." After a brief break, the president returned looking chastened and announced his support for the team's strategy. By framing the president's constant push for new products as a thinking preference rather than a personality flaw, the team had successfully navigated a potential crisis without anyone losing face. This scenario illustrates how thinking preferences can create blind spots. The president's strong ideation preference had served the company well in creating innovative products, but now the organization needed to develop those ideas into sustainable systems—a different kind of thinking altogether. Research shows we naturally gravitate toward people who think like us, creating teams with similar preferences that can miss critical perspectives. To harness cognitive diversity on your team, first help members identify their thinking preferences. Use assessments like the FourSight Thinking Profile to make these invisible preferences visible. Then create an environment where differences are valued rather than judged. When someone approaches a problem differently than you would, resist labeling their behavior as wrong or difficult. Instead, recognize how their perspective might complement your own and fill potential blind spots. Remember that a good team needs all four types of thinking to tackle complex challenges effectively. Clarifiers ensure you're solving the right problem, Ideators generate innovative possibilities, Developers refine ideas into workable solutions, and Implementers turn plans into action. Your role as a leader is to orchestrate these different types of thinking, calling on each at the appropriate stage of problem solving.

Chapter 3: Clarify Purpose and Build Team Trust

When Etienne was promoted to lead a division tasked with bringing a billion-dollar product to market, he faced a massive challenge. To succeed, he needed to win dozens of patents and FDA approval in less than eighteen months. His team of 150 mid-career professionals had survived five consecutive corporate reorganizations and had learned to keep their heads down rather than take risks. Etienne needed them to collaborate, meet impossible deadlines, and create breakthroughs. At the first team leader meeting, Blair observed highly technical presentations filled with specialized jargon. Each functional leader spoke in terms so specialized that no one fully understood anyone else. For a billion-dollar opportunity to succeed, these experts needed a common language to work together effectively. Blair urged Etienne to host an all-team meeting where each functional team would share three things: their team purpose, the key questions they were trying to answer, and an animal mascot representing their team. They were instructed to explain their work "in the simplest possible terms, as if you were explaining it to a ten-year-old." When 150 team members gathered in the cafeteria, Etienne kicked off the meeting standing under a poster of a wooden boat filled with animals—"the Ark." He explained their purpose clearly: "When we go public, we'll be ready to go to market with a product that people want and patents that make it impossible for others to enter the field." Each functional team then presented their role simply. Process engineering (the beavers) refined ways to make the product fast and cheap. Legal (the hawks) protected the team's freedom to operate. Sensory research (the meercats) ensured the product tasted good. The results were remarkable. The room buzzed with excitement as everyone finally understood each other's roles. People crossed the room offering support and asking questions. With clear purpose established, the team became a hive of activity, collaborating across functions and creating breakthroughs that resulted in record-breaking patents. Right on deadline, they submitted to the FDA and set a new gold standard for submissions. This story illustrates the power of clarifying team purpose. A good team needs a clear "why" that everyone understands and buys into. Without it, members struggle to prioritize work and align efforts. When Amy Climer, PhD, asked executive teams about their purpose, many couldn't answer. "Without a clear purpose," she explains, "it's hard to know what work belongs to the team—what's a priority and what isn't." To clarify your team's purpose, gather everyone and ask: Why do we exist as a team? What specific value do we create? How do our efforts connect to the organization's larger mission? Capture this purpose in simple, compelling language that everyone can understand and remember. Then communicate it consistently—at the beginning of projects, during team meetings, and whenever making key decisions. Trust builds on this foundation of purpose. Leaders build trust through specific behaviors: recognizing excellence, assigning challenging but achievable goals, giving people discretion in their work, letting them play to their strengths, sharing information broadly, building relationships intentionally, and showing appropriate vulnerability. Research by Paul Zak found that people in high-trust companies report 74% less stress, 106% more energy, 50% higher productivity, and 50% greater likelihood of staying with the company. Start building trust today by engaging authentically with your team members. Learn their names, understand their aspirations, listen attentively to their concerns, and follow through on your commitments. When you trust your team to be great, they almost always step up.

Chapter 4: Master the Problem-Solving Framework

Every complex challenge requires four distinct types of thinking to reach an optimal solution. The FourSight Framework provides a simple but powerful approach that helps teams navigate from problem to solution by deliberately engaging in each type of thinking: clarify, ideate, develop, and implement. This framework serves as the universal structure underlying all effective problem-solving processes. Mike Ackerbauer, a senior business technology leader at IBM, uses the FourSight Framework as his "secret decoder ring" to translate between different problem-solving methodologies like Design Thinking, Lean Six Sigma, and Agile. These specialized approaches emphasize different parts of the problem-solving process based on their unique purposes. Design Thinking focuses heavily on clarifying user needs before generating solutions. Agile emphasizes implementing and iterating quickly. The FourSight Framework reveals how these approaches connect through the four essential types of thinking. The secret to better solutions lies in adding creative thinking to your problem solving. In the 1950s, psychologist J.P. Guilford discovered that creative thinking requires both divergent thinking (generating many options) and convergent thinking (focusing on the best options). This approach doesn't just produce better solutions—it creates better leaders. Research on military leadership found that the ability to think divergently was more predictive of leadership effectiveness than experience or intelligence. Blair witnessed this power when facilitating a cost-cutting project for a manufacturing plant. The company needed to find $14 million in savings without cutting jobs. Using the FourSight Framework, Blair guided a team of sixty people from across the company through a structured problem-solving process. They clarified the real problems, generated innovative ideas, developed practical solutions, and planned implementation steps. After two days, they had identified $67 million in potential savings—far exceeding their goal. What truly surprised the plant manager wasn't just the financial results but the transformation in engagement. Forty minutes after being dismissed, team members were still sitting around tables discussing work. "I've worked at this company for thirty years," the manager told Blair. "I can tell you, these guys checked out years ago. If you had told me they would still be here talking about work, I wouldn't have believed you. You gave us our team back." To implement this framework with your team, start by teaching them to separate divergent and convergent thinking. When facing a challenge, first encourage everyone to generate multiple options without judgment. Only after exploring possibilities should you evaluate and select the best ideas. Research shows that groups trained to separate divergent and convergent thinking improve the quality and quantity of their output by 300%. Two powerful tools can help you apply this framework effectively. First, phrase challenges as questions using starters like "How might we...?" or "In what ways could we...?" This simple shift transforms problems into brain teasers that invite creative solutions. Second, use the Praise First (POINt) method when evaluating ideas. Instead of immediately pointing out flaws, first identify Pluses (what's good about the idea), Opportunities (what might be possible), Issues (concerns phrased as questions), and New thinking (ideas to address those issues). By mastering these tools and the FourSight Framework, you'll equip your team to solve increasingly complex challenges with better results and stronger engagement.

Chapter 5: Foster Healthy Team Climate

Team climate is the day-to-day atmospheric conditions that affect how people work together. Unlike organizational culture, which evolves slowly and runs deep, climate can change quickly—for better or worse—and as a leader, you have tremendous influence over it. Swedish researcher Göran Ekvall found that leaders are responsible for up to 67% of team climate, giving you significant power to transform your team's environment. When Sarah took over coaching a struggling high school field hockey team mid-season after the previous coach quit, she inherited a team with terrible morale. Though they had a culture of camaraderie, their climate had deteriorated under a coach who played favorites and created unrealistic expectations. As the new head coach with limited technical knowledge of the sport, Sarah focused on improving the team climate using Ekvall's research. Ekvall identified ten dimensions that influence team climate. Nine dimensions enhance climate: challenge and involvement, dynamism and liveliness, playfulness and humor, freedom, risk-taking, idea time, idea support, trust and openness, and debate. One dimension—conflict—destroys it. Importantly, Ekvall distinguished between healthy debate (fighting over ideas to reach better solutions) and destructive conflict (fighting against people, which damages relationships). Sarah didn't try to address all ten dimensions at once. She focused on three critical areas: challenge, trust, and conflict. First, she rebalanced the teams so players faced appropriate challenges that matched their skill levels. Next, she rebuilt trust through weekly email updates to parents and regular information-sharing with players. Finally, she reduced conflict by aligning parents, administrators, and coaches around the common purpose of creating a good team experience for the girls. The results were remarkable. Though the team ranked at the bottom of their league, they faced their final playoff game with renewed spirit. After weeks of practice with their new climate, they defeated a much higher-ranked team—surprising everyone except themselves. "We didn't win because we had better players," Sarah reflects. "We didn't win because we had better coaches. We won because we had a better team." To improve your own team's climate, start by assessing your current situation using Ekvall's dimensions. Which areas are strong? Which need attention? Then focus on addressing just two or three dimensions that would make the biggest difference. Small, consistent changes can dramatically improve your team's environment. For example, to enhance challenge and involvement, assign work that stretches team members' abilities while remaining achievable. To increase trust and openness, share information transparently and admit when you don't have all the answers. To reduce conflict, teach constructive feedback methods and address interpersonal tensions promptly. Remember that emotional upsets will happen on any team. When they do, resist the evolutionary urge to fight, flee, or freeze. Instead, approach the situation with curiosity and compassion. The Situation Behavior Impact (SBI) feedback method provides a structured approach: describe the specific situation, the observed behavior, and its impact on you, then listen to understand the other person's perspective. As creativity expert Marysia Czarski notes, "A team climate is going to happen whether you attend to it or not. So be mindful of it, be alert, be present, and then generate it." By consciously fostering a healthy climate, you create an environment where every team member can contribute their best thinking and tackle challenges with confidence.

Chapter 6: Navigate Challenges and Breakdowns

Every team faces challenges and breakdowns. What distinguishes good teams is not the absence of problems but how effectively they navigate through them. As a leader, you need specific tools to handle both cognitive challenges (solving complex problems) and emotional challenges (managing interpersonal tensions). When Frances, a new team leader, saw team member Craig leave before helping clean up after a meeting, she felt her authority undermined. The next morning, she publicly confronted him: "Hey Craig, where were you yesterday when the rest of us were cleaning up the conference room?" Craig became defensive, Frances posturing, and everyone else uncomfortable. What Frances didn't know was that Craig had received an emergency call from his son's school and had to rush him to the hospital. This scenario illustrates how easily misunderstandings occur when we make assumptions about others' behavior. Our natural tendency when upset is to fight, flee, or freeze—none of which serves us well as leaders. Instead, we need to pause, breathe, and approach the situation with curiosity rather than judgment. The Center for Creative Leadership teaches a powerful method called Situation Behavior Impact (SBI) for addressing breakdowns. First, identify the specific situation ("Yesterday at the end of our team meeting when I asked everyone to help clean up"). Then describe the behavior objectively ("You took a phone call and left"). Finally, share the impact it had on you ("I felt ignored") and ask for their perspective ("Can you help me understand what was happening?"). The SBI method works because it separates observable behavior from assumptions about intent. It also requires you to own your emotions rather than blaming others for them. Compare "I felt ignored" (good feedback) with "You ignored me" (bad feedback). The first evokes compassion; the second triggers defensiveness. Thinking preferences also influence how people respond to stress. Under pressure, Clarifiers tend to disengage, Ideators become emotional, Developers grow critical, and Implementers take over. Recognizing these patterns helps you respond more effectively when team members are upset. Beyond interpersonal challenges, teams also face increasingly complex business problems. The World Economic Forum consistently ranks problem-solving among the most essential workplace skills, yet most of us never learned how to tackle complex challenges effectively. To help your team navigate complex problems, first determine what type of challenge you're facing. Simple challenges have clear right answers and can follow standard procedures. Complicated challenges require expertise and critical judgment but still have knowable solutions. Complex challenges have multiple possible answers and require collaborative, creative problem-solving. Chaotic challenges are massive, intractable problems where you must look for patterns and solve manageable subsets. For complex challenges, use the FourSight Framework (clarify, ideate, develop, implement) to guide your team through the problem-solving process. Two particularly valuable tools are: 1. Phrase Challenges as Questions: Transform problems into open-ended questions that invite creative thinking. Instead of stating "We can't afford this marketing campaign," ask "How might we create an effective campaign within our budget constraints?" 2. Praise First (POINt): When evaluating ideas, first identify Pluses (what's good), Opportunities (what might be possible), Issues (concerns phrased as questions), and New thinking (ideas to address those issues). After navigating through any challenge or breakdown, take time to debrief: What went well? What would we do differently? What did we learn? What will we apply next time? This reflection turns difficulties into growth opportunities and strengthens your team for future challenges.

Chapter 7: Transform Good Teams into Great Ones

Angelina had built a reputation as a turnaround leader who could transform dysfunctional groups into high-performing teams. Her secret? Understanding thinking preferences and using them to create a common problem-solving language across diverse teams. When Angelina took over a marketing team in Hamburg, Germany, she faced eleven nationalities with different languages and cultures. Cultural diversity, meant to be an asset, had become a barrier to collaboration. Her leadership coach, Laura Barbero-Switalski, suggested using the FourSight Thinking Profile to help the team find a common language. The approach worked so well that when Angelina was promoted to lead the Eastern European division—where some team members came from countries with recent histories of conflict—she again used thinking preferences to build collaboration. "The power of a common language is incredibly effective at creating alignment," she explained. By helping team members understand their thinking preferences and learn a shared problem-solving process, she transformed their ability to work together. Angelina's leadership teams often preferred to ideate and implement, getting enthusiastic about new ideas and rushing to action. Recognizing their low energy for development as a potential blind spot, she established a practice of conducting POINt evaluations before implementing solutions. This simple tool helped them identify issues that needed addressing and dramatically improved business outcomes. The transformation wasn't immediate. "The first year was hard," Angelina admitted. "We couldn't achieve our business goals, but we created these foundations." By starting with senior leaders and extending the approach to the next two levels of management, she created what she called "a cultural movement across different countries." For the next two consecutive years, her region became the fastest-growing in Europe. Transformation sounds ideal, but change is challenging—especially for people with certain thinking preferences. Belgian consultants developed guidelines for how different thinkers typically respond to change and what they need to embrace it. Clarifiers often see problems and take a wait-and-see attitude; they need facts and time to adjust. Ideators typically welcome change and adapt easily; they need a vision of a better future. Developers react cautiously and may question the need for change; they need logical explanations and time to adapt systems. Implementers accept change readily and want immediate action; they need clear benefits and concrete plans. Perhaps most remarkably, Angelina herself was transformed through this process. "One of the ways I evolved as a leader was accepting that I'm not perfect in all dimensions," she reflected. "I was thriving with that awareness, saying, 'These are the things I'm doing well. This is where I need your help.'" This vulnerability allowed her to delegate more effectively and empower her team to build on each other's strengths. To transform your own team from good to great, start by helping members understand their thinking preferences and how these preferences complement each other. Create a common problem-solving language using the FourSight Framework. Be patient—transformation takes time. Begin with your leadership team and gradually extend the approach throughout your organization. Remember that a cognitively diverse team harnesses different types of thinking to achieve better results than any individual could reach alone. Encourage team members to value their differences rather than just tolerate them. As Angelina discovered, "People don't necessarily want to win. They want to be heard. They want to contribute." Finally, be willing to transform yourself. The greatest leaders recognize their own limitations and create teams that complement their strengths. By showing this vulnerability, you model the growth mindset that allows good teams to become truly great.

Summary

Throughout this journey, we've discovered that leading a good team isn't about having all the answers or being perfect yourself. It's about understanding how different minds work and creating an environment where diverse thinking styles can thrive together. As Angelina wisely observed, "People don't necessarily want to win. They want to be heard. They want to contribute." When you give team members the experience of being truly listened to and valued for their unique contributions, they will follow your leadership even when you disagree. Your path forward is clear: Start small and build momentum. Choose one concept from these pages—perhaps clarifying your team's purpose, mapping thinking preferences, or introducing the POINt evaluation method—and put it into practice today. Remember that this is a journey of many steps, not an overnight transformation. Good is the goal, not perfection. With each small improvement, you'll move closer to leading a team that everyone wants to join, a team that knows how to tap everyone's best thinking and solve almost any challenge together. The world needs more good teams, and you now have the tools to create one.

About Author

Loading...

Sarah Thurber

Read more