Teams That Work: Are We Really on the Same Page? | Part 1

How do great teams stay aligned when the stakes are high?

In Part 1 of this three-part series on Teams That Work: How to Build High-Performing Teams by Scott Tannenbaum and Eduardo Salas, Buzz explores one of the book's most practical concepts: team cognition—the shared understanding that allows teams to move in the same direction.

Most teams don't struggle because people don't care. They struggle because people leave meetings with different interpretations of the same conversation. In this episode, Buzz explains why communication alone isn't enough and why leaders must intentionally create clarity around purpose, priorities, roles, expertise, contingencies, and situation awareness.

Drawing on more than four decades of leadership experience in the U.S. Air Force and years of executive coaching, Buzz shares practical examples, leadership insights, and simple questions every leader can use to determine whether their team is truly aligned—or simply assuming they are.

If you've ever walked out of a meeting thinking everyone understood the plan, only to discover later that they didn't, this episode is for you.

Featured Book: Teams That Work: How to Build High-Performing Teams by Scott Tannenbaum and Eduardo Salas.

Key Takeaway: Communication sends the message. Shared understanding creates alignment.

Subscribe for the rest of the series, share this with a leader who’s tired of preventable confusion, and leave a rating or review so more people can find the show. What’s the clearest sign your team is aligned, and what’s the first sign you’re not?

The Leadership Buzz is hosted by Lloyd “Buzz” Buzzell, an ICF-ACC executive coach, DISC practitioner, and retired U.S. Air Force officer with 37 years of leadership experience. Each episode focuses on one book, one idea, and one practical leadership concept to help you align your behavior with your values and lead with greater clarity, trust, and impact.

If you’re a leader who wants to build stronger teams, improve communication, and create real ownership, subscribe and share this episode with someone on your team.

Connect with Buzz on LinkedIn or visit workhardtellthetruth.com for coaching and leadership development resources.

Work hard. Tell the truth.

Transcript

Series Kickoff And The Big Idea

TJ 0:00

Welcome to the Leadership Buzz with Lloyd Buzz Buzzell, an International Coaching Federation credentialed coach, disc practitioner, and retired Air Force officer with 37 years of leadership experience. This podcast is for leaders who want to align behavior with values and grow in self-awareness. And each episode features one book, one idea, one story, and three coaching questions to help you reflect on your leadership. Work hard. Tell the truth. Here's Buzz.

Buzz 0:30

Let's roll over the next three weeks. One lesson keeps showing up. Great teams don't happen by accident. Most teams have talented people, many have a clear mission, but talent and good intentions alone don't create high performance. The best teams think differently, communicate differently, and build trust differently. And when challenges come, and they always do, they respond differently. That's what this series is about. In part one, we'll explore what is really meant to be on the same page and why shared understanding is the foundation of every successful team. In part two, we'll look at why trust and healthy conflict matter. The best teams don't avoid conflict conversations. They learn to have them in ways that strengthen relationships, improve decisions, and build accountability. And finally, in part three, we'll explore how great teams continue to grow. We'll discuss coaching, learning, and continuous improvement, and why the strongest teams are never finished, and they're always learning, adapting, and getting better together. Whether you lead a business, coach a team, volunteer to church, or simply want to become a better teammate, I think you'll find ideas you can put into practice immediately. So let's get started.

TJ 1:51

Today, Buzz begins a three-part series on Teams That Work by Scott Tannenbaum and Eduardo Sallas. Drawing on decades of research into high-performing teams, the authors identify the characteristics that consistently separate exceptional teams from average ones. In other words, before teams can perform together, they have to think together. Over to you, Buzz.

When Meetings Feel Aligned But Aren’t

Buzz 2:36

Thanks, TJ. Hey, have you ever walked out of a meeting thinking that went really well? Everyone nodded. Nobody challenged the plan. No one seemed confused. You leave pretty you leave feeling pretty good about yourself as a leader. Then about a week later, one person's working on priority A. Another thing priority B is the most important thing. Someone says, I thought we decided. Another says, that's not what I heard. And someone else says, nobody told me that. What happened? Was it a communication problem? Maybe. But maybe it was something deeper. Over the next three weeks, we're going to explore one of the best books I've read on teamwork, Teams That Work by Scott Tannenbaum and Eduardo Salas. I've spent almost 40 years serving on leading and now coaching teams. I've worked with missile crews, headquarters staff, inspector general teams, executive leadership groups, some nonprofit organizations, church volunteers, and now leaders in business. Here's one thing I've learned. Great teams don't happen by accident. Most organizations have very smart people and talented people. Most have people who genuinely care. And yet, there are teams that consistently outperform everyone else. Why? That's the question this book tries to answer. Today we're going to try to begin with what I believe is one of the most important ideas in the entire book. It's taught called team cognition. Now don't let that word scare you. It sounds like something you'd hear in a graduate school. The authors define team cognition as a shared, accurate, and complementary understanding that a team possesses.

Team Cognition Versus Simple Communication

Buzz 4:14

Great definition. Here's my version. Are we really on the same page? Because that's what leaders are trying to accomplish every single day. Not just communication, shared understanding. And there's a huge difference. Communication is sending a message. Leadership is creating shared understanding. Think about that for a second. We've all sent meetings and held meetings and sent emails, given presentations and conducted briefings. What did everybody leave with the same understanding? Those are two completely different questions. I think one of the biggest mistakes leaders make is assuming that because everyone heard the message. Everyone understood the message, but they didn't. People here through different experiences, while they're under different pressures with different responsibilities and make assumptions. And assumptions are expensive. One of my favorite leadership questions is this. If I interviewed every member of your team separately tomorrow morning, would they tell me the same story? Not word for word, but would the picture would the picture be the same? Would they describe this describe the same destination with the same priorities and expectations? Because if they wouldn't, your team is not aligned. They're simply working hard. There's a difference.

TJ 5:37

Buzz, when you say shared understanding, what exactly should everyone understand?

Buzz 5:44

Great question. Let's walk

The Seven Areas Teams Must Share

Buzz 5:46

through it. The authors describe several areas where high-performing teams develop shared understanding. The first is purpose. Why do we exist? Notice I didn't ask what do we do? I asked why do we exist? Every organization has tasks, but great teams understand purpose. Purpose answers the question, why does our work matter? If I walked around your office, your team, your organization tomorrow and asked 10 people, why does this team exist? Would I hear one answer or would I hear 10? Or 10 different types of answers? Purpose creates meaning. Without that meaning, people simply complete assignments and tasks. The second area is vision. Where are we going? Where are we headed? What does success actually look like? Not leadership jargon, not the mission statement hanging on the wall or the bumper sticker. But can people explain success in their own words simply? If they can't, they're probably creating ten different versions of success. The third thing is priorities. This one gets leaders into trouble all the time. Everything cannot be priority one. If everything is urgent, nothing is. Imagine asking every member of your team, what are the three most important things we're trying to accomplish right now? Would you hear the same three answers? Because here's what I've seen and observed. Busy is not the same as aligned. People can work incredibly hard doing all kinds of things on completely different things. The fourth area is roles. Who owns what? Who makes which decisions, and where does my responsibility end and yours begin? Role clarity creates confidence, while role confusion creates frustration. I've rarely seen people become discouraged because they had responsibility. I've seen plenty of people become discouraged because responsibility wasn't clear. The fifth area is expertise. This one really resonated with me. Great teams know who knows what. Think about your own team. If something unexpected happens this afternoon, who do people call? Who has that experience? Who understands the system? And who's seen it before? High performing teams don't waste valuable time figuring that out during a crisis. They already know. The six areas contingencies. What happens if the plan changes? What if plan A doesn't work? What if it's wrong? What if the customer changes requirements? What if key people are unavailable? During my Air Force career, we rarely assumed everything would go according to planned. We have saying that first contact with the enemy destroys every plan. We would plan things and then we plan for what when the plan changed. Then we plan for what that plan changed. Not because we expected failure, because reality has a vote. The enemy gets a vote. The strongest teams don't panic when circumstances change. They adapt to it because they've already had that conversation. And finally, we talk about the situation. Situation awareness. Does everyone understand what's happening around them? Not just inside their own office, but around the organization. What challenges are coming, the opportunities that are there, and those risks that are emerging? The best teams don't just know their job, they understand the environment and the system they're operating in. Now think about those seven areas purpose, vision, priorities, roles, expertise, contingencies, situation awareness. And here's the question. Are we really on the same page? Because here's something I've learned over the years. People can't row in the same direction if they're looking at different maps.

Assumptions And The Hidden Cost

Buzz 9:47

So why does this matter? Because leaders don't get paid to simply communicate. They get paid to create clarity. I've coached enough leaders over the past few years to notice a pattern. Most leadership problems don't begin with bad people. They begin with good people carrying different assumptions. Think about how many times you've heard these phrases. I thought, I assumed, nobody told me, I didn't realize. Those aren't just communication breakdowns. They're evidence that people were working from different mental pictures. I think those may be some of the most expensive words in leadership. I thought. Because once assumptions enter the picture, confusion follows close by.

TJ 10:29

So Buzz, how does a leader know if everyone is really on the same page?

Questions That Verify Understanding

Buzz 10:35

That's the question. And I think the answer is much simpler than most leaders think. Ask not what does everyone understand? Because what does everyone say? Yep. Instead ask questions that require people to explain. Tell me what success looks like. What are our top three priorities? If this changes tomorrow with our plan, what happens next? Who owns this decision? Those questions don't test intelligence. They reveal understanding. One of the best leadership habits I've ever seen is asking people to explain the plan in their own words. Not because you're checking up on them, because you're checking understanding. That's a big difference. One lesson that stayed with me throughout the Air Force career was never assume shared understanding. Verify it every briefing, operation, and mission. Not because people weren't capable, because the stakes weren't too high for assumptions. I've carried that lesson into coaching. Whether I'm coaching a senior executive, a nonprofit leader, or someone stepping into a brand new leadership role, one question keeps surfacing. What does your team actually understand? Not what have you told them? Those are two very different questions. Here's something else. Sometimes we confuse agreement with alignment. They're not the same. People can agree in the meeting and still leave with completely different interpretations. And believe me, silence isn't proof of alignment. Sometimes silence simply means no one asked the question everybody was thinking. Great leaders

The Monday Morning Alignment Test

Buzz 12:15

create space for clarification. One of my favorite leadership habits is something I'll call the Monday morning test. Imagine this next Monday morning. You pull five members of your team aside, one at a time, not as a group, nothing formal, and you just ask them five simple questions. Why does our team exist? What's our number one priority right now this morning on Monday? And what does success look like over the next six months? Who owns what? And if something unexpected happens tomorrow, what do we do? Now imagine comparing those five conversations. Would you hear one story or five? If the answers are different, you just identified your next leadership conversation. Not because everyone failed, because clarity needs reinforcement. Alignment isn't an event, it's a leadership discipline. As I prepared for this episode, one thought kept coming back to me. I've spent more than four decades on teams. Some were great, some struggled, but looking back, I don't think the biggest difference was talent. I think it was clarity. We shared that same picture and we knew why it existed. Those great teams understand what mattered the most. They knew who was responsible for what, and they trusted each other's expertise. They anticipated change instead of fearing it, and when challenges came, they responded together. Not because they had all the answers, because they shared the same understanding. That's team cognition, and that's where great teams begin. So before your next meeting, before your next strategy session, before your next one-on-one, ask yourself one simple question. Are we really on the same page? You might be surprised about that answer. And if you're not sure, ask, listen, and clarify. Because one of the greatest gifts a leader can give a team is clarity.

Clarity Discipline And Coaching Questions

TJ 14:08

Buzz, final thoughts.

Buzz 14:11

Here's something I've learned. Clarity has a short shelf life. Great leaders don't communicate once, they communicate until there's shared understanding. Good luck this week. Work hard and tell the truth.

TJ 14:25

Coach Buzz, can you give us this week's three coaching questions for our listeners?

Buzz 14:32

This week's three coaching questions. If I sat down with each member of your team individually, what do you think they would tell me about your team's purpose, priorities, and goals? Two, where do you have confidence that your team shares the same understanding, and where are you less certain? And then finally, what conversation could you have this week that would help your team leave with greater clarity and shared understanding? Remember, great teams aren't built because everyone hears the same message. They're built because everyone shares the same understanding. Work hard, tell the truth.

TJ 15:09

Thanks for joining us for part one of our series on teams that work by Scott Tannenbaum and Eduardo Salas. Today, Buzz challenged us to think about an important leadership question. Is everyone really on the same page? High-performing teams don't just work together, they share a common understanding of where they're going, why it matters, and how each person contributes. Next time, we'll continue exploring what separates exceptional teams from the rest. Until then, keep learning, keep leading, and thanks for listening to the leadership buzz. Back to you, Buzz.

Buzz 15:48

Thanks for listening to the Leadership Buzz. If you found this episode helpful, please subscribe so you don't miss future conversations. And if you have a moment, leave a rating or review that helps other leaders discover the show. If these kinds of leadership questions resonate with you and you'd like to explore them more deeply, feel free to reach out to me. Coaching conversations often start exactly this way. Until next time, work hard, tell the truth.