Tobias Porserud of Mentimeter On 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Team

Leveraging Technology for Acceleration. Technology can be a powerful accelerator for effective team management. From my experience, integrating tools like project management software and communication platforms significantly enhance our ability to collaborate and stay organized. Whether it’s using collaborative documents for remote work or leveraging advanced analytics for performance evaluation, embracing technology can streamline processes and amplify the impact of the four aforementioned principles. In essence, technology acts as the catalyst that accelerates trust-building, clarity, operational efficiency, and adaptability within teams.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a large team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tobias Porserud, General Manager at Mentimeter North America.

Tobias Porseurd began his career at Mentimeter in May 2021 as the director of talent acquisition in Stockholm, Sweden. Through this role, Porseurd helped recruit over 100 employees in less than 12 months. Prior to joining Mentimeter, he was the co-founder and board member of Talent Eye, a talent recruitment company that provides solutions and interventions to employees. This past year, he relocated to Toronto, Canada, to take on the role of North American General Manager at Mentimeter’s newest office.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! What is your “backstory”?

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Like many, I had an unconventional journey to my current position. I was a drummer in my younger years, studied to become a biotech engineer and eventually became a leader in the tech industry. I’ve been privileged to encounter a lot of fascinating experiences along the way, and it’s always interesting to examine how the desired soft and hard skills change over time.

My experience working under the mentorship of Cecilia Schelin Seidegård, chairman of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm at that time, taught me the power of inclusive leadership. This became the cornerstone of my career mantra — success as a leader comes from lifting others up and fostering a team spirit. It had never crossed my mind before that I could lead a team at 23, but she held space for me to lead a team of 25+ people successfully and with high impact. I knew I had wanted to be a leader, but I didn’t think I’d be able to be myself and be a successful leader — someone who wanted to uplift people, rather than step over them. It was a relative inception point for my career working with organizations and people. My ventures, from founding a recruitment company, Talent Eye, to working with data-driven tech at Appjobs and eventually joining Mentimeter, have further reinforced my belief that combining human and technological elements lead to high-performance outcomes.

Now, having helped drive the opening of Mentimeter’s North America office, we’re developing a strong identity as a team of our own while also contributing as part of a larger, globalized, and diverse full team.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Oftentimes, we don’t know things are mistakes in the moment. The same could be said for my earlier trajectory studying biotech. Originally, I thought I would study hard, work for a summer at a lab, and continue up the biotech ladder until I made a novel discovery or impact. As my time at Yale University came to a close, Joan Steitz-Sterling — Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at the time, as well as my lab leader and mentor — remarked, “so now you are going to become a Diplomat, no?” She could tell that I was not meant for a life in the lab, despite the time I had put in and the energy she had devoted to mentoring me. This seemingly innocuous comment turned out to be a pivotal moment of self-discovery. It made me realize that my strengths lay elsewhere — not in working with proteins, but in collaborating with people.

Joan’s unique approach of believing in me while candidly pointing out what she didn’t see in me was liberating. Not only was it startling and funny in the moment, but it also clarified my path and gave me the confidence to walk down it. Joan set the bar high with expectations and trust, fostering a culture of curiosity and collaboration. Her positive outlook and no-nonsense attitude became a driving force, motivating me to strive for excellence. The lesson learned was invaluable: embracing one’s strengths and passions leads to a more fulfilling and successful career journey.

I lead with similar candor now. I find that when you’re able to lay a foundation of trust and honesty, productivity and professional development follow seamlessly.

Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Most times when people quit their jobs they actually “quit their managers.” What are your thoughts on the best way to retain great talent today?

To retain great talent, it’s crucial to recognize that individuals seek a combination of earning, learning, and impact, shaping a fulfilling career. As a leader, my role is to co-create this narrative with the talent, understanding their motivations, and demonstrating how to move between their current state and future aspirations.

Key steps to develop this kind of connection with your team members include delving into their motivations for both the profession and the company, understanding core values, and constructing a Venn diagram aligning the company’s story with their personal narrative. Helping them articulate their ambitions, assessing their current position, and collaboratively outlining the path forward is integral.

Regular check-ins and tight feedback loops are also essential. At a basic human level, everyone wants a supportive environment to work in, and can acknowledge the desire to be part of something greater than oneself.

Tracking progress over time and maintaining open, honest, and frequent benchmark conversations, with a focus on active listening, really solidifies the connection. Handing the mic over to employees allows them to voice their thoughts, contributing to a culture that values and retains top talent. To this end, every organization’s tech stack should include employee engagement platforms and meeting tools designed to amplify every voice in the room by providing multiple and anonymous ways to engage, including surveys, polls, open-ended questions, and other forms of feedback-gathering.

How do you synchronize large teams to effectively work together?

To effectively synchronize large teams, I focus on aligning how we run the business. At Mentimeter, we emphasize the “how” through our core values-driven approach. These values define our culture and serve as the primary framework for our ways of working, and we find true synergy occurs when you’re able to balance “what you do” with “how you do it” — when personal values align with those company values. By being synchronized in how we want to run our business and developing a high sense of trust, the more granular details and issues are resolved more quickly — it enables the people closest to problems to solve them, knowing that there is alignment and support to empower their self-leadership.

In one-to-one feedback sessions, we base professional development on why and how people make the decisions they make and complete the work they complete, not just the rudiments of what they’ve accomplished. This helps us learn how people’s actions align with our core values, as well as how those core values could inform improvements, roles, and employees’ upward trajectories.

So much of this has to be treated consciously and in terms of context — a simple core value like “be humble” could have myriad different semantic meanings depending on the region of origin of individual employees. To some, it is received well. To others, it could be received as a slight. For day-to-day success and to truly incorporate our culture into our actions, sometimes even the semantic meanings of words need to be hammered out and fully understood according to employee feedback. At Mentimeter, we do this work in large and small group discussions so everyone is able to contribute and feel heard, even if they’re more comfortable chiming in anonymously. These transparent meeting protocols also allow employees to rate questions according to importance, ensuring we use our time wisely in all-hands meetings to address the most pressing questions and concerns.

Transparency and accountability are generally crucial for building trust within our teams. We’re conscious of harnessing the collective intelligence of our team, valuing input from every member. All leaders should prioritize visibility into every team member’s thinking, even those who consider themselves introverted or would otherwise be hesitant to speak up in meetings or one-on-ones.

Incorporating technology into team management not only enhances collaboration and productivity but also streamlines processes. At Mentimeter, our own product plays a crucial role in this by providing a fast and easy way for our employees to achieve desired outcomes in meetings, saving time and effort. It facilitates better decision-making by collecting relevant input and promoting a culture of learning from feedback. Coming from my background where tech and the human element have always gone hand-in-hand, I truly believe this approach — leveraging technology and shared values for optimal performance and productivity — ensures teams work cohesively.

Here is the main question of our discussion. Based on your personal experience, what are the “5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Team.”

Harnessing the collective intelligence of the room should always be the primary role and goal of team managers. These five principles, applied in tandem, bolster a foundation for high-performing teams and make certain every voice is heard:

1. Building trust. Successful team management starts with building trust among team members. Drawing from personal experience, our team leaders at Mentimeter proactively invest time in getting to know each team member on a deeper level. This involves understanding their working preferences, strengths, and weaknesses. By promoting openness and vulnerability, we create an environment where team members feel comfortable delegating tasks and taking on self-leadership roles. This trust lifts the overall energy of the team, enhancing collaboration and productivity.
2. Prioritizing Clarity. Clarity is key to effective team management. When we set terms at Mentimeter, we initiate a collaborative effort to build a comprehensive team agreement, almost like a contract developed collectively. This includes outlining the purpose of our team, defining key performance indicators (KPIs), establishing collaboration norms, and specifying meeting methods. This approach ensures that our team operates based both on shared principles and individual personalities. The result is a high level of buy-in, with team members fully aligned with our mission and methods — and with each other.
3. Building the Machine. A well-functioning team should operate like a finely-tuned machine. In my leadership roles, I focus on creating a cadence, defining how we measure success, and shoring up the efficiency and purpose of meetings. Using tools like Mentimeter, we regularly assess our adherence to team rules and discuss any issues transparently. This approach helps us build a cohesive operational structure, where pressing “play” means the team is aligned and ready for action.
4. Setting a Flexible Frame. Successful team management involves setting clear goals while remaining adaptable to change. Our teams often reflect on existing models like Susan Wheelan’s guides to creating effective teams. According to these models, most teams never overcome the second phase of team building — the conflict stage. Recognizing the inevitability of conflicts, we prioritize strong conflict resolution skills. We identify root causes, address the issues head-on, and make sure to hash it out. In a high-performing team, we are not afraid of conflicts — we lean into them, talk about them openly and with good intent, and are eager to make the best idea win. This proactive approach to conflict resolution contributes to a positive team culture and prevents lingering issues. In short, leaders must set goals but also create an environment where the path to each goal is allowed to evolve based on the team’s dynamic needs or points of tension. This flexibility is the difference between a mere group of people following orders and a highly effective team.
5. Leveraging Technology for Acceleration. Technology can be a powerful accelerator for effective team management. From my experience, integrating tools like project management software and communication platforms significantly enhance our ability to collaborate and stay organized. Whether it’s using collaborative documents for remote work or leveraging advanced analytics for performance evaluation, embracing technology can streamline processes and amplify the impact of the four aforementioned principles. In essence, technology acts as the catalyst that accelerates trust-building, clarity, operational efficiency, and adaptability within teams.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?

First, prioritize self-care — put simply, put your oxygen mask on before you help others. Every time I’ve failed to do that first or made a short-term decision, the stresses I feel replicate throughout the organization. From there, leverage tools and technology to streamline essential tasks and automate rote ones, creating space for your humanity and presence to really shine. Invest in human connection through an openness-trust arc, cultivating an atmosphere where team members feel safe taking risks and being vulnerable.

When it comes to ideas that will drive us forward, some of the best are born out of risk. At Mentimeter, we go as far as to relocate our whole office to another country for a month out of the year. The company covers the expenses for entire families to enjoy this yearly relocation. There are a couple of reasons why: for one, it pours jet fuel on the fire of trust — in our company culture, we want everyone to bring their full self and think long-term about their contribution. Second, in order for us to have a high ambition about our product, career building, and employees’ sense of balance with regard to their lives outside of work, relocation helps us to be extremely thoughtful about how we invest our time when we do work. The process puts positive pressure on our collaboration skills — you can only know and trust each other well if you’ve worked together over time in different settings, circumstances, and tackling different obstacles. Togetherness — especially this extreme kind of togetherness, where we eat dinner together, explore together, and work together abroad — begets openness, which begets more trust.

Additionally, focus on team fundamentals, emphasizing effective communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution. Utilize storytelling to provide context and spotlight progress over results alone. I suggest implementing tools to track progress and gather real-time feedback, like meeting tools with robust back-end insights into slide performance and employee engagement.

Lastly, adopt a core value-driven approach to reduce roadblocks and minimize the need for excessive policies. Tap into individual values as often as you do organizational ones to empower leaders and self-leadership at scale, drawing lines of similarity between the two to create meaning and buy-in. This alignment empowers individuals, brings clarity to their roles, and encourages problem-solving at every level of the organization.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

It’s impossible to give broad, blanket advice without knowing the station and situation of the individual reading this right now. That said, there are a handful of things I try to do to be a better citizen — skills that should all have staying power in strong leaders’ tool belts:

Listen to try to understand. This is the bedrock of resolving unnecessary conflicts that often stem from misperceptions or misunderstandings. By practicing putting ourselves in the shoes of others, empathizing, and genuinely considering different perspectives, we can dismantle barriers built on misunderstanding. Practicing empathy can be logically taxing and emotionally taxing, but it’s the right thing to do in every case.

Act with respect and integrity. Guided by the principle of aligning actions with personal values, acting with unwavering respect and integrity helps individuals navigate interpersonal dynamics with authenticity, reducing the likelihood of conflicts arising from misalignment. This approach not only promotes harmony but also establishes a foundation of trust, enabling more open and constructive dialogue. And, frankly speaking, acting in line with my values makes me feel better about myself.

What goes around comes around. Any movement I could promote would advocate for the principle of reciprocity — recognizing that what we put into the world often comes back to us. By leading with respect, curiosity, and a willingness to give others the benefit of the doubt, we create a ripple effect of positive interactions. When we’re respectful, we get respect back. When we’re curious, we get curiosity back. This also includes embracing forgiveness and understanding that, by extending kindness, we cultivate a culture of kindness around us. Reciprocal empathy and respect lay the groundwork for meaningful connections and collective well-being.

By combining these elements, the movement would strive to create a ripple effect of positive change, fostering a culture of giving, community engagement, trust, self-reflection, mindful leadership, and deeper human connections. The collective impact of these principles could lead to a more compassionate, understanding, and interconnected world.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite quote is “The buck stops here.” This underscores the importance of taking responsibility and accountability for one’s actions. In my life, it has been a guiding force, reminding me to confront challenges head-on and not pass the responsibility to others.

Additionally, it serves as a reminder to prioritize passion and purpose over material pursuits. Moving forward as a leader, I want to emphasize the freedom that comes with aligning one’s lifestyle with heartfelt aspirations rather than fleeting external rewards wherever possible. This perspective has been instrumental in shaping my choices, and in giving me a sense of authenticity and fulfillment in both my personal and professional spheres.

As an aside, another strong piece of advice I once received was to “always continue to live like a student does,” no matter my station in life. We humans have a tendency to raise our expenses according to the pay grade of our job, leading us to live paycheck-to-paycheck regardless of how much we’re earning. Life is short — try to build not only a robust professional life, but also the freedom for you to be able to follow your heart and your personal whims.

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Thank you for these great insights, and for the time you spent on this. We wish you continued success.