When you are auditing performance are you reviewing the social capital in your business or team?
Social capital is the network of social connections that exist between people, marked by reciprocity, co-operation and trust and these connections and behaviours are what encourage people to work together to mutual benefit.
As a leader of a team or business, do you focus on building your social capital, or are you focused on building individual stars? Are you getting the full potential from your teams by developing their social capital, or are a few individuals succeeding by suppressing others?
In her 2015 TED Talk, “Forget the pecking order at work”, Margaret Heffernan talks about how individually productive superstars succeed at the expense of the rest of the team, and why and how it’s better to focus on the team as a whole.
From Margaret Heffernan’s observations, successful teams display three traits:
- High degrees of social sensitivity to others (empathy),
- They give equal time to each person to have their voice heard, and
- They include more women.
In these teams, everybody matters and plays a part in the success of the team’s endeavours. Helpfulness outperforms individual intelligence, with ideas flowing and growing.
What motivates people is the bonds they have with others, social capital builds resilience and momentum and leads people to motivate each other.
As a leader are you encouraging your teams to get to know each other, do they have a genuine bond and feeling of connectedness to each other?
Are you developing your team so they can do their best thinking together and drive each to do their best work?