Team building: Group of colleagues sitting in a circle and with post-its on their faces.
My clients are usually perplexed by the way I build teams because I do nothing that resembles team building.
What I do instead is to create the kind of clarity that allows each person to contribute their best as I lead them to strong results that they can all support whole-heartedly.
By working together, finding the best options, evaluating those options, and helping each other identify and mitigate concerns, they become a team.
Most important of all, they learn that people drag their feet for valid reasons.
People “lean out” when they fear things are headed in the wrong direction.
They can’t always articulate their discomfort, but when I make it clear that the discomfort indicates we missed something in a previous step, I get the whole team working together to figure out what we missed.
When that happens, teams are born. This group behavior shows tremendous respect and honors the ideas of every member of the group. They have to really listen to each other if they are going to help uncover the root of the discomfort. In the process, they also learn about each other and pursue better results.
- Are we clear on what decisions have already been made?
- Are there additional decisions required before we can move ahead?
- Are we truly working on a top priority that people care about?
- Are we being realistic about timing and the resources required to go down this path?
- Whose input are we missing?
- What is missing from our objectives and constraints?
- Are there additional alternatives that should be on the table?
- Are we taking the risks seriously?
These forays to articulate the source of the discomfort lead to insights that refine our intentions, priorities and next steps.
They inevitably lead to smarter conclusions as well.
And they transform groups into cohesive, powerful teams.
One caveat: This approach requires process clarity. Wandering discussions, sloppy progress, interesting exercises, and a lot of talk won’t work. When you try to listen to everyone without a process, you accomplish little and get lost in circles. When you know exactly what you are trying to accomplish each step of the way, it is easy to back up one step, maybe two, and make amends while also making discernible progress. I have written about this extensively elsewhere. It is really important to always be pursuing tangible intermediate outcomes so you can mark discernible progress and consciously step both forward and back with focus.
Can you imagine how this approach would build teams?
