Connected Team Performance
- Tamara Zaple
- Jun 11
- 5 min read
THE OVERLOOKED LINK IN ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
At the start of the year, I wrote about high performance as a collective endeavour. The prompt was the annual wave of New Year thinking focused on individual improvement. There is nothing wrong with personal growth. But too often, performance is framed through an individual lens: individual goals, individual accountability, individual success.
Yet the evidence increasingly points elsewhere. High performance is not simply about how individuals perform. Nor is it solely about how well individual teams perform.
In this article, I want to focus on something that sits in the space between: how we connect well within an organisation, within teams and across them. Because increasingly, I believe this is where organisational performance has the greatest impact.
Peter Hawkins, whose work in systemic team coaching has heavily influenced my own practice, describes this as coaching the connections. It is a simple idea with important implications. Organisations rarely fail because they lack talented, committed people. More often, they struggle because information, decisions, trust and accountability do not flow effectively between teams.
In a world where disruption and uncertainty has become the backdrop to everyday leadership, building and sustaining those connections matters more than ever.
Looking Beyond the Team
When we look at an organisation, whether a school, trust, local authority, NHS service or charity, we are not looking at a collection of individual teams. We are looking at a web of interconnected teams.
I am currently coaching SEN leaders across five local authorities. A consistent theme has emerged: managing change at the intersection between decision makers and service providers is incredibly challenging. Decisions are often made in haste, without seeking the views of those implementing or experiencing them, in cultures where psychological safety is, to put it mildly, somewhat lacking. One coachee described the current environment simply as ‘carnage’. In this situation, blaming individuals is not helpful. Yes, all leaders have a responsibility for the climate they create but this needs to be framed within a very complex and challenging context.
Having worked with more than 100 schools, I have seen similar patterns repeatedly. Change initiatives that begin with enthusiasm lose momentum, not because the idea was wrong, but because the connections between teams were weak. Fear leads to control. Control fragments communication. Assumptions replace dialogue, trust erodes, and progress slows.
The issue is rarely lack of drive, ambition or individual capability. The issue is connection. In my experience, there are two reasons why this happens:
• Teams are not connected well structurally.
• Teams are not connected well relationally.
Both matter.
The Structures and Systems for Connection
Many organisations unintentionally leave cross-team communication to chance. Teams become absorbed in their own priorities. Information travels inconsistently. Dependencies remain invisible until they become problems. The result is frustration, duplication, misunderstanding and delay.
The most effective organisations build intentional communication loops between teams. For example through leadership link meetings, fortnightly check-ins, agreed decision-making pathways, cross-functional working groups or clear escalation routes. These structures don’t need to be complex but the intentionality behind it needs to be well thought through and there also needs to be constant reflection integrated.
Good structures create clarity, prevent bottlenecks, and help teams understand how their work contributes to the wider organisation. Most importantly, they keep change moving, which builds credibility and trust.
Consider a high-performing middle leadership team with strong internal relationships and a genuine desire to improve outcomes. If key decisions sit elsewhere and communication channels are weak, their energy quickly dissipates. The team remains capable, but the impact is limited. This is where organisational change often stalls, where frustration build, trust is lost and motivation dips.
The Relational Skills for Connection
Structures alone are not enough. You can have highly efficient systems and still fail to collaborate effectively. The second ingredient is relational, a different set of leadership capabilities that, as I explored in my recent blog on the leadership paradox, can feel counterintuitive precisely because they run against how we have been conditioned to lead.
It requires leaders who can:
• Listen to understand before seeking solutions
• Surface tension rather than avoid it
• Balance challenge with support
• Build trust over time, not just in moments of crisis
• Disagree constructively and repair relationships when things go wrong
• Navigate competing priorities without becoming defensive
These skills matter especially when power dynamics are involved and I’ve found the Karpman Drama Triangle particularly helpful in explaining the dynamics that can play out, not just with individuals but with groups. In many organisations, the breakdown between teams is not actually about communication, it is about perceived authority, decision-making power and ultimately fear. When teams feel unheard or unable to influence decisions that affect them, trust deteriorates quietly, until it becomes very visible. Creating an environment of psychological safety requires both structural clarity and relational maturity. One without the other is rarely enough.
Where Change Actually Happens
One of the most consistent observations from my work: where teams connect well, organisational change accelerates. Often this comes down to the people who act as connectors, the leaders who bridge departments, the managers who translate strategy into practice, the individuals who create shared understanding across boundaries. These people become the connective tissue of the organisation.
When those connections are strong, information flows, decisions happen more quickly and trust grows. When they weaken, even the strongest teams find themselves working hard but making little visible progress.
Perhaps this is the question for all of us as leaders: How much attention do we give to the spaces between teams? Not just what happens within them, but what happens between them. Because increasingly, that is where organisational performance lives.
Reflection Questions
• Which teams in your organisation connect particularly well and why?
• Where do decisions tend to become delayed or stuck?
• What structures currently enable information to flow between teams?
• What relational skills might strengthen collaboration across boundaries?
• How much intentional attention is given to the connections between team- not just what happens within them?
The answers may reveal opportunities for improvement that no individual team development programme alone can achieve.
Free Webinar: Connected Team Performance
If this resonates, join me for a free one-hour webinar on Connected Team Performance, running on Tuesday 23rd June at 3.45pm, in partnership with LLSE. Together we will explore the research behind high-performing teams, how teams connect effectively across organisations, the structures and relational skills that drive cross-boundary collaboration, and practical case studies, plus a free Team of Teams reflective questionnaire.
Register your place here.
My name is Tamara Zaple Rolfs, founder of My Delta. I am a former executive headteacher, qualified Systemic Team Coach and systems leadership consultant. I work with leaders, teams, organisations and communities to build the trust, clarity and connections required to create meaningful change in complex systems.
Do get in touch if you would like to find out more about how we can work together.
Further Learning
Power Dynamics
Psychological Safety
Systemic Team Coaching
The Karman Drama Triangle
High Performance: A Collective Endeavour
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