On a recent Saturday morning, I was out for a hike just east of Seattle. I love hiking not only for the beautiful scenery, but I also get to eavesdrop on lots of interesting conversations. You’d be surprised how many people get out in nature, just to end up talking about work.
On the trail ahead of me, there was a group of young women talking and laughing together. One of them said:
“Let’s be honest, working in groups sucks. Unless you get to choose your team. And even then, there can be problems!”
Lots of people share this sentiment but let’s face it – all work is collaborative. So how can we succeed at something that so many people find challenging?
All work is collaborative work
Work today is collaborative. Gone are the days where a genius locked themselves up away from others to come up with brilliant ideas then throw them over the fence. One of my favorite Zillow values exemplifies this: Zillow Group is a Team Sport. That about sums it up. So how can teams work well together in this new, collaborative world? It requires attention, intention, and a bit of skill-building. No matter where your team is on the continuum from norming to storming or performing, these three steps will move you closer to the collaboration you need to become a more effective team.
Know your common goal
The great thing about teams is that everyone is working toward a common goal. It may not always be obvious what that is, and there can still be inherent tension in how you get work done. But if you didn’t have a common goal you wouldn’t be a team, right? It’s important to identify, describe, and repeat your team’s goal. It serves as a reminder when people are struggling to work well together. Having trouble identifying your team’s common thread? Try this:
Step 1: Ask each person on the team to write their individual goals for the year or quarter including timelines, dependencies, and success measures.
Step 2: Write a press release (this process was made famous by Amazon). The press release starts at the end, by describing what success looks like for your team when they meet their goal. Working backward from the press release helps you determine how the team is going to achieve that success together.
Step 3: Create a brief description of your team’s goal that people can refer to when there’s conflict or disagreement. The common goal will act as their North Star. It serves as a reminder of what’s important, helping people prioritize. It can also act as a tie-breaker when individuals or sub-teams need direction or clarity. A common goal keeps everyone marching in the same direction.
Define clear roles and responsibilities
A lack of role clarity is a common source of friction between team members. Even your best performers may take on tasks that are outside of their purview in an effort to get the right thing done. Two signs that your team lacks role clarity are gaps in work and duplication of tasks.
Gaps in work result when there are critical items or milestones that don’t have an assigned owner. Likely everyone assumes that someone else is taking responsibility, resulting in no one taking responsibility. This doesn’t mean your team lacks the motivation, skills, or resources to get the work done. Rather, it’s a sign that not all work has been clearly assigned.
Duplication of work may be an even more frustrating outcome. On a team of driven high performers, people will seek to fill in the gaps. When work is unassigned, they’ll take the initiative to get it done. That sounds fantastic, right? It is, except that when one or more people take on the same projects it’s a waste of time and resources. Once you realize people are duplicating efforts, someone’s work is going to get scrapped since you likely need only one solution, not two or more.
Clear roles and responsibilities with frequent updates and status reviews mean that work will be evenly distributed. If there’s an important task with no owner, you can be intentional about who takes responsibility, limiting both gaps and duplication of effort.
Role model asking for help and two-way feedback
One of the benefits of teamwork is that no one has to go it alone. One person does not need to have all the answers. But often people are afraid to ask for help. They fear it will make them look weak or incapable. In order to foster great teamwork, you want to create psychological safety on the team from day one.
Building trust is key, and one way to do that is by asking for help. When the leader asks for help, it gives people permission to say they don’t know how to do something. Being vulnerable allows others to do the same. Only when team members can ask one another for help can you truly harness the value of the team as a whole.
Another way to create safety and build trust is by giving and receiving feedback. Many people shy away from feedback, but it really is the key to helping all of us get better and seek continuous improvement. If you aren’t practiced in the art of giving and receiving feedback, try these three steps:
- Ask early and often. Express to your team how much you value their feedback. They may not give it to you the first time, but keep asking and eventually they will trust that you really want it.
- Say thank you. Thank people for their feedback, so they know it was appreciated. Circle back and describe how it helped you get better. Closing the loop is a great way to reinforce that you found their feedback useful.
- Give more feedback! One way to establish a feedback culture is to give feedback to others. When you give feedback, you’re role modeling the importance as well as how to do it effectively.
Setting goals, building trust, and increasing collaboration isn’t something you can do just once. People need constant reminders and reinforcement of what’s important and how to work best together. Not only that, goals will change and evolve over time. New team members will join. Others will move on. Your job is to instill a healthy culture, and use storytelling to remind people how working together is going to increase their chances of success.
Need help with feedback, teamwork, or collaboration? Send us a note – info@reverbpeople.com.
