What are the most important things in a high-functioning team?
We had a team building recently and it was intense. 17 people gathered together at a rural location for a day and a half of non-stop activities.
Seriously, I got up at 7:00, got into shape, picked up several of my colleagues and drove us for an hour to a village with a huge wigwam. Lightning-fast breakfast and ready for introductions at 9:00. After an ice-breaker and a signed disclaimer about our health condition, we were rushed outside and split into 3 groups. Groups meant to solve problems: build a square with a long rope, blindfolded, extract a bucket full of water from the center of a large circle without touching the ground inside the circle, navigate through sparsely scattered wooden platforms given 3 heavy logs and a rope while not touching the ground. The 3 tasks had different conditions. For the square, we had a planning phase and only 1 try for execution. With the bucket, we could iterate, practice the approach. On the platforms, only a couple of people could actually do something at a time.
Lunch. No longer than an hour.
Back outside, split into 2 groups, playing sort of chess. With a caveat. There was a manager sitting inside, who couldn’t go outside. S/he had a supervisor who ran back and forth to facilitate communication between the manager and the team in the field. And the team in the field, a few minutes away if running, was crammed into a tight grid outlined on the ground, enjoying cold, windy weather and a drizzle.
To be honest, I didn’t know we could choose the strategy. I thought the rules were set. I just ran between the manager and the team trying to sync them and pass on instructions. We went straight for the top-down approach in our group while people were freezing outside. The game went slowly, but fairly well. We eliminated 2 cones and outsmarted the rest, so 4 people almost passed to the other side. Except we forgot to track time and in reality: 0 points. No one managed to pass in time. Guess what the other group did? That’s right, they let the people in the field play by themselves, and they scored points.
I think our team could have started to play by themselves instead of waiting, too. They had initiative and good ideas. But we started to give instructions by default and it set the mode of cooperation. That they didn’t have clear information about the goals didn’t help either.
We followed by an evaluation session after the game, inside, when people shared their experiences. Needless to say our “workers” were pissed.
With no time to spare, another task. We had to rescue an egg from a space flight gone wrong. Er… to prevent breaking when dropped from a 4-meter altitude. We had a limited amount of paper, duct tape, plastic straws, thread, and creativity. 2 eggs to risk their fate in our contraptions.
During many successful and some not-so-successful landings it was dark already. We rushed for an opulent buffet dinner afterward and had about an hour to eat and rest. The day was not over yet. We still had an activity ahead of us, shrouded in mystery. It was called The Day of the Triffids.
We went outside, into the darkness, got helmets, got blindfolded… and were forbidden to speak. Then for an hour and a half, roughly, we were led in a hapless, disoriented file across fields, over ditches, through bushes, and under fences. Any instructions were given only by touch, as we learned later, by different people rotating as the leaders. Our trust was tested, which was exactly the point.
We finished at 21:30, with casualties claimed only by morale. I drank one beer and opted for sleep at 22:00 instead of a midnight mingle. It was a wise choice.
Breakfast the next day started at 8:00. We had to vacate our rooms. At 9:00 we already sat down in a group to evaluate our evening stroll. Everyone shared how their level of trust changed during the exercise and what they wished for when they were marching into the unknown. We had some profound learnings.
The last activity tested our fitness — physical and mental. We had to run all over the place to gather animal cards to form certain combinations and score points. It was a contest between 2 teams. The one with the most points won. I ran at least for 36 minutes, as fast as I could without breaking my neck, taking only short breaks in between. In the end, most of us runners were exhausted. It was a relief to sit down for a while and evaluate our interactions in the game.
Then lunch, then a drive home. As I wrote, intense.
Over a month later, here I am, thinking: So how was it? It was worth it. I would do it again. Although this time I would maybe drop some of the problem-solving activities or stretch them over the entire two days, and spend more time talking to my colleagues instead, learning more about their lives and interests. It doesn’t always have to be about work or solving problems.
What are the learnings? What are the main factors for a group of people to deliver the best results they can?
Trust.
Trust enables cooperation. Without it, the best you can hope for is individuals working on individual tasks, passing the results to each other with different amounts of friction. If you’ve ever dreamed of colleagues pulling towards the same goal single-mindedly, this is the answer. Build trust.
It is not a given. It requires work and encouragement. People usually need to know what to expect and whether they can rely on each other. Hence bonding and forming relationships helps them to adjust their expectations and secure assistance in the future. Getting to know each other informally, team buildings, situations that require mutual dependence can go a long way.
As much as it is important among peers, trust is also paramount towards leadership. How much would you invest in the team where the leader signals to you that you’re replaceable (you most likely are, most of us are, but still) or reduces you to a KPI number? What about changing directions every 2 weeks, or not communicating at all? Does that inspire confidence? Does s/he even know your name? Incompetence or disregard makes people wonder whether they are being marched to a feast or a slaughter, and they adjust accordingly. The ability to retain top talent and keep the team motivated can be very much attributed to competent leadership. If that person crystallizes from within the team, s/he has somewhat easier going. The trust is already there.
Cooperation.
Now that you have trust, people will spontaneously team up to solve hard problems, ask for help, and provide ready advice, right? Hold your horses. Trust is necessary for meaningful, long-term cooperation, but the former doesn’t automatically yield the latter. People may still happily work “together alone” and not know any better. It could go like this: I’m taking this ticket, you take that ticket. When we’re done, Joe over there will test it, maybe next sprint. Sounds familiar? Many teams work like this. It produces results, just slower and usually in worse quality.
How about this approach: Let’s design or review the feature together. What needs to be built? What are your ideas? Does everyone understand the logic? Here, we’ll need these pieces, this interface, such and such acceptance criteria, logic can branch like this, see where the complexity lies? Let’s focus on that. That part will be complicated; let’s put at least a couple of folks on that in a group effort (pair programming, anyone?). Have you fallen behind because of an unexpected problem? What’s the hitch? Mark, can you take a look, too, or take over if needed? Hey guys, how do you intend to implement that thing? I’m writing a test for it and I need to know the details. Everything done within the sprint, different solutions considered, code expertly reviewed, tested, documented, follow-ups outlined. It’s possible. I’ve experienced the miracle and now can testify to it.
It’s rare though and difficult to set up from scratch because of a certain mindset. The mindset usually goes like: Why do we need more people on a task that can be performed by one person? Isn’t it expensive?
I think the answer is the same as to why you would hire a skilled craftsman with an outstanding track record to build your precious item albeit charging more rather than a student who would ask only for a fraction of the price. And there’s no guarantee the student would be cheaper at the end (provided you really want your item built as intended).
Such cooperation also requires responsibility and competence, besides trust.
Room to make mistakes.
The team is bonded, working together… What can go wrong? Sooner or later something usually does. And that’s life. A bug, an honest mistake, not enough training, infrastructure malfunctions… Heck, even a wrong design choice. Can you afford it?
Well, I hope so. Otherwise, it’s walking knee-deep in the sand and innovation paralysis for you.
The point is: To come up with better solutions, you need to iterate. To iterate effectively, you should fail fast. If you’re afraid to fail, you will avoid trying new things. If you don’t try new things, you fail to adjust to the real need, as the world outside changes constantly. So by punishing the team for failure, you will hurt whatever product you work on.
The team will instinctively react to feedback. If the message is not to fail, they will simply eliminate the situations that lead to failure, i.e. everything unknown, i.e. everything new. What if failing were acceptable, with emphasis on quick detection and fixes? Imagine that.
Autonomy.
If you hire a competent team to do fairly complex work, let them do their job. Why would someone think s/he is more qualified to make a decision without knowing the exact situation, which is very difficult to get understanding of in a timely fashion, and without having the expertise? Isn’t it more efficient to teach the team to make decisions that align with your goals? Power games aside.
Interfering with how the team operates, taking away ownership of responsibilities, fear of losing control will drastically affect the results as well as motivation. Think about it this way: To take full ownership of the results, one needs to have free hands to make the decisions that lead to the results.
Here’s where management as opposed to leadership can do real damage. If a team doesn’t perform to satisfaction, can it be due to misalignment rather than incompetence? If it’s incompetence, you’re likely to be better off re-building and re-training your team anyway. I have an outrageous proposition: If you’re missing alignment, give your team more responsibility. Let them feel the full wrath of it.
Do they break things often and users are complaining? Let the team use the product as users would. Let them read the feedback and respond apologetically.
Do they work too much on things that do not bring money in? Let them manage their own budget, aligning their profits with the company’s profits or whatever value you want the team to produce. They will re-orient towards that promptly.
If you think of it, it’s the only way to learn. Exposure to the problem.
Resorting to patching things — allocating a manager, putting the QA department in charge, moving in another team to troubleshoot, etc. — will only insulate the team from reality. Now the manager, QA, another team is responsible for the results. So how is it better? It can only work short-term.
Team members, if trained well and motivated, can make excellent decisions; far better than any single person would. It is humbling to realize and easy to underestimate.
Clear communication.
Even the best team will produce a useless trinket if they don’t know what they’re building. But it’s not just about what. It’s also about why, when, under which constraints, the bigger picture, and many other things. If you want the team to deliver something, tell them clearly what you want. Then again, and again, and again… Once is never enough.
Progress, feedback, goals, alignment, culture echoed throughout. It’s easy to lose direction in a group, focusing on something slightly different than the person next to you. There are different interpretations, conjunctures, personal opinions, loss of attention, or misunderstandings. So yeah, expect confusion and battle it with clear, consistent messaging, at the right time.
The only thing worse than the lack of information is an abundance of disinformation. Or is it the other way around?
Predictability.
At this point, we have an amazing, self-sufficient, cooperating team that knows what to do and when to do it. Surely this must be the pinnacle of awesomeness. Success is guaranteed. Let’s consider one more thing.
The team is communicated a certain message, but the actions may not match. It can come from the leadership or the customer… For example a prompt from the leader: We’d love to hear your ideas. Please, bring them forward. Then they’re all shut down with a “thank you”. Or from the customer: I’d like to see some innovative designs, sure. I don’t like this one, nor this one, nor this one. Can it be more like what we have, but with rounded corners?
How do you think it will turn out?
Sometimes even the message may be accurate, but the directions change all the time. Without predictability, knowing what to expect, uncertainty settles in pretty fast. The trust crumbles and we’re back to square 1.
The team may not know where they are going, but with a steady pace and the leadership they can rely on, they will be confident they’ll reach a wonderful destination.
Learning all that I still have a question: What did I get out of the team building, personally?
Let’s see… Change of scenery, free food, unique experiences I’ll remember for some time, deeper connection with my colleagues, better understanding of their behavior in certain situations and my adjusted expectations, clearer understanding of the components that make for great teamwork. Not bad, huh?
Don’t be shy, team-build. 
Top comments (0)