What does your trust look like ?

This is a picture of an ice-selling shop near where I live. The first time I went there to buy ice, nobody was in. I shouted a couple of times and waited a few minutes but it remained all quiet. The next time I tried the same, a little girl of about 5 years came out to help me put the ice in the bag and take the money. When our business transaction was nearly finished an adult showed up. So I told him that it was difficult to find someone around to buy ice from. He explained me the established operating procedure.

Anyone buying ice selects one of the plastic bags hanging behind the blue ice tank. There are three sizes. Filled with ice, they cost 3, 5 or 10 Thai baht. You can pick ice from the blue tank, with the big ice cubes, or the red tank, with the small tube-like ice cubes. Or you can mix both. Once you have filled your plastic bag to the rim with ice, you drop either 3 or 5 or 10 Thai baht in a rusty cup. There is no sign "put your money here" ! And that's how the ice shop works. So once I knew the ropes, I became one of their self-service customers.

"How can they trust strangers ? Don't people come and steal ice, or pay less than they should ?" I don't know the answers. But the shop has been operating for ages, and I guess they would have changed the system if it didn't work.

This is what trust looks like in this particular situation. Trust is a word with meaning, and is often used in a very general and conceptual way. We often say trust is important. So what does your trust look like ? With your team members ? Peers ? Clients ? Concretely. What do you do or say or don't do or refrain from saying, that established trust with those around you ?

What (or rather who) stresses you out ?

In a study around stress, researchers measure stress levels directly from the levels of cortisol in saliva. A bunch of participants were asked to swab their mouth every hour, put the swab aside, and write down what they were doing at the particular moment of sample-taking. The results ? People have the lowest levels of stress when they are with friends, relatives or their spouse. And they are most stressed when they are with colleagues or clients. And who tops the list of stress-creators ? The boss. The highest level of stress exists when people are in the same room as their boss.

Since most of us spend more time at work than with our spouses or friends, this means we are stressed for most of our waking hours. And this most likely impacts how we then later on interact with friends or relatives or spouses. If you are a business owner or leader of a team, isn't it a scary thought that the people who work for you are most stressed when they are near you ? You may think your door is always open and that you are a very open-minded leader. You may try hard to be fair to everyone and you may even manage to control your emotions to minimize the impact on those around you. But you are the boss. And that reality has a significant impact on how the ones reporting to you feel when they are with you.

The best way to minimize the negative impact of the stress you generate - most of it unconsciously - is to be aware of how you interact with those reporting to you. Evaluate yourself after each discussion or meeting and create the habit of creating a small learning/reflection loop several times per day. Was this time better than the last one ? How did the person on the other side of the table contribute or react ? What did you do that seemed to have a pretty good impact ? In the next meeting, what would you repeat or on the contrary avoid saying ? Make an explicit effort to reduce stress for those around you through small gestures or practices.

I already told him but ...

Giving feedback in an effective way is not easy, for sure not for folks in many Asian countries. After a training and practice session, most at least will give it a try. What I often hear a week later is "I already told him but ...". The most important part of giving feedback is not the actual moment in which you give the feedback ... It is what happens after that. There are two possibilities. Either the person will improve (even if only somewhat, or temporarily) or won't. And what you do at that point is more important that the actual feedback.

If the behavior/issue/performance has improved ... let them know ! There is nothing worse (really) than someone taking feedback for real, working hard to get better and then start to wonder if anyone really noticed it the improvement.

If the behavior/issue/performance does not improve ... the same goes ! Way to often I see folks give up after just one feedback. They conclude that the other person doesn't want to change, is not capable of changing or just doesn't get it. I already told him but ... Expecting things to change right from the first feedback is not realistic. Lack of follow up can be interpreted in different ways. It can be seen as "it wasn't really important after all" or "my manager is not courageous" all the way to a break in the relationship with both avoiding the deal with the lagging issue.

If you have children, and they don't do what they are supposed to do despite you telling them, you don't simply give up ! Repeat repeat repeat.

All about Teams !

I have to admit: pretty excited to read my comments on a team article in my favorite professional magazine, Harvard Business Review.

Next up: writing and publishing my book on the Power of Teams !

When team connections come second ...

A team session is by definition focusing on the team interactions. During the day, the team members discuss in pairs or triads or with the entire group. All energy is spent on the exchanges, questioning, listening and then creating together. The team really feels like a team !

Why does this energy or momentum quickly dissipate after the team session ? Why does the team feel less like a team ?

Our brain has limited energy. During the team session, all energy is focused exclusively on the team interactions. Outside of the team session, each team member falls back on dealing with the different daily challenges and priorities that come their way. This can be under the form of meetings, calls, emails or reviews. The brain focuses its energy on solving the problems, finding solutions, explaining, negotiating or justifying. Not much energy is left for taking care of the interactions and relations within the team.

I recently experienced this is an interesting way. A large group of people is asked to walk around in a room, and interact with the others (eye contact, saying "hello"). The team members at first get simple instructions (start, stop, call out your name, clap ...) but these get more and more complex (when hearing "clap", say out your name, and "stop" means start). At the start there was a buzz when people walked around and interacted with the others in the room. In only a few minutes' time, the buzz disappeared, eyes were focusing on the floor, and each member of the group was spending all the energy on complying with the complex instructions. No energy was left to spend on interacting with the others in the room.

The key take-away: you need to deliberately carve out time to to grow your team, every day. The team session can give a good boost but without regular team reboots, not much will be built up.

When do you start building trust and respect ?

In the leadership program I am currently running in a global company, managers share their challenges through Action Learning sessions. Most of the management issues that participants discuss are about their direct reports. Very often it is about a particular person in the team with who things aren't going so well. Performance may be below par, or the "behaviors" are not as expected. Although the managers don't use the word, it is pretty much about som

eone very different from themselves and "difficult" to work with.

The process of asking open questions (as opposed to fact-finding investigative questions or "let me share what I think you should do" discussions) often leads to the insight on the part of the manager that there is a genuine gap between themselves and this particular person. The manager can give plenty of examples of behavioral or performance issues. But when the questions are about how they work together, how well the manager knows the person and his or her challenges, what other work related things they talk about ... the manager often gets quite silent. He realizes that all they do with this direct report is work, talk about work and complain about the work that doesn't go well. They realize there is not really a "foundation" to their working relationship. There is only work and that's all they talk about. And that's (maybe ...) OK as long as things are going well.

But when they don't, the lack of genuine relationship, the lack of trust or mutual respect makes it very difficult to get out of the negative spiral. Without a solid personal foundation based on other things than "work" (which can cover KPI, job role and responsibilities. payment, benefits), difficult situation often turn sour.

As someone in a recent session shared at the end, "I realize that I need to start working on trust and respect right from day one, not when something starts to go wrong."

The Power of Awareness

We often assume that people around us see and know themselves like we see or know them. When there are behaviors that are not appropriate or don't help the team, we assume that they are very well aware of these behaviors, but that they either don't want to or are not capable of changing. We "give up" and think it is hopeless to expect them to change their behavior.

I recently had a discussion with a manager as part of a leadership development program. This manager was well known by most around him as someone who just talks too much. Telling others what to do rather than finding out what they think. Using up air time that belongs to others (including answering questions that are asked to them). Never keeping this concise and just keeping on talking. This behavior is so obvious that it bothers everyone around him. He is otherwise a capable, hard-working and motivated young manager, but most around him just conclude there is no way he can change the way he is.

So I had a chat with him recently asking about his personal development as part of the leadership program. He told me he had simply divided by two the amount of talking, instructing and telling he does. He had gone "cold turkey". He simply changed his behavior very strongly from one day to the next. And those around him immediately noticed. So I asked him how he had done it ? What trick had he used ? It must be difficult to so fundamentally change an ingrained behavior. ? His answer ? For him, it simply was the first time he had become clearly aware of this behavior and the impact this had on his team. Nobody had told him, or even hinted to him. They just all assumed he was aware but that things were beyond repair. It was simple awareness that snapped him out of this negative behavior.

Simple lesson: don't assume all is clear for those around you. Tell them in a simple and clear way what is expected from them. No guarantee that all will be done accordingly, but at least they will be aware.

When does your team start ?

What is the best time to start to work on your team's interactions, looking at how to optimize productivity and team cohesion ? That question came up when I worked with a recently formed team. The team had been in place only 2 months, and because not everybody was located in the same office, a few team members had not yet met their new team mates (although they did know each other). At the end of the 2-day workshop, one participant shared that it would have been better to have more team history (6 months or so) because this would make the workshop more effective.

He had changed his mind by the end of day 2.

All too often, leaders call me for help with their team when things start to go South. When tensions arise, or even conflicts appear. When people are getting entrenched in their respective silos. Or when the team is just treading water and not delivering on its targets and commitments. Of course working with a team in this situation can help and performance and cohesion can improve.

But to come back to the original question: the earlier you start to work on your team, the better it is. On day 2 of the session, the team members shared their respective responsibilities and expressed where they needed help from the others in the room. Or they proposed their help with a topic a peer was working on. They then established the norms they would start to work towards. And finally they identified one single project that they would jointly work on, and that would show their efficiency to themselves and the rest of the organization. They will reconvene and check on the status of all this in one month.

The feedback from the team leader at the end of the workshop was: "Really happy we did this. We saved a lot of time !". Don't wait for a crisis to start working on your team !

Building trust ... where to start ?

A fellow facilitator recently contacted me to ask for ideas about an exercise around trust for a team session. And she specified that it shouldn't be childish or goofy (her words) like the famous "trust fall" exercise since this is a senior executive team.

Trust is a word we often use lightly. A key point to understand is that trust exists only at the level of two people. An easy way to think about this: if A trusts B and A trusts C, then this does not mean that there is trust in the team A, B, C. In fact, it is possible that B and C don't trust each other. So you cannot put 8 people in a circle and say "let's now build trust in this team". It starts at the level of the different pairs.

When I work around trust, I always start with the pairs. The trust between pairs will become the trust within the team as a whole.

My favorite exercise is the "hot seat". Each person takes turn sitting in the hot seat, and the others, one by one, give feedback about this person. Round one follows the "I appreciate that you do/say this or that and I suggest you continue doing it" structure. Round two is "I think it would be great for the team if you could start/stop doing/saying this or that". The person receiving the feedback can only say "Thank you" and not react in any other way. If done consciously, this can go quite fast and it is typically well received by all participants. There is sometimes laughter and sometimes genuine reflection and appreciation.

You won't build trust in a single session. But there is a way to get started.

the Action Learning Iceberg

How does your team react when you tell them there will be a team building or leadership session next month ? A session where they will learn how to communicate better, give better feedback, increase collaboration. Or build trust.
Some will pump their fists: "Yeah, a day away from the office !". Others will roll their eyes and think how to minimize the impact on their already heavy workload. In a few cases, someone will report a work emergency the morning of the session.
During the session, people are often distracted (phone, email, or other apps) by urgencies coming from their "real work". The session feels optional and work priorities need to be dealt with.

At the end of the session, reactions will vary from "That was fun. Now let's get back to work." at best to "What a waste of time." at worst. Time and money gone. Motivation, teamwork and collaboration enjoy a temporary blip, if at all.

Action Learning turns things upside down. Leadership and team development cannot happen disconnected from daily priorities. We bring a team together to work on a burning issue, a complex problem that impacts the whole organization. Top management gives the team the authority to work on this challenge, propose solutions and implement ideas. A number of sessions happen over 3 months or so, and the team takes actions between the sessions to collect information, test out ideas and validate assumptions. If we were to stop here, this would just be an enhanced form of project work or problem-solving.

The Action Learning coach looks at the part of the iceberg under the water. The coach observes the team dynamics and identifies learning moments - not teaching moments. Learning is anchored in the observable interactions between team members. The coach brings these dynamics to the team's awareness and invites team members to discuss what works well, what can be better and how the team wants to develop the dynamics further. There is no theory or 'here's what you should do' guidelines. The team is the context from which learning is created. From one intervention to another, and from one session to the next, the team and the individual members grow. Almost literally. Growing means taking the current situation as the reality and moving up one step. And then another.

The coach has a double role. Of course the team needs to be able to present their solutions for the business challenge to the top management at the end of the sessions. At the same time, the coach ensures that each individual, as well as the team as a whole, increases self-awareness, and takes steps to become better individuals and members of the team. I sometimes say that the business challenge the team works on is the excuse through which to bring in personal and team development.

Looking for real development in your individuals and teams ? Take a look at Action Learning www.wial.org.

When the cat's away ...

What happens to your team when you are not around ? My experience with different teams in Asia is not so much that people will start to play or muck around. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Rather than getting together and doing all the stuff you maybe do not allow when you are around, most of the time, when the cat is away, the mice will go in hibernation !

That "team" that you often think of as the group of your direct reports will more or less fall back to its components. The HR manager will go and focus on the HR stuff and the marketing person will quietly keep on working on the marketing assignment you handed out. The team ceases to exist.

When an issue comes up where collaboration or joint action is needed, and when you are not around, does your team huddle together, come up with solutions and decide on the best way forward ? Or do they get lost in arguments and turf wars ? Or - and I think this is what happens most often - is the issue put on the 'pending' list until your return. Whichever of these two extremes, it seems that anything but routine work gets done when you are not around.

What is the solution ? You cannot expect a team to grow by itself if you are involved in every decision. Step back ... even when you are around, and refrain from intervening while at the same time asking for progress to be made. In fact, if the mice start playing when you are not around, that would be a pretty good sign. If however they go into a comatose state, you need to reflect on how you can change the way you work to start building a real team !

There's no app for that !

Human beings are social creatures. We crave interaction with others. In the workplace, we spend most of our time amidst colleagues, bosses and subordinates and most of what we do is connected to what others are doing, either through direct contact or through any form of communication. 

I am amazed at how little time managers have (or rather ... find) these days to really communicate with their team members. They are swamped by meetings, visitors, reporting, budgets, forecasts or management retreats. They solve problems, monitor action plans and send out and read tons of emails each day. 

Amidst all these priorities they struggle to carve out meaningful time and engage in real conversations with those who report to them. They often feel that sending emails is a valid substitute for exchanging views. I once had a manager asking if he could send the developmental or improvement feedback to a subordinate by email since this was so much easier  and faster ... ! The fact that the real meaning of giving developmental feedback is in the dialogue that happens between the boss and the team member was for him probably an inconvenience pushing him out of his comfort zone.

In so many organizations I get to work with, the annual performance review is the only time a manager sits down with a team member to look at and discuss past performance and future development. The once-a-year ritual becomes stressful and time-consuming for both parties.

Having regular conversations along the year about how someone is doing takes some practice and self-discipline but it is the minimum necessary when thinking of employee engagement. There is not really an alternative for one-on-one dialogue. I am afraid someone (maybe a busy manager ... ?) will one day come up with an app for giving feedback and having conversations with others !

Communicating is not collaborating

I was at an interesting experience-sharing event last week where the speaker popped up "Collaboration Tools" on the screen. Whenever I see collaboration my neurons start to fire because I believe this is the key to successful team performance.

And so I was paying full attention when he explained that in his organization, many of the younger employees were steering away from email but using the "collaboration tools" Line or WhatsApp pretty much all the time. And that's when my neurons went in overdrive. Do business leaders really believe that Line or WhatsApp, or emails for that matter, are evidence of collaboration ? It is maybe useful to distinguish communication from collaboration ...

Communication is exchanging information. With modern tools, I can communicate with 100s of people at the same time. But getting a "read" message in Line or WhatsApp does not mean anything but that. It does not mean "I received your message and will act on it". So although Line and WhatsApp may be cooler than email, not much has really changed.

Collaboration is when people work together to a common objective. And that does not work with 100s of people, and although communication is important, it is very different from collaboration. Collaboration requires people to be really connected and for things to actually get done.

If Line were a collaboration tool, there would be loads of great collaboration going on all the time, most of it on the BTS skytrain system in the morning. Exchanging information is good but don't confuse this for things actually getting done.

What Google's research DID NOT say about high-performance teams

Amy Edmondson's concept of team psychological safety has been around for 15 years. But it takes a company like Google mentioning it to bring the topic in the mainstream ! Google spent a lot of time to analyze what differentiates high-performance teams from mediocre ones. Although many interesting characteristics were looked at, none of them was really the differentiating factor. What really set high-performance teams apart from others was "a shared belief by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking".

Unfortunately this complex team dynamic is already being reduced to one-liners and simplifications. One of the articles I came across discussed Google's finding with the eye-catching title

"Google spends years figuring out that the secret to a good working environment is just to be nice."

Well, no ... First of all Google didn't try to find out what a good working environment looks like, but what high-performance teams look like and behave like. Secondly, the title leads to a serious misunderstanding. Being nice is not what makes a team excellent. If that were the case, I would know of numerous high-performance teams. Especially in Asia, being nice is very important and doing the opposite creates tensions. But being nice in itself does not result in excellence. When being nice means not challenging one another (for fear of losing face), not speaking up when you really should (for fear of standing out) or faking agreement (for fear of creating tensions), you have a team with lots of niceness but little excellence.

Nothing wrong with being nice. But do not equate that with a high-performance team !

Teams are more complex - and powerful - than you think

Look up any clipart representation of the word "leadership" and chances are you will come across something looking like the first picture. The leader is always shown in the middle, with his or her team members in a neat circle around. And the secret to being an effective team leader is shown through the different arrows. These represent the trust the leader creates with each of his members, how he or she communicates with them, what targets or goals they are given. That is the neat representation of team leadership.

The reality looks more like the second picture. Of course the relationships of the leader, still shown in the middle, with each of the team members is important. But in reality, there are not 8 but in total 35 connections and therefore relationships going on in this team. So as a team leader, you may excel in the 8 relationships you are a part of, but the reality of the team, and how it performs, is much more complex. You may have a trustworthy relationship with each of the people in the outer circle, but does that automatically mean all these team members have an equally trusting relationship with one another ?

There are two ways to look at the second picture. The first is to say, "Wow, this is way too complex to even try to do anything about it". The second is to say "Wow ... look at all the potential there is in this team if all 35 connections and relationships are working optimally".

Way too much leadership tools, blogs and books focus on the person in the red in the middle. The real power of teams lies as much in the other 27 connections and how well these sync. I continue to be amazed how little effort leaders put in the actual development of their team, in other words, in the 27 relationships that make up the team connections. So here is a question to you: what can you do, as the leader in red in the middle, to optimize these 27 connections that you are not directly part of ? I am interested to read your thoughts !

What does Google see as the MAIN characteristic of an effective team ?

I am sure that if you ask leaders what the key characteristics of an effective team are, they would come up with a list of great and noble words. Trust. Diversity. Shared goals. Appreciation. Focus. And many more like this. Team psychological safety will probably not be on that list. And yet that is what Google says contributes most to the effectiveness of a team, click here for the original article. Google lists 4 more characteristics, but Team Psychological Safety beats the other 4 by a long way !


In my discussions with leaders in Asia, I found out it is a description that scares people to some degree. Psychological and safety are words with a lot of interpretations. Amy Edmondson's definition of Team Psychological Safety is "a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking". Not just risk taking, but interpersonal risk taking. This means telling others when you made a mistake. Or asking for help from one of your peers. Or speaking up when someone else has made a mistake. Doing this means taking a risk with respect to your peers. It requires some courage to do this. But when you create a climate where people can take this can of interpersonal risks with one another - in a safe way - the foundation for a great team is laid. And all the other characteristics will grow on that fertile foundation.



You don't develop Team Psychological Safety over night. It grows over time. And it can also disappear over time. But the reward of a team that continues to grow is really worth the effort. So think about how you work with your team, and what you can do to increase the "shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking".

Nobody's perfect ... but a team can be !

I first thought this was a generic quote close to common sense. But I realized it was in fact the title of an article written by Dr. Meredith Belbin some time ago introducing his Belbin Team Roles (www.belbin.com). I agree with this statement and I believe most business leaders to as well. But I am also astounded that, although this sounds like common sense, it is so far from how many leaders I meet go about leading their teams.

Indeed, I often meet leaders who explain that they have a great team except for the marketing manager. Or the HR manager. Or whichever manager. And so - their thinking goes - if only they could get rid of that particular manager, and replace him or her with the perfect marketing, HR or whatever manager .... if only that could be done, then all would be well. Yet finding someone new takes time, is costly, and however great someone's CV/resume/Linkedin profile looks, the reality sometimes is not really that glamorous. And if all the above turns out positive, there is no guarantee that this new manager will fit into the culture and work well with the other managers on the team.

When I meet leaders and ask them how they work on the development of their team, they mention an annual retreat, or a monthly team meeting. These events are often reduced to a series of presentations about each department with their priorities and results. And once in a while they throw in a team building day, which is great fun for sure. Is this how you build a team ?

There is so much more potential that can be developed when you focus on the connections between your team members. What happens when the quality manager is adversely impacted by a new process the finance manager is proposing ? Are they sitting together to find the best solution for the organization ? Or do each stay within their silo complaining about the other ? Or maybe even worse ... does nothing happen until you - the boss - decide ? Working on the connections between your people and the reactions to events that impact them is the real way to develop a team. It takes time, there is no 1-2-3 solution. But from what I see around me, this is an area that most teams simply do not work on.

Building the wrong kind of trust

A lot has been written about developing trust with your team members. Trust takes time to build and can be destroyed in a minute with a careless remark. In Asia, trust is maybe even more critical when leading a team. We know all that. Nothing new here. But I have seen senior leaders attempting to build trust with their team yet at the same time destroying the very foundation of that team.

Here is what I have observed more than once. The leader sits down with Tom, one of his direct reports, to review an important project. "Great job Tom, I am really happy I asked you to be in charge of this project. We are on track and the client is really satisfied. You have definitely confirmed your capabilities". So far so good ... great expression of trust in what Tom has done so far. And then the conversation continues ... "Now, for the next step, you will need to work with the marketing manager Susan. You know she can sometimes be a bit reluctant about launching under the circumstances we are in. You may want to spend some extra time to convince her. But at the same time, I trust Susan that she will lead the marketing campaign successfully."

What has happened here ? The leader has created great trust between him or herself and Tom. Tom probably walks out of this meeting really pumped and motivated. But what about Tom and Susan ? The leader gave some advice about how to approach Susan, and also added that he or she trusted Susan with her part of the project. So all should be set and done between Tom and Susan, right ? Unfortunately, trust does not work that way. Trust is dyadic, a difficult word to indicate it can only exist between two people. I can trust A and I can trust B, but that does not mean that A trusts B or that B trusts A.

Developing a team requires not just trust between the leader and the direct reports. There is much more potential for value - as well as downside - in the trust relations between the team members. If the leader talks to Tom about Susan, when Susan is not there (and doesn't this happen all the time ?), then what does this do to the relationship of trust between Tom and Susan ?

Trust between your team members is as important as trust between you and each of them. As a leader, you cannot "manage" this trust, but what you say - and what you don't say - to each of your team members influences these trust relationships to a large extent. Something to think about for your next one-on-one.

So what really happens when you're not around ?

The real test of a team is to observe what happens when the boss is not around. At worst, bickering and territory-defending starts. Sub-cliques get together to gossip and point out whose fault this or that latest issue is.


But let's be positive. Let's assume yours is not a dysfunctional team. When I ask leaders what happens when they are not around, they tell me that things are just working fine, that work moves along and gets done as it should be. Thank God (or rather, thank you !) for that. But is that really where our expectations for our team should end ? That the usual stuff gets done ? That managers stay in their comfort zone and stick to the established routines ? What happens when something important (not routine) comes up ? How does your team deal with that ?

Team Psychological Safety is a concept that describes how team members feel and interact when the boss is not there. Originally developed by Professor Edmondson from Harvard University, it refers to “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking".

What does this mean ? Let's say an important challenge arises, where people have conflicting opinions and the boss is not around to decide. What do your team members do ? Do they get together and look for the best solution for the organization ? Or do they wait it out for you to come back ? Do they develop work-arounds (duplicate work) to deal with the issue without addressing the root cause ? Do they stay in their comfort zone (comfort zone = job title, department or small circle of buddies) or do they take the risk to step out of the comfort zone and find a solution, even if this is maybe "not their job" ?

We all know what we think should happen. But the question is what really happens ?

You can measure the Team Psychological Safety that exists in your team. Team Psychological Safety does not emerge after a beach-side team building or after the annual retreat. It takes effort, and time, to build it up. But the rewards are very significant: a team that grows and takes responsibility, also when you are not there !

It's about the linkages, not the links !

The "weakest link" is a popular metaphor. The origin is in mechanics: a chain used to lift stuff can only lift something that matches the strength of the weakest of the links in the chain. Anything heavier will break this link, and therefore the chain. This nice image is used to think about teams, where the overall performance of the team is constrained or defined by the strength (or weakness) of the weakest team member.

Well, I disagree. First of all, what do we do with the weakest link once it is identified ? Train it ? Coach it ? Fire and replace it ... ? Whatever you do, once the weakest link is no longer the weakest ... another one has become the new weakest. And so we repeat at nauseam.

No, I don't think this way of looking at your team is all that helpful. What is helpful, is not to think how you can change this or that link (team member), but to work on the LINKAGES between these links (team members). You can have a team with super-powerful and highly efficient links (team members), but if link A doesn't communicate with link B, or shortcuts link B, or undoes what link B has done, or demotivates B, you have a group with strong links but no overall performance. If on the other hand, the different links (team members), despite their respective and individual strengths, support each other, motivate each other, step in when someone is struggling, your overall team performance will by far exceed the strength of its weakest, or even of its strongest member !

So work on the linkages. On how people communicate with each other. How they motivate and challenge each other. How they step up to help when someone's overloaded or absent. How they share and learn together. As a leader of a team, continuously working on these linkages is how you will strengthen your overall team, not by looking for which link is the weakest and then focusing your energy there.