Successful team working skills
Working effectively and productively with others
Douglas Miller
Objectives
This ebook has three core objectives:
- To understand how to build your credibility and trustworthiness so that you enhance your capacity to work effectively and productively with others as part of a team.
- To understand and apply the different roles that drive team performance.
- To understand and apply a range of behavioural/communication skills that will help you work effectively and productively with others as part of a team.
Overview
Our three core objectives are achieved through a simple two-part structure.
Part one: ‘Me’
Reflecting on you and what you can personally bring to your team. The focus of Part One will be on building your ‘credibility’ and making yourself ‘trustworthy’ in the eyes of other team members. We will also look at the behavioural roles you are best suited in the team. For example, you might prefer to be an ‘ideas’ person (a ‘creator’) or are better at mending difficult relationships in the team (a ‘harmoniser’).
Part two: ‘We’
Reflecting on your interactions with team members and the responsibilities you have in three situations:
- team meetings
- as part of a collaborative team
- as part of a virtual or remote team
In addition it is packed with tips and suggestions, highlights potential pitfalls and offers opportunities for self-assessment that will help you play your part in an effective, dynamic team.
Context
It’s a curious paradox of modern life that, in an age when we seem to have become more individualistic and self-seeking, effective team working is perhaps the single thing that employers value more than anything else when looking for top ‘performance’. The era, for better or worse, of the ‘lone wolf’ has gone, to be replaced by the need for collaborative working, team innovation and collective responsibility. These are skills that organisations value so highly because it seems the most effective way to get results.
This applies to the world of entertainment and sport just as much as it does to the majority of us who work in the more conventional business environments. The remarkable success of Leicester City in English football’s Premier League in 2016 shows us the power of coming together as a true team when the parts of the team i.e. the individual players were not, at least on paper, as strong as those of wealthier teams who could buy the best players. Think too of high-profile performers such as Beyoncé. On her 2016 album Lemonade, Beyoncé had over seventy songwriters listed as part of the song writing ‘team’. As well as the songwriters, she is the ‘front’ for musicians, publicists, producers, engineers, technicians and so on. And that’s just for recording. Think what else is needed for live shows. The performer performs his/her or their role and others perform theirs. It’s a team.
Challenge
You can probably think back to the times, as you went through education, when you were told to work hard, revise hard and secure the qualifications needed to ensure your success when you start work. All good advice of course but there is nearly always one important piece of advice that’s missing. While qualifications get us to the ‘door’ of the building, when we start work it can come as a profound shock to some that all of those formal qualifications we have may not count for much, unless the qualification is directly vocational which for most is not the case.
Suddenly, we find that a whole new raft of success criteria appear – how we communicate, collaborate, create, perform as part of a team, give and receive feedback, and influence are all part of a suite of what have become ‘soft skills’ that will be critical in determining the level of success you attain through working life. Of course, many of us learn these skills to an extent as we grow up, and education systems are getting far better at educating the ‘whole’ person in preparation for work and adult life in general. You may have experienced this wider ‘life’ education for yourself. But even taking this into account the challenge is to adapt to a new reality. A reality that says: ‘qualification … good … but can you function effectively with others? Do you see the value of what you bring to the team and can you demonstrate that value in a productive way? Do you believe that a great team delivers so much more than the sum of its parts?’
The challenge is to truly believe:
‘I can be “me”
but I can be a better “me”
if I recognise
the collective strength of “we”’
ASSESS YOURSELF
Before we start the ‘Me’ section of this ebook, why not take a bit of time out now to consider teams you have been a part of in your life so far – at school and through further education, in sports teams and clubs. Were they successful? What made them succeed? If they weren’t as successful as they could have been why was that?
Part One: ‘Me’
Credibility and trustworthiness
Successful teams need every team member to play his or her part. If you think about the things you need to do to be effective you’ll start to recognise that few, if any of them can be done well if you lack credibility in the eyes of your team colleagues. You want to feel like a fully contributing member of your team? You may find it hard if you lack credibility because you won’t be given responsibilities in the team. Have an idea you want to share at the team meeting? No one’s listening if you lack credibility.
ASSESS YOURSELF
So, before we start Part One of this ebook more formally take a moment now to think about your own credibility. How do others perceive you? You have many things in your favour – energy, ideas and a desire to do well. But, you also have some things that work against you in these early stages of your career – your age and experience for example, and these will likely have an impact on your credibility in the eyes of some of the team.
Your credibility will need to be earned, over time. You cannot expect it right away, particularly if this is your first job or you are still in the early stages of your career. Trust is the happy outcome of your credibility – as your credibility grows, you will be increasingly trusted by your teammates and by the team’s leader or manager. It’s a great feeling when you know people are starting to trust you. You get more freedom, greater opportunity to express yourself and more responsibility in the team.
OK, perhaps you’re now asking ‘how’? You’ve probably got some ideas yourself and you can start thinking about this by asking what makes others credible and trustworthy in your own eyes. In this ebook, recommendations are made based on two dimensions:
- Your professional competence
- Your relational competence
Of course, they are closely related and can overlap, so we look at them together:
Your professional and relational competence
Here are key guidelines to building credibility and trustworthiness through a combination of your professional approach and your awareness of the value of strong relationships.
You are professional and consistent in your approach to work.
Above all team colleagues want to see a job done well and in a way that reflects positively on your suitability to operate in a business or business like environment.
You do what you say you are going to do
You meet your obligations and commitments including deadlines, meetings etc.. In a later part of this ebook, we look more specifically at your responsibilities in team meetings. Nothing gets noticed more than when deadlines get consistently missed. As part of a team you are a link in a chain. Do your best to make sure you are not the link that always breaks.
You are respectful in your behaviour with others
This includes respect for the range of views, beliefs and backgrounds likely to exist within your team. In today’s globalised economies, with people moving around from all parts of the world, the chances are you will be working in a team with people who are ‘not like me’ whether it’s an office, a fast-food outlet or in a team whose interactions are mostly online.
You have a code of conduct which is transparent and appropriate
Many people are good at saying what and who they are as a person but teammates will make their judgements on what you actually do not just on what you say. If you have ever watched ‘The Apprentice’ on TV you’ve probably heard the phrase ‘walk the talk’. It’s become a bit of a cliché now but like most clichés it has a lot of truth to it.
You are honest
By this I mean you are professionally honest. For example, telling a teammate he or she is ‘hopeless’ (it does happen!) is honest, if you really think this, but it’s certainly not professionally honest and it’s not at all helpful either. It does mean admitting to lack of knowledge and acknowledging your mistakes when they happen. It also includes giving feedback. This is not preserve of the team’s leader – in a great team a culture of openness must exist. If, for example, someone’s putting some figures together for you and you don’t understand the way they are presented you can be direct (in most Western European and North American cultures) by saying so – ‘I found the figures difficult to understand’ – in a way that focuses on the problem and not the person – ‘You’re not very good at presenting figures’.
You are authentic
This means not trying to be something or somebody you are not. ‘Faking it’ gets noticed. Ironically the fakers don’t seem to even know that teammates have worked them out. Be what feels natural to you, although at times you may have to behave in a way that doesn’t feel natural because what you are doing at the time demands flexibility. That’s not the same as being a fake.
You are relational
This builds over time as colleagues get to know you better through ‘off-topic’ conversation, sharing meals, a drink or a cup of coffee. People want to know the real you through spending time with you. They also of course want you to be interested in them too. People talk about ‘people’ – particularly colleagues who are more focused on relationships. Your reputation as a person will follow you. If it’s good, those colleagues who value strong relationships will trust you. A few years ago, one observer of the relationships within teams, particularly teams who aren’t always physically together, said that stronger bonds are formed when team members:
- commit to spending time with team colleagues in environments where the focus is not just about work;
- are open to the conversation between team colleagues – including you of course – being intense and more personal than may be the case where the focus is not just about work-related topics;
- feel comfortable having ‘confidants’ in the team – with those who have a preference for opening up themselves because they are more likely to respond positively to.
TIP
This is particularly important if you are new to work. Some humility is good at any time but particularly when you are new. If you have particular challenges, things you don’t understand e.g. when you are trying to negotiate the weird world of corporate ‘jargon’, then saying so gains respect. ‘Blaggers’ get found out.
Offer support and help when needed
The atmosphere is very much ‘I help you and you help me’.
TIP
An offer to have a coffee or even some lunch with a colleague should not be spurned if it is important for someone who needs to get to know the real ‘you’ if he or she is going to work with you.
POTENTIAL PITFALL
You are of course here to do a job. There is a danger of an over-commitment to ‘relationships’ is that it can demand a lot of you and drain your energy levels. You find yourself getting involved in the minutiae of individual problems and lack the time to commit to your own work challenges. A line must be drawn.
ASSESS YOURSELF
Look at the diagram below and ask yourself towards which end of the scale you sit? What is it that earns your trust – is it professional or relational that means the most for you? It’s likely that you are not at one end or the other, but that you want the security of knowing people get stuff done that affects you, but also that you aren’t in a team of humanlike machines! But you may have a preference for one more than the other. And then why not try and plot where you think your team colleagues sit on the scale.
If you are going to be in a team for a long period of time then both your sources of trustworthiness will need to shine through. Like you, most people in your team are not judging whether your trustworthiness comes exclusively from one source or the other.
Checklist
As a start point, to be credible and trustworthy in the team you need to be:
- reliable
- consistent
- professional
- honest
- respectful
- supportive
- ‘safe’ to talk to
Your role in the team
Besides your credibility and trustworthiness the other focus of the first part of this ebook looks at the roles you perform in your team. There are two groups of roles that team members need to perform so that a team works effectively. These are ‘technical’ and ‘behavioural’.
Technical roles
The ‘technical roles’ relate to the specific nature of the work you do. They will depend on individual knowledge and expertise and may even require formal qualifications to perform them effectively. You may be employed because you have that specific expertise. Applying your knowledge and skills will therefore be one way in which you contribute to the work of the team.
Behavioural roles
‘Behavioural roles’ relate particularly to the behavioural preferences you and your colleagues display individually as the team goes about its work. Most generally agree that there are a small number of roles that must be performed. These are listed below together with the behaviour associated with the roles.
ASSESS YOURSELF
As you go through the list below start forming some initial ideas about what your own preferences might be. Think about teams you have been in in the past (through education as well as your early days in the workplace) and what behavioural contribution you made.
The roles:
- Leaders/coordinators – direction
- Energisers – action
- Creators – ideas
- Harmonisers – relationships
- Achievers – results
- Challengers – restraint
- Networkers – resources
Let’s look at these roles and how they fit into the teams work:
Your team needs direction (team goals for example) – otherwise it’s actions are meaningless; it needs energetic, active people who drive the team forward; it needs fresh thinking and creativity; it needs someone to act as the ‘emotional glue’ in the team, maintaining strong relationships; it needs to achieve its goals – to get results; it needs a brake against ill-thought through decisions and action; and it needs people who connect the team with the world beyond it – no team works for the sake of itself.
ASSESS YOURSELF
So, what does this mean for you? First you need to establish which roles suit you best and if you’ve followed the earlier guidance you’ve already started thinking about this. A key consideration is that although all these roles need to be performed in an effective team it is unlikely that you perform only one of them. The likelihood is that two, or perhaps even three, are a natural fit for you. In addition it is also likely that other colleagues in the team perform more than one role effectively and that the behavioural preferences that others have will overlap with your own. It may also be the case that one or two roles have to be performed by team members even if the role doesn’t come particularly naturally to any team member. At times that will mean you doing this.
TIP
Playing your part in the effective performance of your team is important. But all of us have a tendency to see the world through our own eyes, artificially promoting the value that we individually bring to the team. Remember that each role is of equal value and without the performance of each role the team’s performance dips. Appreciate that although you have your role(s) to play, others play equally important roles as well.
For each role we will look at what the roles involve and the benefits the role brings to the team – and you can think about how you behave and interact in your team and what roles or roles you naturally gravitate towards. We will look at the strengths of each role but also the pitfalls. These pitfalls relate to the vulnerabilities associated with over-indulging your strengths. The word ‘vulnerability’ means that a behaviour has an important place, but that it also can be damaging in certain situations. For example, stubbornness can be an asset when applied to ill-thought through plans that might land the team with problems, but it can be frustrating when the team is in a fast-moving situation and needs to act quickly.
As you read through these roles think about your own behaviour. What have you bought to teams that you have been involved in over the last few years? What roles fit most naturally with you?
If you are an energiser
Strengths
As an energiser you provide an initial impetus – the ‘can do’ attitude – that teams need when they are working on new ideas and initiatives. You are good at seeing the reasons for doing things first (before the reasons for inaction) and people can be inspired by the positive attitude you display. As an energiser you also have a real ‘intrapreneurial’ streak. Intrapreneurs are the employed version of entrepreneurs – people who run their own businesses. You like putting new ideas into action.
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
- If you are an energiser don’t be put off by the number of vulnerabilities.
- Energisers can be so fast-moving that people can’t keep up – significant when you need the support of the team. Don’t leave things ‘half-done’ because the next thing is more exciting.
- Do you have a road map? Energisers do lots of things but do you do the right things? There is a difference between ‘doing’ and ‘achieving’.
- In your desire for action, if things get quiet, you may embark on ill-considered action.
TIP
As an energiser you are likely to be very task-orientated. That’s great, but ‘ways and means’ are important too – the discussions about ‘how do we do this’ may be frustrating to you if they go on too long (and sometimes they do). Be tolerant of those in other roles, such as the challengers, who may provide an important break against actions that haven’t been thought through properly and could be damaging.
TIP
Energisers might not admit when they are struggling. If this is you there is no shame in asking for help when confronted with possible heroic failure.
If you are a creator
Strengths
As a creator you are an idea generator and a potential problem-solver in the team. You can be great too at spotting new opportunities – even simple things like little tweaks to administrative processes. You may be voluble, but equally as a creator you may well be thoughtful and contemplative. You act as a ‘team helicopter’ hovering above a situation, making an assessment of that situation and considering a range of possible alternatives to deal with the situation.
As well as having ideas, the creators should be good at building on the ideas of others. Many teams satisfy themselves with a limited number of new ideas or allow good initial ideas to remain under-developed. As a creator of new thoughts, you can develop these ideas.
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
If you are at the contemplator/thinker end of the scale, don’t hide your thoughts. A good leader will recognise this and draw your thoughts out, but don’t rely on this. You have insights and thoughts that are of immense value, so do try to come forward. The section on assertiveness will help if this is an issue for you.
As a creator you see ‘the bigger picture’. However, you may get lost in your thoughts and, as a consequence, you may get stuck in the opposite of this – the minutiae – and struggle to break out of a limited perspective.
New thinking can be a game with no end. At some point ideas and options need to be moved on into action.
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Ideas people can sometimes be very forthcoming with their ideas. Others can however be much quieter to the point where they do not express their ideas at all. Unless you’re having these ideas as a form of intellectual exercise for your own benefit, there’s no point having them. Find your voice. It may take time, and, as we have seen, your credibility is important in making sure others in the team want to hear them. Nonetheless, get those thoughts and ideas out there.
If you are a harmoniser
Strengths
You are concerned with the preservation of good relationships within your group. Of all of the roles this is the one that is the most under-valued (being seen by some as a bit ‘soft and fluffy’). This role has the same value as the others but it is tempting to say that ‘ideas’ (creators) and ‘action’ (achievers, doers) are more important because they are more tangible and add more obvious visible value. Your role as a harmoniser is tough to perform but essential to the wellbeing of the team.
You generate team cohesion through good relationships between team members. Your role is often a subtle, less obvious one. But it is a critical one. Teams need emotional glue – a bind that keeps them together through the challenges, the conflicts, the disagreements and the stresses of day-to-day working. Because ‘harmonisers’ are emotionally and socially intelligent you sense what the ‘emotional climate’ is within the team and can iron out problems, so use the skills we associate with this such as listening, empathy and mediation. But they probably come naturally to you anyway.
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In the desire for team accord the harmonisers might feel the need to harmonise in situations where there is disagreement or even mild conflict. If this is you then reflect that a little creative, constructive tension in the team can be a good thing. Harmonising becomes valuable when the disagreement becomes destructive.
If you are an achiever
Strengths
Although energisers spark action there is no guarantee that energisers achieve the right things – getting a result is not the same as getting the right result. As an achiever you do just that. You don’t just get ‘stuff’ done. You get the right ‘stuff’ done. You help the team meet its goals because you focus on deadlines and results. You check detail, often have a direct, no-nonsense style and use failure as a spur to future success. You may be a ‘quiet’ achiever but those who know the work of the team know the work you do for the team.
Because of your attention to detail, you recognise the need for systems and procedures and you are willing to pick up the administrative shortfall.
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
As an achiever you are likely to be aware of your value. This means you might not be great at sharing or delegating. This may come from the need for control. This need for control can cause stress if you feel loss of control and the stress can easily permeate the team if it’s not managed. Some achievers nag others because they are driven to finish work and this can create tension. Not everyone works in the same way as you and you need to curb your frustration.
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Achievers attend to the details but not everyone shares this attention to detail. Be prepared to think through the way you approach people explaining why you need certain things e.g. an extra set of figures, or an additional proof-read of an important document. Achievers can be tough on others (as well as themselves) and it can rub some people up the wrong way.
If you are a challenger
Strengths
As a challenger you are analytical, weighing up the options and sounding warnings when potential action has been badly thought through. The energisers in particular can find this frustrating, and as a consequence you might not be the most popular member of the team. But, if this is you, you may not be too bothered by this!
You are good at playing the devil’s advocate role. You look at problems in different ways and ask ‘How would “x” see this?’ or ‘Can we look at this a different way?’
You have high standards, searching for continuous improvement and you are a natural ‘quality controller’ in a team, possibly along with the achievers. You bring the benefit of strategic thinking, planning ahead and thinking through the consequences of actions beyond the short-term.
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
Does everything need to be perfect? Are there times when ‘good enough is good enough’? There are times when the pursuit of perfection isn’t necessary – Facebook, for example, use the motto ‘done is better than perfect’. Be judicious in where you challenge.
In the next section on ‘collaboration’ we look at how to challenge ideas without damaging relationships or killing creativity. This can be a vulnerability for challengers who are prone to using ‘yes … but’ type statements.
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These days some people talk of your biggest weaknesses being the over-indulging of your strengths. For example, there are times when ‘challenging’ can be overdone to the point where everything gets challenged and little progress is made. So, if that’s you, choose carefully where you think it’s right to challenge and where you can let go. You lose credibility if you challenge everything.
If you are a networker
Strengths
As a networker you are a valuable member of the team but a lot of your work is done beyond the team. You work around traditional hierarchies, building relationships with people throughout your organisation. You are in touch with the ‘political’ climate, in tune with gossip and trends. You are a good communicator and inclined to extraversion, though certainly not always – contacts are often built up in more subtle ways.
Teams often slip into silo mentality – separating the work they do from other teams, the organisation as a whole and the world outside. As a networker you are valuable in connecting the team to the world beyond the team, reminding team members that they cannot operate in isolation.
You bring resources, contacts and new thinking. Your work may extend beyond the organisation into customers, suppliers and even competitors.
You are an ambassador for the team and you have the interpersonal skills that can show the work of the team.
You identify opportunities for the team.
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
Networkers can be random in outlook and you need to filter out what isn’t useful from what is. If you are a natural networker allow the challengers in, because they can do this. Don’t treat them as a threat or take objective comments personally.
The randomness does also mean sometimes moving from one thing to another leaving others to pick up the pieces.
Networking is a randomised activity because you can’t know what connections have value and which don’t. Treat networking as an altruistic rather than as a self-seeking activity. The ‘users’ soon get spotted.
Leaders/coordinators
Finally we come to the role that you might personally identify least with if you are relatively new to working life – leadership. Leader/coordinators will create a vision, direction or purpose and keep us working towards team goals, and you’ve probably read a bit about what a great leader is and some of the historical examples you picked up through education. However, there are many people who don’t think leadership exists. They say that what we really mean is credibility. Are you credible enough to be able to take a particular group of people in a particular direction for a particular amount of time – even five minutes?
If you agree with this (and this writer certainly agrees with the points made about credibility) then think about yourself in those terms – at particular times you are able to provide a sense of direction for the team through your specialist knowledge and skills in a particular area; your more general credibility; your ‘empathic’ approach; your sense of ‘direction’ for the team and your charisma. In addition technological ‘savvy’ also draws people towards those who have it (because most of us really want it!). For some it will be because of all of these.
Strengths
Without direction or purpose most action is meaningless. Without thinking through the steps necessary to achieve team goals these goals are wishful ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if’ dreams. Your strength is in keeping the team goal-centred.
TIP
There is a contemporary saying that goes ‘When it is necessary to lead, then lead. When it is necessary to be led, then be led’. This implies emotional maturity on your part in that when a team member moves into a position where their behavioural and technical skills are needed to provide direction and focus for the group (and they have credibility in the role) then your ego should be supressed so that you don’t see this ad hoc movement into a leadership role as a challenge to you. There is nothing that impacts team effectiveness more than groups of competing egos.
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
Leadership and co-ordination can be done in different ways. Generally people fit into two camps – supportive and directive. Directive people tend to advocate and tell and as the word implies they ‘direct’ people to take a particular path. Supportive people tend to lead on the basis of consensus and collaboration. The skill is to realise what is needed – to adapt your style to the person and the situation. For example, in a crisis, a telling approach works better. If you’re young and surrounded by a group of experienced experts you aren’t going to get far by shooting from the hip i.e. being directive with people. Your supportive, more people-centred approach will work better.
Checklist
- Teams have a number of key roles – technical and behavioural – that need to be performed, click here to review.
- The seven key behavioural roles are: leader/co-ordinator, energiser, creator, harmoniser, achiever, challenger, and networker, click here to review.
- You will have at least one behavioural role type that comes more naturally to you than others – possibly up to three although in rare cases more, click here to review.
- Use the strengths of the role type for the benefit of the team, click here to review.
- Be aware that most role types also come with potential vulnerabilities – ‘pitfalls’ as I have described them – that affect the team’s output, click here to review.
Part Two: ‘We’
In this second part of this ebook we do less personal reflection and instead look at the different situations where the team meets – physically or virtually – and how you can maximise the value you offer to the team. Specifically, we look at three situations:
- at team meetings;
- when ‘collaborating’ – specifically to solve problems and create opportunities;
- when part of a remote team – a team that can’t always be (or perhaps rarely are) physically together.
At team meetings
If you have some work experience behind you, you will recognise that meetings form a key part of working life. Of course, although some jobs e.g. working in a call/contact centre, may mean that you go to fewer meetings than others, for most they are part of the dynamic of working life where information is shared, ideas generated and decisions made. Sometimes these things don’t happen. One reason is that the chair/facilitator/moderator doesn’t perform their role properly. Another is that the people who participate don’t perform their role properly. This section looks at your role and how you behave before and during the meeting. You have three areas to work on here:
- your preparation before the team meeting;
- your performance in the team meeting;
- your presence in the team meeting.
Your preparation
Meetings are not things that happen to you. You need to play your part as a participant, but to do that well you need to prepare. Here are three essentials that form part of your preparation:
Review
Read your minutes from the previous meetings and /or any notes you may have taken. If you made commitments have you met them? You are very likely to be exposed in a meeting if you haven’t done what you said you were going to do or if you make excuses such as ‘I haven’t had time to do it yet’.
Agenda
In an ideal world the setting of the agenda will be a consultative process between likely participants. However, this isn’t always practical, so, regardless of your early involvement you must make sure you are familiar with the agenda and what your contribution is expected to be.
Your approach
Do you have things to say that may be sensitive? Do you have some interesting and new ideas? Do remember that while you might think all is good others may not, so plan ahead and try to frame what you want to say in a productive but non-confrontational way. ‘Asking’ rather than telling is good and it’s also good, as you discuss things in the team to show empathy for the views of others even if they contrast with your own. Often your ideas will be strengthened through constructive debate and counter-argument.
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Remember to think carefully about sensitivity. Just because something seems fairly straightforward to you, it may not be seen the same way by others. For example, if you have a criticism to make, it is possible that someone might take that criticism personally.
Your ‘performance’
Listen
It’s a fundamental workplace right that everyone should be listened to and you would rightly feel frustrated if you weren’t – of course that doesn’t mean that it isn’t going to happen. The opposite also applies. Listen to others and show you are (eye contact and body ‘mirroring’ are good start points). You always have the right to have a different point of view, but you can’t effectively offer a counter-view if you haven’t been listening to the opinions of others.
Be committed
Don’t commit to things for which you are not committed. They will not get done properly. If you have concerns, this is your opportunity to air them.
Take notes
Although properly run meetings will have minutes taken, it is always useful to have a personalised note of your observations and opinions of proceedings as well as record of the commitments that you personally made as part of the team.
It takes all sorts
As you saw earlier in this ebook, I referred to the different personal styles that people typically adopt in a team e.g. ‘thinkers’ and ‘achievers’. A range of personal styles are the lifeblood of any team and just because people have different approaches compared to you that does not mean they are any less of a contributor. For example ‘quietness’ can often mean deep thought about the problems in hand for the team rather than detachment from the team itself. So, the lesson here is to challenge any assumptions you may be making about people.
Your presence
In this section we look at some of the ‘bad’ behaviour that affects the team dynamic when you are together.
‘Not present’
Many of us find it hard to be removed from our screens for any length of time. This poses a problem in meetings or other kinds of group interaction where full participation is required. Being away from a screen for an hour or so has to be a learned behaviour for some who find this particularly difficult. Some people like to record notes and thoughts on tablets and laptops, and of course this is fine, but do let people know this is what you are doing until colleagues get used to your personal behavioural style. Otherwise, they might think you are mentally elsewhere.
Disinterest
‘Behaviour breeds behaviour’ is a well-known saying and if you signal disinterest in others (through lack of eye contact for example) then don’t be surprised if people aren’t interest in what you say.
Lack of support
Meetings should be places of energy, encouragement and support. A colleague airs a problem. Do you suggest ways you can help or do you let them sink in their own challenges? Someone has an interesting idea – do you welcome it or attempt to assassinate it at the first opportunity?
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A good approach when new initiatives and ideas are suggested is to look to build on the ideas of others – ‘Yes, that interesting. I can help here …’ In the early stages of your professional career
Destructive disagreement
Disagreement is healthy but there are ways to do it constructively. The challenge is to be agreeable while disagreeing. This means not interrupting while others are speaking (even if this can be frustrating!), truly listening and framing what you say in language the team can understand – particularly true, if for example you work in IT and others may not fully grasp the technical arguments.
Being ‘personal’
Drawing attention to personal flaws and weaknesses in others is never a good idea. Although, as someone relatively new to the world of work you are unlikely to be giving lots of feedback right away, and it may not be taken very well if you do – ‘What do you know?’ – if you do, do so in a way that is task/job specific not personal e.g. ‘Could you take me through the way the figures are presented in the table’ rather than ‘You’re no good at presenting figures in a table’.
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Being open to your own imperfections makes us more willing to accept those in other people. What are yours?
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Of course, many of these points aren’t just related to ‘meetings’. They relate just as much to day-to-day interactions with team colleagues. For example, in the last section we looked at ‘presence’ in the context of using devices when the team requires your full attention. Although, as a member of younger generations you may see the use of touchscreens in particular as acceptable even while having a conversation with another person, older generations are likely to see this as offensive and disrespectful i.e. not paying any attention to ‘me’.
In this next section we link both the section you have just read on ‘meetings’ and the next section on being part of a fully collaborative team.
Collaboration
Making a good contribution to the team’s work is one thing, learning to collaborate is another and is a step up from just being a contributor, as good as that is. Collaboration is an approach that makes the output of a team greater than the sum of its parts i.e. individual team members. If you think that 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4, then it does. But collaboration can make it equal five or six. Organisations these days, whether they are private or public sector, institutions or charities refer to ‘collaborative advantage’.
Collaboration occurs when there is the need to solve a problem or identify and make the most of an opportunity. You may know the saying that goes ‘problems are opportunities’ and that has some truth to it. However, lots of teams don’t really understand what collaboration means. Here we look at how you can play your role as an effective collaborator, but will do so in way that helps acknowledge the problems teams have in understanding what collaboration involves.
Meetings, collaboration and conversation
A few years ago, a research team (Losada and Heaphy) looked into how high-performing teams (as opposed to medium- and low-performing ones) communicated within the team. What they found tells us so much about good communication in the team and how you can play your part in it. They studied 60 teams over six months who had had their performance rated high, medium or low. Over this time they watched out how the people in the team spoke. In particular:
- use of positive and negative words.
- telling vs. asking e.g. ‘I think’ rather than ‘that’s interesting … tell me more?’
- talking about others or talking about ‘self’ – the self also refers to the team talking about itself rather than stakeholders and customers.
The really fascinating assessments came first in the fact that the lowest performing teams took a ‘telling’ approach twenty times more often than they asked questions and that the comparison between focus on self rather than others was even more stark – thirty times more likely to talk about ‘self’ rather than others. The second really interesting element was that the high-performing teams were six times more likely to use positive rather than negative words. Finally in high-performing teams, the telling/asking and self/other ratios were roughly 1/1. I assume that you want to be in a high-performing team, so now we look at what these means for you and your own behaviour in the team.
Using positive language
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When problems, setbacks and challenges occur how do you respond and does a negative frame of mind reveal itself in the language you use? Adopt positive language in difficult situations. Avoid using the word ‘but’ is a good start point because it’s an idea-killer word. Use active, energising words such as ‘will’ and ‘can’ rather than passive words such as ‘might’ and ‘perhaps’ when you are talking about your thoughts and ideas and those of others.
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Many teams have their ‘prophets of loss’ – people who do focus on the negative aspects of something and in particular refer to ‘losses’ rather than gains when changes are being talked through. The ‘challengers’ we saw in the earlier section on team roles do this best in a constructive way, but it can also be destructive.
POTENTIAL PITFALL
Sometimes we make mistakes. Upbeat talk to hide away the fact that something didn’t go to plan or you made a mistake won’t conceal problems for long. Much better to be honest with the team. Positive language should be used as a route to good solutions not to hide problems.
ASSESS YOURSELF
Have your own use of language monitored. If you have a piece of film available of yourself speaking then have a listen. If not film yourself or arrange for a colleague to do so and look at the ratio of positive/negative statements, the number of questions versus opinions and your ‘other/self’ orientation. Get a sense of your own personal style.
Asking questions and listening
Starting out in the world of work is a massive learning process. Asking questions sends out a signal that you are interested and willing to learn, but is also is so much more beneficial for the learning process than just telling people what you think. Use ‘who, what, why, where, when, how’ type questions as a mean of demonstrating your own (genuine) curiosity. It helps you learn, and, as the study shows it’s also good for the team.
We can tell when people aren’t listening in the team. They interrupt, using that telltale phrase ‘yes … but’ killing the thoughts and ideas of others, try to dominate rather than contribute and through facial gestures in particular reveal what they are really thinking and feeling about others and their thoughts.
Your effectiveness as a team member will be maximised if you can truly focus and listen to what’s being said without distraction.
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Ask for more – help people develop their own thoughts (‘That’s interesting, tell us more’). Build on the thoughts and ideas of others – ‘That’s an interesting idea, we could take that initial idea and then …’ or ‘I like the thinking, we could …’. We call this ‘idea piggy-backing’ – taking the essence of a thought or idea and improving it.
Self-based conversation is often a symptom of an inward-looking team. Have conversations around those the team serves, such as customers and stakeholders, and talk about others in positive ways and not just for the sake of doing so. You will come across the phrase ‘silo mentality’ if you haven’t already – a team which lives in its box oblivious to everything around it. Avoid the silo mentality by using ‘we’ as both a means of referring your own team i.e. cut out the repetition of ‘I’ but also use ‘we’ to embrace those outside the team. People want to know that you aren’t just in this for your own selfish benefit.
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When presenting your own ideas to the team don’t worry about a few ‘I’ statements but balance with neutral positions e.g. ‘The evidence says that …’ or ‘Customers are saying …’, rather than lots of ‘I think …’
Calming your ego
This occurs when team members forget that they are trying to solve a problem or create an opportunity and treat what should be a collaborative exercise as a competitive sport – ‘My idea is better than your idea’, or ‘Here’s the reason your idea won’t work’. In the worst cases there is a fight for power as some team members believe themselves to be superior to others. The rest leave them to it and stop contributing.
Your effectiveness as a team member will be maximised if you can make regular contributions and acknowledge that the contributions of others are equally valid.
Open thinking
There are a small number of problems that have one or a very limited number of answers. We call these ‘cognitive’ problems. In our formative years through education we are trained to think that there is the ‘single right answer’ to most problems. In truth however, most problems have a variety of possible solutions. In fact some believe that only mathematics is fact, everything else is opinion.
While that may be extreme, your effectiveness as a team member will be maximised if you can stretch your thinking. Creativity expert Roger Von Oech, says we should think in terms of there being ‘the first right answer, the second right answer, the third right answer …’ and so on.
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By stretching your own thinking, encouraging others to stretch theirs. One reason some struggle here is that they don’t give themselves ‘time to think’. A great way to do this is to ‘prime’ your own thinking i.e. prepare yourself to make a contribution well in advance of when you need to collaborate and contribute. The brain is thinking about this – without pressure - even though you aren’t aware of it.
Checklist
- Many organisations see the art of collaboration as a key competitive advantage, click here to review.
- Collaboration means the output exceeds the collective contribution of individuals in the team – we take the combined thinking to another level of performance altogether, click here to review.
- Collaboration solves problems and creates and exploits opportunities, click here to review.
- Avoid contaminating the collaborative process through an overactive ego, click here to review.
- Nearly all problems have many solutions. Nearly all opportunities have many ways they can be exploited, click here to review.
- Bring your whole self to the team – mind, body and spirit, click here to review.
Remote team working
In certain industries ‘remote’ or ‘virtual’ working has become the norm and in others it’s now common practice that team members are not in physical proximity to colleagues (or their manager). The aim in this final section of this ebook is to look at the behavioural aspects of remote team working.
What you can do
Don’t lose sight of the team’s core objectives. Distance can make this harder, as in more traditional environments you get the constant personal reminders that may only come through email, intranets and social media if you are away from the hub.
- Communication is the key. Use proactive approaches to stay in touch with the team – isolation can often be self-inflicted. Be aware that others may not use the same communication methods as you. For example, at the time of writing, Facetime, Skype and Skype Business as well as Cisco Webex (others are available!) are commonly used for video chat. But the team (and your organisation) may have a particular preference.
- Evaluate your communication methods. Prime research says that email is a very poor medium for decision making unless it’s the most basic decision e.g. agreeing a time for a meeting. So, if you need a decision from someone else in the team consider alternative methods for getting this – pick up the phone, get on the move – whatever is needed to get want you want in the most efficient way.
- Keep up to date. Keep your knowledge of online platforms that aid communication updated. As you are relatively new to regular working life and have grown up in an age of stunning technological advancement your knowledge of these may be excellent, but it can slip once the day-to-day routines, demands and challenges of working life kick in. It’s something you really have to be proactive about.
- Get on the move. If you are away from the team hub a lot, make it a priority to get to meetings. The best remote teams are also those that meet whenever they can. Be active in offering help and support to other team colleagues (that’s great advice regardless of the type of team you’re in), and ask for help and support when you need it.
And finally … this ebook ends where it began …
Be trustworthy. Trust is the basis on which all teams survive, as we saw in an earlier section. However, trust can be harder to earn when you aren’t with team colleagues all the time. Those good things we said about professionalism, consistency, meeting deadlines and generally being reliable really do apply here.
Success
- Personal success and team success become synonymous
- Team goals are met and you play your part fully in meeting them
- Don’t just evaluate success in terms of what ended well i.e. the achievement of specific goals. Sometimes we must value just as much that which was done well, but perhaps didn’t end so well. Circumstances may determine that there were success/setback factors that we simply had no control over. Successful teams can hold their heads up high, knowing they did their best in tough circumstances.
- The best teams are those where team members continually learn and develop as people. Is this happening to you?
- There isn’t a magic formula for team success though successful teams do share some characteristics. Great teams for example can absorb ‘difficult’ characters and bring out the best in them. Great teams can absorb challenge and even dissent if it is done in the right way, for constructive ends. Have you found your mind opening up to the things others offer to the team? Have you learned to value the contributions of others who may be very different to you? Because, successful teams contain people who have open minds about others. Unsuccessful teams have people who want others to be clones of themselves.
- And finally, when you look back at successful teams you have been a part of (not just at work) how does the memory make you feel?