Radical Transparency in Teamwork
The second semester of grad school has turned into a long series of group projects and subsequently, group meetings. This experience has been a good reminder of the advantages and disadvantages of working on a team. I love the collaborative ideation and problem solving sessions — feeding off of positive energy and possibility is invigorating. The downside of teamwork is working through roadblocks based on collective stress, communication breakdowns and general dysfunction. This dynamic is no different than the workplace, so this is an ideal time to experiment with strategies and tactics to improve teamwork as well as our roles as individual contributors. Ray Dalio’s book Principles offers principles or ‘fundamental truths’ to serve as the foundation of behavior to help one achieve their goals. I’ve started to explore several of the concepts in this book.
1. Harness the Power of Radical Transparency
Dalio’s concept of ‘radical transparency’ requires individuals to be open and straightforward with each other. The idea is that people should be able to have thoughtful disagreement and continue to move forward in a productive manner. This concept reminded me of Patrick Lencioni’s book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, because Lencioni also stresses the value of getting uncomfortable and actively working through challenges with your teammates. In this podcast Dalio talks more about how this strategy plays out at his company:
2. Provide Constant Feedback
Part of being transparent is creating feedback loops to assess how things are going. Dalio has trained himself to welcome negative feedback with the understanding that there are lessons to be learned. Most of us would agree that both receiving criticism and being brutally honest with someone is hard to do. However tackling group challenges head-on can improve the overall dynamic in the long-term.
Recognize that while most people prefer compliments, accurate criticism is more valuable. You’ve heard the expression “no pain no gain.” Psychologists have shown that the most powerful personal transformations come from experiencing pain from mistakes that a person never wants to have again — known as “hitting bottom.” So don’t be hesitant to give people those experiences of have them yourself. Principles, Ray Dalio
Earlier in the semester I found myself in the hot seat with one of my group members. In preparation for a pitch I had unintentionally excluded a teammate from a meeting. It was an oversight on my behalf and luckily I was called out for it and able to make a course correction. The feedback forced me to reflect on my actions and gave me the opportunity to apologize before things could deteriorate. We were able to maintain transparency and openness and I felt grateful to be working with people that valued maintaining a strong foundation of trust.
3. Don’t be Afraid to Fix Difficult Things
A couple weeks ago I found myself in a fit of road rage. I was stopped at a red light and when the light turned green a pedestrian walked out in front of me. The car behind me honked and I could see the person in the car yelling at me in the rearview mirror. This situation made me so angry, I flipped the person off and went on my way. When I arrived at class I was upset about the interaction I’d had. I was under a lot of stress, but my behavior was unacceptable. A few minutes later a classmate came in and asked if I drove a red Subaru — I had flipped off my teammate! I’m not sure why emotions can escalate so quickly in the car, but this was a rare incident where we were both able to address what had happened. We both acknowledged that we were in the wrong, apologized and laughed it off. Reaching reconciliation with someone can happen on so many different levels. I’m finding Dalio’s advice about fixing things as they occur to be a great practice.
In some cases, people accept unacceptable problems they are perceived as too difficult to fix. Yet fixing unacceptable problems is a lot easier than not fixing them, because not fixing them will lead to more stress, more work, and chronic bad outcomes that could get you fired. Principles, Ray Dalio
I’ve been talking a lot about radical transparency and practicing some of Dalio’s principles. A lot ot the concepts in the book are easy to understand, but not always so simple to practice. That said, I will continue to experiment and incorporate these strategies into my workflow and evaluate the successfulness of this approach.
