Photo by Josh Calabrese on Unsplash
One of my clients said recently, “When I got promoted, I had no idea how much of my time would involve dealing with people. I just wanted to do the work!”
Does that sound familiar? If so, you’re not alone. Almost every leader I’ve worked with has had a similar revelation. In fact, another client had a great way of stating this: “I need to go from ‘I get it’ to ‘I get people’.”
Having the awareness is great but it doesn’t automatically translate into action. But I have good news. I’m about to share several of the most potent strategies I know to boost teamwork.
Because you have a lot on your plate, the four I’ve selected offer the biggest impact for the least amount of effort. I recommend that you pick one or two to focus on with your team and that you embed those in your team culture before moving on to others.
Start Out Right: When adding new members, hire people who are team players as well as having the right skills. This may seem obvious, but it isn’t always practiced.
In his book, The Ideal Team Player, Patrick Lencioni describes what he considers the three essential virtues of a team player: Humble, Hungry and People Smart. If you’re interested in learning more about his perspective, here’s a brief video and a slightly longer summary of the main content. Several of my clients swear by this book as a way to build strong teams.Implement a Check In: This simple yet powerful tool can be used at the beginning of every meeting. It has proven to increase the quality of conversation, enhance trust, improve decision making, and elevate insight and creativity. What’s not to like? It’s a small commitment for a huge pay off. And the addition of a Check In is especially useful to promote greater connection and alignment for teams that are working remotely. For more information on check ins, click here.
Pay Attention to Emotion: Virtually all social interactions have the potential to produce a threat or reward response, yet many of us are oblivious to the impact of emotion on our ability to work together. Research shows that human beings react to social threats in the same way that we react to physical threats. What happens? We prepare to fight or flee. That doesn’t bode well for the quality of our thinking or collaboration. Teams that understand this are in a better position to anticipate and adjust their behavior to increase reward relative to threat. One way to do this is to develop a common language to discuss what’s happening emotionally. For more information take a look at this article.
Create a Team Accountability Protocol: One of the most challenging aspects of team leadership is holding team members accountable. I can’t tell you how many coaching conversations have to do with accountability. Whether it’s preparing for and delivering regular performance reviews or having that “tune up” conversation when something goes awry, many team leaders dread these like they’re about to get a root canal.
As a team leader there are two things you can do to take the dread out of such interactions. First, you can begin to think of accountability as an ongoing process, rather than a one off conversation.
Second, you can set the expectation that each team member take responsibility for holding each other and you accountable. That doesn’t eliminate the need for you to have regular check ins with each team member. But it does begin to build a culture of comfortable mutual accountability.
Finally, establishing a consistent and shared protocol for holding such conversations can be very helpful. This post offers a simple framework that can work wonders. And this article has a thought provoking perspective on why team accountability is even more powerful than individual accountability and what teams need to do to establish it.
I know, even though you are committed to building your team, these suggestions sound like a lot of extra work. You might think, “She made it sound like this was going to be simple. I barely have enough time to breathe, never mind adding a whole new area of focus.”
Here’s a thought: next time you have a team meeting, share these suggestion with your colleagues and get their thoughts on which one of these practices has the most potential to move your team culture in a positive direction. Remember, I suggested you only pick one at a time and work on it until it becomes second nature. I promise you, even one of these will pay off.
As always, I would welcome your comments on the ideas in this post. Additional suggestions for what you’ve tried to enhance your team’s performance are also welcomed. Thanks for reading!