How does team self-awareness drive up performance?

Research* exploring the influence of self-awareness on team performance saw positive effects of greater self-awareness on coordination, decision-making and conflict management, all important drivers of team success. Notably, amongst teams with high self-awareness, the probability of success was double!

However, the research also highlighted that most self-reported assessments focus on “self-knowledge”, with no objective evaluation. In the absence of external feedback, inaccurate self-perceptions tend to be reinforced, often obscuring development opportunities.     

The clear recommendation is that to be useful, self-assessment tools should: include an objective feedback loop from external sources, provide the basis of a measurable strategy to leverage self-awareness towards more initiative success, and provide individuals with self-development guidelines and tools so that they are able to build on their self-awareness. 

Our mission at fitter for purpose is precisely this: to empower Individuals and Teams to deliver more success by increasing individual and collective self-awareness, in relation to the value-adding know-how, attitudes and behaviours that come together in an initiative, project, or unit. We call this kind of self-awareness “Impact Potential”, or “IP”. We will cover the four dimensions of Impact Potential in following posts.

Assessing IP and making it visible, for Individuals and for Teams, incorporates objective feedback, highlights development opportunities, and provides a basis to measure progress, both individual and collective. 

Consider discovering your IP, to increase your team’s probability of success.

*Erich C. Dierdorff, and Robert S. Rubin lead a research group who concluded a study in 2015. The results were published in HBR.com and reconfirmed in 2018.