Designing and delivering as a team isn’t always easy. Sometimes teams get crosswise with each other, clients get suspicious, deliverables get dropped, and things just aren’t going your way. This session will explore core characteristics of successful teams, how to cope when things get bad, and ways to reset the environment (even if you’re not the leader!)
115 project teams in engineering
65 pods in sales) to study
included a mix of high- and low-performing teams.
Team composition (e.g., personality traits, sales skills, demographics on the team)
Team dynamics (e.g., what it was like to work with teammates)
double-blind interviews with leaders to get a sense of what they thought drove team effectiveness.
Existing survey data, including over 250 items from the annual employee engagement survey and gDNA, Google’s longitudinal study on work and life,
- Group dynamics: I feel safe expressing divergent opinions to the team.
- Skill sets: I am good at navigating roadblocks and barriers.
- Personality traits: I see myself as someone who is a reliable worker (informed by the Big Five personality assessment).
- Emotional intelligence: I am not interested in other people’s problems (informed by the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire).
- Demographic variables like tenure, level, and location were also collected.
It’s important to note though that while these variables did not significantly impact team effectiveness measurements at Google, that doesn’t mean they’re not important elsewhere. For example, while team size didn’t pop in the Google analysis, there is a lot of research showing the importance of it.
Amy Edmonson - Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School
TED talk
Psychological safety - “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.”
Taking a risk around your team members may sound simple. But asking a basic question like “what’s the goal of this project?” may make you sound like you’re out of the loop. It might feel easier to continue without getting clarification in order to avoid being perceived as ignorant.
Learning problem – What are we try
Amy Edmonson - Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School
TED talk
Psychological safety - “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.”
Taking a risk around your team members may sound simple. But asking a basic question like “what’s the goal of this project?” may make you sound like you’re out of the loop. It might feel easier to continue without getting clarification in order to avoid being perceived as ignorant.
Amy Edmonson - Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School
TED talk
Psychological safety - “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.”
Taking a risk around your team members may sound simple. But asking a basic question like “what’s the goal of this project?” may make you sound like you’re out of the loop. It might feel easier to continue without getting clarification in order to avoid being perceived as ignorant.
Serious problems – So & so is defrauding the company. Sexual harassment. Really bad stuff.
Toxic Tina – Supervisor is directly attacking people. (me!) “I don’t think you know how to do your job.”
Team Blame & Whine – Passive Aggressiveness, Rudeness (people always interrupting each other), Fingerpointing
Client Wishy Washy / Don’t’ Care
PM Negative – Very detail oriented (which can feel like “picky”)
Darling Dreadful – (1) Overexplained things (too much detail) and (2) didn’t like to make choices
PM Political
Rude Tech Guy
This is really hard to do when you’re not a manager, right? Project manager, supervisor, whatever - this person over there (not me) has “manager” in his or her job title, so this whole team stuff is his job.
True to a degree.
BUT.
The only thing I have power over in this situation is myself. (That’s always true, right?) You can’t change other people.
Don’t JADE
Not engaging
“He said she said”
“You started it!”
Mindfulness
Identifying what is going on
Not reacting to it
“Oh that’s interesting”
Thinking about where that’s coming from
Then deciding how to react
Balloon
Zen guy cleaning the bathroom
Enlisting help
Someone to discuss the situation with and explore your options
Objectively creating plans and strategies to work on the situation
This does NOT need to be someone who enables you or agrees with you all the time.
TBF this does NOT have to be someone you like!
Assertive or Aggressive?
Nice or Kind?
Learning problem – What are we try
Bravery as a substitute for safety
Lotus Sutra, Chapter 20
At this time there was a bodhisattva monk named Never Disparaging. Now, Gainer of Great Authority, for what reason was he named Never Disparaging? This monk, whatever persons he happened to meet, whether monks, nuns, laymen, or laywomen, would bow in obeisance to all of them and speak words of praise, saying, ‘I have profound reverence for you, I would never dare treat you with disparagement or arrogance. Why? Because you will all practice the bodhisattva way and will then be able to attain buddhahood.’
“This monk did not devote his time to reading or reciting the scriptures, but simply went about bowing to people. And if he happened to see any of the four kinds of believers far off in the distance, he would purposely go to where they were, bow to them, and speak words of praise, saying, ‘I would never dare disparage you, because you are all certain to attain buddhahood!’