Organizations are constantly seeking ways to improve team performance and drive better results. One approach that’s gaining traction is Collaborative Team Development (CTD), a model that provides clarity, propels employee engagement, and yields results. Let’s dive into this innovative framework and explore how it can transform the way teams work together.
Understanding Collaborative Team Development
Collaborative Team Development is a holistic approach to optimizing team performance. It recognizes that high performance isn’t just about hitting targets—it’s about creating an environment where individuals can achieve their full potential sustainably over time.
As Projjal Ghatak, CEO of OnLoop, explains: “The term I use quite often is sustainably optimized performance. It’s the pursuit of helping each individual achieve their full potential on an ongoing basis and then having the stamina and energy for being able to do it for long amounts of time.”
The CTD model is visualized as a pyramid with five interconnected layers:
- Well-being and Productive Capacity
- Clarity on Goals
- Celebratory Feedback
- Improvement Feedback
- Ongoing Learning and Growth
The Foundation: Wellbeing and Productive Capacity
At the base of the CTD pyramid lies well-being and productive capacity. This foundational layer acknowledges that an individual’s mental and physical state directly impacts their ability to perform at work. It’s not just about being present; it’s about having the energy and capacity to engage fully with tasks and challenges.
Projjal emphasizes the importance of this layer: “If you think about a tank of water, how much capacity you have, I see that wellbeing layer as measuring how much water is there in that tank. And if the water’s depleted, it’s important to refill that cup before aspiring to levels higher than that base layer. But if that cup is full, then you can go and crush your goals.”
Leaders must recognize that well-being isn’t a “soft” or optional aspect of work—it’s critical to high performance. Just as we wouldn’t expect an athlete with a physical injury to perform at their peak, we shouldn’t expect team members struggling with mental health issues or personal challenges to deliver their best work without support.
Building Clarity Through Goal-Setting
The second layer of the CTD pyramid focuses on clarity of goals. This goes beyond traditional top-down approaches to goal-setting. Instead, it emphasizes ensuring that each team member understands not just the company’s objectives, but how their daily work contributes to those larger goals.
Projjal breaks down goals into three categories: “We think about goals in terms of either a target… That might be hitting a certain revenue number, or it might be writing certain lines of code. But more importantly, a lot of work, especially knowledge work gets done in the form of projects… And then thirdly, we’re also all the time trying to get better at things and building skills.”
By considering all three aspects, organizations can get a more comprehensive view of an individual’s contributions and progress.
The Power of Recognition: Celebratory Feedback
Moving up the pyramid, we encounter the often-overlooked power of positive feedback. While many organizations focus on constructive criticism, CTD emphasizes the importance of recognition and celebration.
As Projjal notes, “People often associate feedback with just constructive feedback, but actually celebratory or recognition feedback is even more important… for each person to understand what their superpowers are and have both a language as well as a deep understanding of what are the three to five things that they do better than anybody else.”
Regular, specific praise helps team members identify their strengths and understand which behaviors lead to success. This isn’t about vague compliments; it’s about pinpointing exactly what someone did well and how it contributed to positive outcomes.
Growth Through Improvement Feedback
The fourth layer of the CTD pyramid addresses improvement feedback. This isn’t about criticism for its own sake, but about helping individuals identify blind spots and areas for growth.
Projjal explains: “We often say that for people to be performing at their optimal, they need to be honing their superpowers and they need to be aware of the blind spots. ‘Cause often you may not be able to fix the fact that you’re not great at something… but for us to make sure the organization is not negatively affected, I need to be aware of it and I need to mitigate for it.”
The key here is to approach feedback as guidance rather than criticism. By framing it this way, teams can create a culture where feedback is welcomed as an opportunity for development rather than feared as a personal attack.
Continuous Development: Ongoing Learning and Growth
At the top of the CTD pyramid is ongoing learning and growth. This layer emphasizes the importance of continuous development, whether through content consumption, coaching, or formal courses.
As Projjal puts it: “Based on goals, based on the skills you’re trying to develop, based on the feedback you’re receiving, you should be consuming a combination of content coaching or courses to continuously grow and continuously learn.”
The beauty of the CTD model is that it recognizes learning as an integral part of work, not an add-on or afterthought. It encourages organizations to prioritize and schedule development activities regularly.
Implementing CTD in Your Organization
Adopting a Collaborative Team Development approach requires more than just understanding the model—it involves creating new habits and potentially leveraging technology to support the process.
Creating Feedback Habits
One of the challenges in implementing CTD is making feedback a regular habit. This can be achieved by tying feedback practices to existing routines. Projjal shares an example from his own company: “Every all hands talk with 15 minutes of weekly wins, where there are small celebrates of each other, but each celebrates has to point out with specific behaviors that person exhibited. ‘Cause telling someone they’re doing a good job is actually quite useless if it’s not clear to a person as to what are the three or five things that they did lead to something going really well.”
Leveraging Technology
While the principles of CTD can be applied without technology, tools can significantly enhance its effectiveness. For instance, AI-powered summaries of ongoing feedback can provide valuable insights for performance reviews and development conversations.
Projjal explains how their product supports this: “What we do with all of the ongoing feedback is that we summarize it at the end into beautifully clustered stories and narratives around each person’s performance.”
Using technology to operationalize CTD can help ensure consistency across the organization and make it easier for busy leaders to engage with the process regularly.
Overcoming Resistance to Change
As with any new initiative, implementing CTD may face some resistance. Leaders need to clearly communicate how this approach ties into achieving business outcomes. Projjal notes: “In today’s world, where we are somewhat recessionary, we are somewhat high inflationary… showing how technology or new approaches helps us do more with less often is hugely resounding for leaders to drive that change or drive that adoption.”
The Impact of CTD: A Case Study
To illustrate the potential impact of Collaborative Team Development, consider the experience of a media agency based in Dubai. Prior to implementing CTD, the organization struggled with feedback processes. Team members feared giving and receiving feedback, leading to a culture of avoidance around performance discussions.
After adopting a CTD approach, the agency saw a dramatic shift. Projjal shares: “The biggest compliment I’ve got from them as an organization is that they feared feedback in the past because they were afraid of it… but now looking at criticism, they’ve now rebranded that to feedback as guidance and realized that unless you receive the feedback around your blind spot, you’re actually doing someone a disservice by not sharing it.”
The result was a more engaged workforce, clearer communication, and a sense that each individual’s contributions were being recognized and valued.
The Future of Team Performance
As organizations continue to navigate the challenges of remote and hybrid work, approaches like Collaborative Team Development become increasingly valuable. By providing a structured yet flexible framework for optimizing team performance, CTD offers a path to more engaged, productive, and satisfied teams.
Projjal sums up the mission behind CTD: “Our mission is really to bring a level of justice to each person being rewarded or being seen for what they do versus what they say… leveling that playing field by shining the light on the work getting done by everyone is a huge driver for the work that we do.”
By implementing these principles, organizations can create an environment where high performance is not just an expectation, but a natural outcome of how teams work together.
As we look to the future of work, models like CTD that emphasize collaboration, continuous feedback, and holistic development are likely to play an increasingly important role in shaping successful organizations. Whether you’re a leader looking to improve team performance or an individual seeking to optimize your own work experience, the principles of Collaborative Team Development offer valuable insights for the modern workplace.
Listen to the episode: Gut + Science | 218: Collaborative Team Development (CTD) with Projjal Ghatak
Key Takeaways:
- Foundational Importance of Wellbeing: Well-being serves as the foundation of productivity and capacity.
- Clarity in Goal Setting: Having clarity around goals and KPIs is essential
- Value of Celebratory Feedback and Recognition: Providing celebratory feedback and recognition consistently maintains motivation and engagement.
Things to listen for:
[00:04:55] – Overview of the CTD pyramid with 5 layers of high performance.
[00:09:50] – Deeper dive into wellbeing and its importance to performance, including Projjal’s personal experience with anxiety.
[00:14:55] – Discussion on the importance of clarity in goals and how to measure different types of work.
[00:17:50] – Explanation of how CTD nurtures feedback as a habit.
