Building High-Performing Teams

We are all working in teams, and our daily work and the results depend very much on the internal happiness of the units. As the group is happier, they will be more productive and stay in your company. But how do we build such teams? Here are a few things we can do:

1. The first step in building great teams starts with hiring the right people. What we want is to have team players and a team-first mindset. A new team member must fit the existing team and give them more energy, support, understanding, and trust in each other. Also, I want to mentor new or less experienced team members. We hire for attitude because skills can always be. Of course, we expect some development and tooling knowledge for the position. This means we want humble team players who are aware of their strengths and weaknesses and willing to share credit for the team’s achievements, but we also want people with a strong drive and desire to succeed.
2. Building trust inside your unit is the second step in creating a great team. This is important because we want to develop psychological safety where people will not fear failure and be encouraged to experiment. In addition, such groups need autonomy for their software engineers. To do this, we must build such a culture in our company.
3. One way we can build a culture where success is not the only rewarding factor, but experimentation too, is to foster a product and entrepreneurial mindset with our people, where the investigation is rewarded. We can create an environment to motivate people on that path. However, experimentation also means that failure is allowed and that there is a safety net to catch you.
4. To know your team better, the best way is to lead by example, invite people for lunch, ask them something personal, and remember what is important to them and how they feel about different stuff. Share your things also with them. Show that you are vulnerable and a person like them. And remember to reward initiatives from your people, such as starting a community of practice or being proactive. Finally, publicly praise people (whenever you see the opportunity) and criticize privately.
5. We should also encourage open communication, feedback sharing, and transparency in decision-making. In this way, teams could work more and be more productive. With this, you need regular people to sync and share information during all-hand meetings. Teams also need to have clear ownership, mission, and vision. For example, the task could be “Build the best online experience for your customers.”
6. Make meetings purposeful. Always check this meeting; it could be an email, and send a pre-read for any meeting communication. Every meeting should have an agenda and clear goal and call only those who need to be in a meeting -schedule 25-minute meetings instead of 30 minutes and 50 minutes instead of 60 minutes.
7. The team needs to understand the vision, goals, and strategy clearly. How are their individual goals aligned with the team's or organization's goals?
8. Last but not least, give and receive appreciation more frequently. This should happen not only from the top down but also in peer-to-peer interactions.

We also want to see T-shaped people in our teams. So, we want people with cross-discipline expertise in the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) and deep-discipline knowledge in one or more disciplines. An example would be a full-stack engineer with more profound front-end technology knowledge.

T-Shaped Experts

“Build a team so strong you don’t know who the boss is.”

The 5 Stages of Team Development

According to Bruce Tuckman’s concept, published in 1965, a team must go through four phases to develop and grow. Tuckman’s five stages of team development is a widely recognized model in organizational psychology. The model describes a team’s typical stages as it develops and matures. The stages are:

1. Forming—Coming Together: This is the initial stage where team members get to know each other. Next, they may need clarification about their roles, the team's objectives, and the norms of behavior. In this stage, the team leader is critical in providing direction, clarifying goals, and establishing standards.
2. Storming—Experiencing Conflict: At this stage, team members may start to experience conflicts as they have different ideas, opinions, and approaches to the work. If managed well by the team leader, these conflicts can be constructive and lead to better outcomes. Effective dispute resolution, mutual respect, and open communication are essential to overcome these obstacles and promote a positive work atmosphere.
3. Norming — Understanding how to make it work: In this stage, the team begins to resolve conflicts and establish explicit norms of behavior, roles, and responsibilities. This leads to greater cohesion, trust, and cooperation among team members. The leader should be asking questions rather than directing.
4. Performing — Working Effectively: In this stage, the team has achieved high productivity and effectiveness. Team members work together smoothly and efficiently to achieve the team’s objectives. A good leader will now delegate, train team members, and keep a proactive role because the high-performing team is essentially autonomous.

And optionally, 5. It was adjourning — Disbanding the team. This is the final stage, where the team has completed its task, and members are preparing to move on to other projects or assignments.

The Five Stages of Team Development, according to Tuckman

It is important to mention that teams could roll back in cycles (i.e., they repeat) depending on their internal state. Therefore, leaders must understand the process and proactively anticipate, recognize, and guide their teams.

We also need to recognize micro-events, which happen if there is a desire to change or a real change from the usual way of working. This means the team will be moved again into the forming or storming phase. These micro-events could be anything: a new member joining a team, a lousy customer request, restructuring a team, etc.

How do you handle dysfunctions in a team?

One of the most critical components of your leadership is the well-being of your team. A great team must have the trust, commitment, and accountability necessary for high performance. Yet, there is no simple cure for all of these issues. And I often see that managers don’t understand that some conflicts in a team are healthy.

Patrick Lencioni, in his book “ The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” identified those dysfunctions:

1. Absence of Trust: Members of effective teams must feel safe enough to open up, share their ideas, and acknowledge mistakes without fear of ridicule or retribution. Establishing trust among a team takes time, and it’s crucial to understand that this process must start with you. This entails keeping your word, being trustworthy, and setting an example for others.
2. Fear of Conflict: Healthy conflict is essential for robust discussion that leads to creative problem-solving and consensus. Encourage them to engage in constructive, lively debate and question one another’s ideas when disagreeing. This can be challenging at first, especially for shier team members, if you could ask direct, open-ended questions to get everyone’s attention during meetings. It is also good to train your people in conflict-solving methods.
3. Lack of Commitment: Without members committing to decisions, plans cannot be implemented, and objectives cannot be achieved. By actively encouraging team members to weigh in on issues before you ask them for a commitment, you can discourage “after-meeting meetings.” Note those who remain silent and attempt to get their opinions.
4. Avoidance of Accountability: Everyone needs to take ownership of their decisions and actions; otherwise, progress is hindered, and objectives remain unrealized. Accountability is critical for your team members, both to one another on the team and to themselves. Make sure that everyone is accountable for their work and behaviors. Encourage team members to provide regular, mutual feedback on each other’s performance, behavior, and accomplishments.
5. Inattention to Results: All efforts must focus on achieving team results before celebrating individual accomplishments. You make sure that your team members concentrate on the true objectives of the team and company if you want to overcome this dysfunction. What also can help here are OKRs that you can use to align people’s goals with the team’s.

Try to avoid “winning” arguments and agree to explore options instead.

The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team

How would you like to motivate your team?

When it comes to motivating teams, research has found that when we give people autonomy over their work, ownership of the task at hand, and a sense of purpose in their contribution, they will do more than work — they’ll be motivated. Here, we can take a lesson from Daniel Pink’s book “Drive,” which says people are driven to do great things because of intrinsic rewards like purpose, autonomy, and mastery.

The three critical components of intrinsic motivation are:

1. Autonomy is the requirement for managing one’s life and work. To be motivated, it would be best to have complete control over what you do, when, and with whom. We must provide our employees with autonomy over some or all aspects of work (time, technique, team, and tasks). Our business should become a results-only work environment, focusing on output.
2. Mastery—The drive to get better is mastery. If mastery is your driving force, you may view your potential as limitless and want to constantly advance your abilities through study and practice. Pink uses the phrase “Goldilocks tasks”. These are relatively simple tasks, but they allow workers to stretch themselves and advance their abilities.
3. Purpose — Take action to satiate employees’ innate desire to support a more significant cause. Nowadays, a growing number of companies prioritize purpose maximization over profit maximization. However, the most diligent, successful, and engaged people frequently feel they contribute to something more significant than themselves.

One good example of purpose would be aligning people to connect their personal goals to organizational goals using OKRs.

Instead of relying on external rewards like promotions or bonuses, use intrinsic rewards to motivate your team. Please give them a meaningful purpose and autonomy over their work and help them build mastery. These incentives have been known to bring out the best in people and help create a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Motivating teams

In addition, off-site meetings are great motivators for a team. They relax people and make them bond on a personal level. This makes even greater connections between team members and enables productivity. Because the more we like the people we work with, the easier it is to collaborate, share perspectives, and build a foundation of trust

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Originally published at https://newsletter.techworld-with-milan.com on April 20, 2023.