Teamwork can be a perplexing topic because even though it is a fundamental skill, truly effective teamwork is rarely found in today's workplace, especially at the senior levels of the organization. Patrick Lencioni, author of The Trouble with Teamwork and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, states, "I have found that only a small minority of companies truly understand and embrace teamwork, even though, according to their Web sites, more than one in three of the Fortune 500 publicly declares it to be a core value." Despite the widespread misunderstanding of the nature of teamwork, compelling evidence exists that for those organizations that understand and utilize high performance teamwork, that financial performance is profoundly affected:

Stagen consultants and facilitators are uniquely qualified to help organizations develop high performance teams because they are armed with the most comprehensive, integral, and applicable theory, methodology, and tools to do the job. The Stagen methodology distinguishes between different types of teams (and when and where each is best used); assesses, benchmarks, and cultivates twelve teamwork core competencies.

While there is a near consensus among the leading teamwork experts as to the general patterns of high performance teams, there is much disagreement about the specific skills that should be most emphasized, and what particular steps actually lead to excellence. There are two problems with popular teamwork models. First, they lack sufficiently comprehensive theoretical frameworks to effectively take other approaches into account; the result is a failure to take competitive advantage of multiple models, since leaders have no way of integrating these models in a unified teamwork approach. Second, they fail to take into account different levels of development (e.g. cognitive, emotional, relational and ethical capacities) and how these levels dictate a person's capacity to successfully employ many of the model's recommended practices. Third, they ignore the reality of widely differing worldviews and value systems and the ways these variables either make possible or nullify the very approaches the models insist are necessary for effective teamwork. And yet, provided that teamwork models can be brought together in a coherent framework, any number of models can be highly effective in the right circumstances, and with the right people (based on capabilities, values, and mindset).

The Stagen high performance teamwork framework includes the key insights and principles from all of the leading models while transcending their limitations. Stagen teamwork coaches conduct a thorough situation analysis that uncovers the key tangible and intangible drivers affecting each unique team dynamic, and after factoring for the capabilities, values, and mindsets of the individual members, guide teams through four sequential developmental phases (each building upon the previous).

Using this uniquely integral approach, the leading thinking represented by dozens of researchers, authors, and books can be more intelligently employed—with significantly less cost and greater leverage—in the service of organizational success.