Building high-performing teams through psychological safety, diversity leverage, inclusive practices, and healthy team dynamics. Use when improving team collaboration, addressing team dysfunction, building inclusive environments, or developing team culture.
Provides frameworks for building high-performing teams through psychological safety, inclusive practices, and healthy dynamics. Use when addressing team dysfunction, improving collaboration, or developing team culture.
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references/diversity-benefits.mdreferences/inclusive-practices.mdreferences/psychological-safety.mdreferences/team-dynamics-patterns.mdA framework for building and maintaining high-performing teams through psychological safety, inclusive practices, and healthy team dynamics.
Research consistently shows that the best teams share these characteristics:
Psychological safety is the #1 predictor of team effectiveness (Google's Project Aristotle research).
Definition: The belief that you won't be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.
Signs of psychological safety:
Signs of low safety:
Rate your team on each dimension (1-5):
| Dimension | Questions to Ask | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Safety | "Can I admit mistakes without fear?" | /5 |
| Dependability | "Can I count on teammates to deliver?" | /5 |
| Clarity | "Do I know what's expected of me?" | /5 |
| Meaning | "Does this work matter to me personally?" | /5 |
| Impact | "Does our work make a difference?" | /5 |
Interpretation:
Behaviors that build safety:
Behaviors that destroy safety:
Contributing to team safety:
Diverse teams consistently outperform homogeneous teams on complex problems - but only when inclusion is actively practiced.
Diversity without inclusion = Conflict Diversity with inclusion = Innovation
In Meetings:
In Communication:
In Decision-Making:
| Pattern | What It Looks Like | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Interrupted | Ideas cut off, talked over | Voice not heard |
| Ignored | Ideas not acknowledged | Disengagement |
| Misattributed | Credit given to wrong person | Invisible contribution |
| Stereotyped | Assumptions based on identity | Reduced to category |
| Tokenized | Expected to represent whole group | Burden, isolation |
| Second-guessed | Ideas questioned more than others' | Extra proof required |
Productive Conflict:
Effective Collaboration:
Continuous Improvement:
| Dysfunction | Signs | Remedy |
|---|---|---|
| Absence of Trust | Hiding weaknesses, reluctance to ask for help | Vulnerability exercises, share personal histories |
| Fear of Conflict | Artificial harmony, veiled discussions | Encourage healthy debate, model disagreement |
| Lack of Commitment | Ambiguity about direction, revisiting decisions | Clear deadlines, explicit disagreement before decision |
| Avoidance of Accountability | Low standards, resentment of high performers | Clear expectations, peer pressure, regular reviews |
| Inattention to Results | Individual status over team goals | Public declaration of results, team-based rewards |
(Based on Patrick Lencioni's "Five Dysfunctions of a Team")
Stand-ups (Daily):
Team Sync (Weekly):
Retrospectives (Every 2-4 weeks):
Team Health Check (Quarterly):
Team Building (Monthly/Quarterly):
Before arrival:
First week:
First month:
First quarter:
When conflict is healthy:
When to intervene:
Intervention approaches:
Additional challenges:
Mitigation strategies:
difficult-conversations skill - Addressing team conflictsstakeholder-communication skill - Cross-functional collaborationmentoring-developers skill - 1:1 relationshipsprofessional-communication skill - Team communication normsEffective teams show:
Tolerating toxic high performers destroys team safety and drives away other talent. No individual contributor is worth a broken team.
Going through motions of inclusion (diverse hiring) without changing culture. Diverse hires leave when they feel excluded.
Running retrospectives without follow-through on action items. Erodes trust in the process.
Avoiding conflict to keep peace, but allowing problems to fester. Healthy teams have productive conflict.
Celebrating individual heroics over sustainable teamwork. Creates burnout and single points of failure.
This skill should be used when the user asks to "create a slash command", "add a command", "write a custom command", "define command arguments", "use command frontmatter", "organize commands", "create command with file references", "interactive command", "use AskUserQuestion in command", or needs guidance on slash command structure, YAML frontmatter fields, dynamic arguments, bash execution in commands, user interaction patterns, or command development best practices for Claude Code.
This skill should be used when the user asks to "create an agent", "add an agent", "write a subagent", "agent frontmatter", "when to use description", "agent examples", "agent tools", "agent colors", "autonomous agent", or needs guidance on agent structure, system prompts, triggering conditions, or agent development best practices for Claude Code plugins.
This skill should be used when the user asks to "create a hook", "add a PreToolUse/PostToolUse/Stop hook", "validate tool use", "implement prompt-based hooks", "use ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}", "set up event-driven automation", "block dangerous commands", or mentions hook events (PreToolUse, PostToolUse, Stop, SubagentStop, SessionStart, SessionEnd, UserPromptSubmit, PreCompact, Notification). Provides comprehensive guidance for creating and implementing Claude Code plugin hooks with focus on advanced prompt-based hooks API.