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Think of all the teams you’ve been a part of in your life: education teams, work teams, leadership teams, sports teams, families, volunteer groups, churches, pioneer teams, established teams, service teams.  Whew! Chances are your life is full of teams and the people on them. As you think back, what is a healthy team you were part of? What would you say made it exceptional? 

There is growing research that suggests a healthy team and culture leads to higher job satisfaction, a healthier workforce, reduced turnover, greater employee satisfaction, and improved results. Increasingly people are asking important questions about what makes some teams successful and others a disaster. 

What are the marks of a healthy team? 

I’ve been part of a couple of teams in my life that have been incredible. I have also been on several teams that have been a real struggle and not much fun. When I think of a healthy team, words that come to mind are motivated, energetic, passionate, strong, effective, results, trust, communication, committed.

It is hard to pinpoint one thing that makes a team healthy. As I think back, we did important things together: 

• We regularly spent time together. You might be thinking – well of course! But often teams get very busy. Meaningful, regular time together gets the brunt end of the time shortage. At one point our team recognized that when things get busy, team meetings need to be more often, instead of less.  
• We pulled together through difficult tasks/things. There was that one time that our non-profit organization needed to get out of our building in NYC. The decision was made to buy but the prices were rising faster than the donations. It all looked very impossible. Walking and praying through this stressful and very long situation, brought us together.  
• We shared our lives. I think of one time when my team was lost in the mountains, wet, cold, and all feeling very discouraged. We circled up together, discussed the situation, and prayed. Sometimes it can be easy to isolate our personal feelings from the group, but transparency in real-life situations often builds understanding and trust. 

 At times we make the decision to start jogging, change an eating habit, or take some extra vitamins to improve our physical health. In the same way, our team may also need some tools or a change of habits to function well.  

• We engaged in healthy conflict. I’m not talking about interpersonal conflict here but disagreement around ideas. The goal is to have vigorous discussion and debate around ideas, tasks, and solutions. Through the input of a diverse team we often arrive at better conclusions. 
• We learned together. One of our teams did a book study together and I was amazed at the good conversation that came out of it. We were able to not only talk about the lessons in the book but also apply it to our team and discuss how we’re doing in different areas. I found that we became unified around the different ideas discussed and formed a “common team language” or understanding around different subjects.  
• We had each other’s back. This simply meant that when one team member was experiencing stress or difficulty, we all flexed to cover and help.  It could look like changing our schedule last minute, offering to take a task assigned to someone else, or simply doing a task that was being forgotten. Because we cared about the success of the whole team, everyone was willing to pitch in when needed. 

Many different things are an important part of a healthy team. One thing that is important to us is passion. We believe that the motivation, growth, vitality, and training of the team is directly related to the endurance of the team.