Team energy and flow

Team energy makes or breaks success; are you talking to your team about it? If you had one word to describe the energy of the team you’re leading or part of, what would it be?

Now imagine every team member answering honestly; what might they say?

And how do you link positive energy towards achieving your goals through connecting energy to your team behaviours and ways of working in a way that powers your commitment and performance?

Energy is one of the two core accelerators of team performance in our Human Connection Performance Index, it shapes engagement, relational strength, and the capacity to innovate.

And yet it’s rarely named, let alone discussed.

In this insights post we break down practical ways to engage your team on talking about energy productively and provide you strategies to systematise this energy into how you achieve your goals,

Part 1: Exploring team energy together

If you want to spark the conversation, here are four simple and creative ways to start.

1. What’s our one-word energy?

Ask the team: “If you had to describe our team’s energy in one word, what would it be? It’s a fast, powerful opener that invites reflection.

Tip for success: Encourage curiosity, listening and ensuring everyone knows there is no one right answer.

2. Energy weather report

Invite each person to share their personal energy as today’s weather: Sunny, foggy, stormy, overcast. A metaphor communicates a lot and makes it safer to do so; thus you encourage greater honesty.
Tip for success:This exercise gives you levers to explore further, e.g., if someone chooses foggy; what is the fog? what might help it lift?

3. Where are we gaining/ losing energy?

Ask: “What tasks, moments or interactions energise you, and which drain you?” This is a brilliant way of reviewing workflows, as just that, not a process but part of moving human teams into flow.
Tip for success: For energising workflows, deep dive into what brings energy; how can that be reapplied elsewhere, where there is an energy drain?

4. Future energy mapping

Prompt the team: “As we plan [x] large project/ workflow, where is the energy hotspots and where are we losing energy and momentum?” Energy patterns often reveal more than performance metrics. So, asking where does our team’s energy peak, and where does it dip specifically, (for instance across the week, meetings, or decision points) reveals small systemic shifts that can unlock disproportionate impact. This is brilliant for getting foresight on large critical transformation and change programmes that are notorious in losing momentum.
Tip for success: Your team already knows where energy is likely to drop, surface it early.

Part 2: Channelling energy into team performance to achieve your goals

What you will learn from trying out one of the above is that ignoring energy doesn’t make it go away, it just makes it harder to work with. However, when teams talk about energy, they unlock flow, resilience, and performance. That’s a great start, and it’s not the finish line, the next step is to intentionally design team systems that build and vitalise that energy.

We know we need to be clear and intentional to achieve our goals, but setting a goal, speaking about it a lot and then hoping for the best is not enough to engage team energy and high performance. Below is a simple three step process to systematise great team energy ad achieve your goals together.

1. Identify one outcome or goal

The goal should matter to the team and be stretching. The team should feel a strong committed to achieve it.

2. Name a behaviour

That when lived will make this outcome or goal achievable. It is the critical how you achieve your goal and is the hidden team growth that happens through committing to your stretchy goal. Hint: this is also going to correlate strongly with the team energy you want to cultivate. This team behaviour is the difference that will make all the difference. For instance, if the team energy you want to cultivate is more calm in a frenetic period of change, you identify collective calm behaviours such as:

• Avoiding distractions/ emails at certain times for focused work.
• Checking in on how you use instant message services to communicate with each other. Does it create calm or over urgency?
• Start meetings with checking in with each other as people, before diving into the task.

3. Create a ritual

This is ideally a daily practice or habit that you commit to that means you embody your new behaviour and remain focused on your key goal. For instance:

Choose a time of day when you will focus on your behaviour and goal, make that your stretch time daily.
Create a 5-minute mid-afternoon pause to step away from your desk and reflect on your goal and behaviour, review where you are and identify one action to take today.

Co-create a team phrase or habit that embeds in your way of working, e.g. 5-minute check-in at team meeting on new behaviour, sharing ‘wins’ to your goal and behaviour in your team’s channel, having buddy check-in’s to peer coach to success.

When you have a commitment to a goal, behaviour and a ritual, you create flow from intention to action.

If the goal is where you are going, the behaviour is the water flowing down the river, and the ritual is the riverbanks that keep you headed to your destination.

Together you channel yours and your team’s energy effectively, making things easier to achieve, more enjoyable and effective.