Most teams are busy. But are they learning?
Too often, teams, especially in middle market companies, are rewarded for short-term wins and firefighting. Over time, they become reactive, focusing more on efficiency than evolution. But as author, team coach, and mentor David Clutterbuck reminds us, “High-value teams are those that consciously learn their way into the future.”
In other words, what got you here won’t get you there.
What High-Performing Teams Do Differently
Instead, high-performing teams think beyond tasks and to-do lists. They operate with one eye on performance and one on learning. This dual focus allows them to not just solve current problems or meet current stakeholder needs but anticipate future ones.
According to team coaching expert Peter Hawkins, truly effective teams ask:
- What must we learn now to meet the challenges of the next 12–24 months?
- How do we stay aligned with where our market and business are headed?
- Who outside the team can stretch our thinking and show us our blind spots?
These aren’t theoretical questions. They’re imperative survival skills.
Learning Together: The Habits That Matter
I have coached teams to develop and embed practical habits that build a team culture of learning. By doing so, they:
- Allocate regular time for collective learning and reflection.
- View one another as co-coaches, not just co-workers.
- Seek constructive challenge from both within and outside the team.
- Translate setbacks into practical action and future guardrails.
Focusing on learning isn’t about adding more to the plate. It’s about embedding learning into the team’s routine, so they work smarter and have an eye on what’s emerging from the future. When a team can do this, they are superior at meeting the expectations of their stakeholders and and the wider environment.
Three Signs Your Team Is Learning-Resistant
Many teams are too distracted to look up from their to-do lists to evolve the work to meet the needs and expectations of stakeholders, the market, and wider environment. You’ll know your team is missing out the learning they need to adapt to changing conditions if …
- Meetings focus only on updates. There’s no space for real dialogue, experimentation, or reflection.
- Mistakes get buried. Instead of exploring what went wrong, teams gloss over failure to “move on.”
- There’s no shared learning agenda. Individual growth is siloed, and the team lacks a collective learning focus.
These signals aren’t merely aspects of your team culture, they’re strategic liabilities.
So how do you move your team from making do to being future fit?
From Mindset to Practice
It takes commitment to become a learning team. To avoid overwhelm, start small by:
- Blocking 30 minutes every two weeks for a learning-focused conversation. What’s changing in your organization’s market? What assumptions should the team revisit?
- Ask team members to bring an insight from outside the organization — an article, idea, or podcast — and discuss how it applies to the team’s situation.
- Build feedback loops that go two ways, between team members as well as top-down from you as the leader to the team.
Leadership’s Role: Model and Multiply
As a team lead, middle manager, or executive, you set the tone. When you model curiosity, ask learning-focused questions, and admit what you’re learning (or unlearning), you give your team members permission to do the same.
Because in today’s world, your team’s edge isn’t in what it knows; it’s in how fast it can anticipate needs, learn so they can meet them, then adjust their approach. If you can do that, your team will be high-performing AND unbeatable.
⭐Want to turn your team into a learning team? 🔍Explore my work with leaders and teams. ✔️To dive deeper, schedule a free strategy session with me here.