Designing Team Success: Three Essential Ingredients for Collaboration
In the LEAD WITH PURPOSE series, we’re moving from learning and practicing conscious leadership skills to applying those abilities in real-world projects and collaborations.
Being clear on my purpose gives me the inspiration to contribute. This week I did a review of what I’m putting my energy into. I’ve been working with leaders and writing about organizations evolving in the interest of creating sustainable work cultures. It is an extension of my personal WHY. Recently I’ve been collaborating with a group of entrepreneurs about implementing an organizational design for clients that redefines people management and expands learning and development inside organizations at a scale much larger than I could achieve as a solo consultant. On our team, the shared mission magnetizes collective participation around something bigger than what we can each accomplish alone. Putting purpose first ignites motivation to collaborate and deliver the best service to our customers and their communities. Purpose is our boss.
On a team, purpose implies collaboration with others. Although we’re excited about making a positive impact inside client organizations, HOW we create and communicate with each other influences and informs our team culture long before our customer congratulates us on a job well done. In designing a team for success, not only do we coordinate our actions to generate the best output for clients, but also create a desirable and sustainable culture for ourselves. What ingredients make work meaningful and teams successful?
Start with INTEGRITY.
We can have an inspired and respectful exchange of ideas more consistently when personal integrity is fundamental. A big part of integrity is reliability — doing what you said you would do. Here’s a scenario:
Your team has to finish a sales proposal by the end of the week. Everyone shows up for work having had their 7+ hours of sleep, a nutritious meal, a morning walk or work out, and a good hug. Each team member is clear about their role in completing the various sections of the proposal and how to present it. A new member joins the team to help meet the deadline. With clear ground rules in place, your team meets briefly to reallocate work. Hopefully the extra person speeds up the process so there is more time at the end for rehearsal.
The optimal conditions for success, however, aren’t always present. With the finish line in sight, the new person clashes with a couple of people, the team lead is called away by a family emergency, and another key contributor is showing signs of stress and overwhelm. For very valid reasons, agreements are broken and the subsequent disruptions and dysfunctions can throw the team off track.
Anything that interrupts or impedes the flow of energy on a team is a breach of integrity that can lead to breakdown. Monitoring your own INTEGRITY is a reliable way to remain prepared for collaboration. I am happy to credit Jim Dethmer and Diana Chapman, authors of 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, with the following four practices to master integrity.
- Making clear agreements
- Keeping agreements
- Renegotiating agreements
- Cleaning up broken agreements
The interesting thing about integrity is that it needs to be practiced everywhere in your life, not just with your work mates. When I coach and facilitate I bring exercises that help people identify areas in life that may be causing emotional or physical distress. Breaking agreements with yourself undermines integrity just as much as breaking an agreement with another.
Getting impeccable with your word — doing what you said you would do — means that you can trust yourself. If you tell your doctor that you exercise 5 times per week, but in fact you manage to only visit the gym two times a week then you really are out of integrity. Luckily, since nobody is perfect, it’s never too late. Find an accountability buddy, someone in your life that you can have confidential conversations with, and check in with enough regularity to support you in cleaning up and renegotiating agreements with yourself and others.
As social creatures, we need each other to survive. Our bodies and brains are constantly scanning for threats, leading to either positive or negative judgments about the people we meet and the company we keep. Brain science shows that it’s instinct. We can use our words, emotions and body to sense when trust is present.
Know when trust is present.
In my former career as an engineer, I’d show up for work with my thinking mind, but I was a bit cut off from my body and emotions. Because I want to avoid the pain of broken trust, I used my words and binding contractual agreements to mediate trust. With a signature I am obliged to keep my word and act with integrity. Eventually, demonstrating an ability to keep agreements builds trusted relationships. Trust doesn’t imply friendship or agreeing on the same issues but it does require a predisposition to coordinate action with others. When we find ourselves feeling secure and free to communicate and create with others then trust is present.
If purpose, integrity and trust are basic ingredients in the design of team success, what is the “special sauce” that transforms banal into brilliant?
Lead from YOUR EDGE.
Dare to be original. When we’re designing a product we’re creating a slice of time in someone’s life using that product. When designing anything new, feedback on the prototype allows the team to iterate towards the next, refined version. The same is true when designing team success. Quality feedback, which depends upon the leadership capacity of team members, gives a voice to what was missing and moves the group closer to sustainable performance. Taking a risk, trusting your gut and voicing a fresh idea about a project revision (or team leadership) may still be met with either a lukewarm reception, or praise and recognition. Advancing through a conscious leadership curriculum, however, provides the self-awareness and trust-building practices that prepare a team to welcome new ideas and thoughtful feedback.
Monitoring integrity and trust support people in taking creative risks that improve work results and team dynamics in parallel. Customers win, and teammates become stewards of well-being through the very process of work. To summarize, bring these essential ingredients to team collaborations.
1. Monitor your integrity. Clean up and renegotiate agreements as necessary.
2. Know when trust is present. Use the trust to practice taking risks.
3. Lead from your edge.
LEAD WITH PURPOSE is a solution to your people and creative challenges. Without having an eye on the sustainability of your team’s culture, work styles and personality habits can impair communication and create results that don’t meet expectations. Having purpose, emotional intelligence, deep listening and presencing in play builds engaging, satisfying and memorable work experiences.
