Blog Post

 how to make you team work well

Many teams hope for some magic pill or coaching trick to solve their issues. Reality is that creating an excellent team requires training. Fortunately there are some easy basics that often work well to get your team on track.

The Team Phases of Tuckman provide a general idea of how a group of people grows as they spend time together achieving an objective.


As you bring together a group of people, you may wonder what it is that binds them. This is often a mission, an objective or goal, a common or shared tasks, all the while they are depended on each other.


The moment they start collaborating, they enter the forming phase. Each time a team member leaves or joins, you enter a new forming phase. Whenever the goals, targets or stakeholders change, you enter a new forming phase.


Therefore I consider this phase extremely important in order to make the storming phase less rough and the norming phase more accessible.

start at the basis and form your team

 GIVE SHAPE TO YOUR IDENTITY
The basic question we all ask ourselves every now and then: why are we here? As a starting team you might not answer this question quite consciously cause the answer is so obvious for most. The question becomes relevant after a while, when changes start to happen from within or from outside of the team. So every now and then as a team, try to answer the question: if all of our work is done, what have we achieved?

Next to that you can spend time considering what is it that you value most; for each other, your stakeholders, your partners and your clients. What do we think is most important as a value? To further build your collective identity, you can align how you would like to be seen or heard by the outside world. Images, colours, emotions, tone of voice, behaviors or perhaps, what are the things we really don't want to do?

All these questions can be part of a quarterly or (semi) annual cycle in which you reflect on your goals and results.

DETERMINE THE ROAD OF EXCELLENCE

We all want to do a good job. But when do we consider the job well done? When is the job done?


I hope it's common enough for your team to set goals or objectives, and also name a couple of measurable outcomes or results. In this process I notice 2 extremes:


1) teams highly capable of making quantified targets. They are so numeric and trained to come up with measurable outcomes, they have a hard time seeing the bigger picture. Their bold objective. Their long term impact and stakeholders that will benefit.


2) teams that are mission driven and know what they want to bring about in the world. They have a hard time making it concrete and setting short or long-term measurable outcomes.


Both objectives and key results (OKRs) are needed in order to set a dot on the horizon, monitor the progress on the road of excellence and celebrate all achievements, big and small.


MANAGE EXPECTATIONS

Connected to the previous topic, the question still exists: how am I going to do my job well? Said otherwise, what is expected from me considering our OKRs?

Rather sooner than later, it is wise to clarify someone's role, responsibilities and expected way to contribute to the team and the agreed objectives. The traditional way would be to have job descriptions and performance reviews.


I prefer to set expectations in a team setting:

  • by asking and sharing how all team members think and expect to contribute
  • where they feel their responsibilities start and end
  • which tasks they will take on and how those will add value to the OKRs.

You can do this informally by just sharing and getting to know each other's views. You can also use this moment to formally log each other's responses and review them in periodical meetings. From here on you are entering the storming phase.

being yourself at work. it's priceless.

BUILD RELATIONSHIPS

In order to have a storming phase that really gives space to what needs to be discussed, you need more than clear expectations and feedback to build the trust that is needed. Trust comes in time and is founded by building lasting relationships. I am inclined even to say friendships; as the deeper the connection, the more people can be themselves at work. And that is priceless.


In order to build relationships, you need to let in a bit of personal information to the conversation. Share stories, fun facts and show other sides of yourself than just the work face: the most beautiful trip you have experienced / what would you do with a million / your favourite game as a child.



STORY

Standing in a circle, one of the team members started sharing about his life as a child. How teachers told him he was dumb and too slow in learning. While his voice broke and tears started rolling down his cheeks, he told the team how this is driving him to help as many schools and students as possible with their online learning tools. So as much students as possible can learn and improve themselves and won't have the negative experience he has had.


As the example shows, real relationships are forged the moment we allow vulnerabilities to show. Often it is not something you can organise or should force out of a group. But you can create the setting to allow this to happen by for example choosing a location that is out of the office and out of the comfort zone in nature, by doing conversation games and start your sharing activities in two's or small groups.


if you need more tips for you team

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