Designing Productive Relationships to Create Effective Team Dynamics
- Klaus Lombardozzi
- 14 minutes ago
- 4 min read
In every organisation, at both the individual and team level, work is always unfolding on two parallel tracks. The first is the efficiency track. This includes organisational essentials such as agreements, KPIs, deadlines, quality standards, contracts, plans, goals, roles, and responsibilities, all aimed at achieving the targets and outcomes the business needs to achieve. It answers the question: “What are we here to achieve?” and highlights the key characteristics of an effective team in terms of structure and accountability.
The second is the relationship track. This track encompasses organisational culture, values, and behavioural norms, shaping how people engage with one another to achieve positive team dynamics in pursuit of shared goals. It answers the question: “How are we, or how do we want to be with each other to achieve what we have set out to achieve?”

By viewing our organisational efforts through the lens of these two tracks, leaders can better orient their focus and steer their organisations toward long-term, sustainable success.
Understanding the Relationship Field
Every action we take, individually or collectively, occurs within a broader relationship field. You can think of this field as the atmosphere or environment in which people work. It’s the felt sense of “what is it like to work here,” often referred to as team dynamics or workplace culture.
Most leaders and organisational leaders hold a bias towards the efficiency track. D
elivering on plans, meeting deadlines, ensuring measurable outcomes, and maintaining accountability are fundamental to a well-run organisation. These are essential in moving the business to its desired outcomes.
However, this natural focus can create an unintended blind spot. When the efficiency track is overemphasised at the expense of the relationship track, it creates tension in the relationship field. That relationship tension eventually undermines the very efficiency we’re trying to drive.
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A well run efficiency track is a strength, once overused, it throttles efficiency. Sustaining team performance and fostering cross-organisational collaboration demands a more balanced focus, holding a dynamic ‘and’ between efficiency structures and healthy interpersonal team dynamics.

It is natural for leaders to have a greater focus on all matters related to the efficiency track. These factors get the centre of attention in daily meetings and in quarterly and annual reviews. In comparison, people surveys are done mostly only once a year, and a deeper dive into the psychological well being of people, even less frequently.
Organisation and Relationship Coaching (ORSC) Training offered by CRR Afrika supports leaders to hold a more balanced approach and achieve more sustainable outcomes. Sustaining efficiency can only be achieved through skilled and intentional leadership in the relationship field.
The Role of Team Dynamics in Organisational Performance
Without strong, intentional attention to the human dimension of work, even the best strategies and plans can falter. Effective team dynamics are not a "nice to have", they are essential for navigating the complexity of today’s fast-paced business environments.
To build and maintain these dynamics, leaders will benefit from understanding both the characteristics of an effective team and the forces that shape their behaviour over time.
Tried and tested for over 20 years across the globe, one such model for understanding team dynamics is Organisation and Relationship Systems Coaching (ORSC). ORSC equips leaders with practical tools and systems thinking to influence the broader relationship field in which their teams operate.
Using ORSC Training, What Are the Best Steps to Building an Effective Team?
Establish a Strong Foundation
Clarify Purpose & Vision: Align the team on the "why" of their existence. ORSC teaches that shared vision is a bonding agent
Create a Team Identity: Use various ORSC tools like the Relationship Myth and Team Alliances to help the team define its unique story and shared values.
Focus on Relationship Systems Intelligence (RSI)
Shift from “I” to “We”: Train the team to see themselves as an interconnected system. Relationship Systems Intelligence™ (RSI) is a powerful framework that enables leaders to lead from a systems perspective, understanding the individual as a contributor to the whole.
Listen for the System’s Voice: Encourage everyone to pay attention to individual opinions as an aspect of the overall field. This enhances safety and contribution.
Build Psychological Safety
Conflict is Energy: In ORSC, conflict isn’t bad. It’s a signal of something the system is trying to evolve. Psychological safety teaches the team to handle conflict constructively.
Use Tools like Deep Democracy: Learn to work with and tap into the diverse spectrum of perspectives and approaches, even holding space for the unpopular voices, enhancing engagement, creativity and resilience.
Understanding Roles and Structure
Roles: Roles are at the core of organisational effectiveness. ORSC offers a systems lens to understand both formal and informal roles and how they support organisational effectiveness.
Shared Leadership: Leadership is a role that belongs to the system. At a formal level, it belongs to designated leaders and managers. At an informal level the role needs to be occupied by everyone in the organisation. Leadership, in all roles, is a core requirement for sustained effectiveness.
Leverage Diversity & Polarities
Overcome with Silo Mentality: ORSC offers leaders the tools and skills to work with silo mentality across the organisation, strengthening horizontal collaboration.
Honour Each Perspective: Instead of eliminating differences, integrate them to expand team capacity. ORSC helps leaders hold the creative tension of ‘and’ in overcoming conflict.
Sustain Growth Through Reflection
Periodic Meta-View: Step back and ask, “How are we doing as a system?”
Positivity: Learn ways to increase positivity in the team or across teams.
ORSC Training with CRR Afrika
CRR Afrika provides a comprehensive ORSC training curriculum designed for leaders and coaches across the African continent. The complete ORSC training programme, comprising five modules, offers you 27 practical skills and 40 tools, all taught through experiential learning. The emphasis is on immediate application, giving you the confidence to integrate these practices directly into your day-to-day work.
How to Stay Connected?
Explore our 2025 schedule to join one of our upcoming Fundamentals courses. To find out more about ORSC at CRR Afrika, and how we can help you strengthen the effective team dynamics in your organisation, schedule a call with us.

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