Four Tips to Developing Strong Cross-Team Collaboration

Where does your team's work end and the other team's begin? - If you haven't discussed it, it's probably a gray area.

We talk about roles and responsibilities for each person, but what about teams? When we're hired, we are provided a preliminary agreement of what we are supposed to do - the job description. Rarely do we get a team job description, and this is a problem.

If your team works closely with other teams within your organization, then there are likely hand-offs where your incomplete work is finished by another or many other teams - a form of cross-team collaboration.

Question - has your team and the other teams sat down and defined roles and responsibilities for this work? - if not, you're living in the gray area, and it's likely causing issues.

What kind of issues? - maybe you are seeing missed deadlines, details slipping through the cracks, avoidable errors, or poorly delivered final products.

Without clarity, these issues can cause teams to blame each other, approach projects with confusion, stoke animosity, and generally hurt productivity.

So, what can be done? Here are a few tips to help you improve your cross-team collaborations:

1. Develop clear roles and responsibilities for each team - who does what, when, and what are the expected deliverables?

2. Ensure each team is equipped for success - making sure each team has the resources to achieve their work is critical if you hope to ensure folks stick to their commitments.

3. Continuously scrutinize the relationship - things change, and keeping up-to-date with other teams not only aids performance but allows for adjustments.

4. Put yourself in their shoes - if you are struggling, chances are the other team is too, in their own way. Instead of allowing your team's struggles to manifest into blame or animosity, get curious, and refer to tips 1-3 to find the source of tension and solve the problem.

It's not easy to collaborate when cross-team roles and responsibilities have not been established. Setting them, ensuring folks are set up for success, staying curious, and coming from a place of empathy can serve to improve how your team collaborates with others.

Taking the Baton - Tips for Managing Your INHERITED Team

As a manager, have you inherited a team? If so, you've just entered the Danger Zone. Let me explain.

You are managing a team that was previously managed by someone else. This assignment comes with all kinds of hazards - here's just a few that you might encounter:

1. Trap doors, miss them and you'll fall through the floor. These are the pathways that previously facilitated productivity (e.g., processes, practices, etc.).

2. Road signs, miss them and you'll drive off the road. These are the indicators that guide the way your team works (e.g., norms, communication, coordination).

3. Infrastructure, miss the maintenance and the dam may break. These are the management styles of your predecessor (e.g., recognition, feedback, etc.).

You have a way of working that is different from your predecessor, that's fine. But the trap doors, road signs, infrastructure, and many other elements of the team have been set. You must first understand them and navigate them before determining how you might change them. Misunderstand how your team works; you could miss a hazard, turning a function into a dysfunction.

So, how can you take note of the hazards and understand them? Here are a few tips:

1. Ask the team to educate you on how things get done. Hearing from the team sends the signal that you are interested in them and their work and want to be careful about your next steps. This will not only provide insight but help your team be heard.

2. Take opportunities to observe the team in action. Watch how they work, and spot what seems to be working and what does not. Check-in with the team to learn their thoughts about what you observe. This will give you a clearer picture of what was discussed in tip # 1.

3. Shadow the previous manager, get some one-on-one time with them, or interview others who might be able to share insights from the manager's vantage (e.g., your manager, peer managers, etc.). This will help you understand those opportunities and challenges that the team will have less insight into - what worked in the past, what didn't, what they would change about the team, etc. from a management perspective.

At the outset, it's important to manage expectations with the team, acknowledging that you are different from the past manager, but that you want to be sure not to disrupt what works and to improve what needs it. This can provide you space to maneuver and space to honor what works while keeping the team on board.

It's not easy to start managing a team that existed before you took over - I hope these tips help as you navigate this very challenging context - you've got this!

How Strategic Offsites are Different from Team Building

I meet many folks who lead teams, and when I tell them I do strategic offsite programming and facilitation, the typical response is, "So, you create team-building exercises?" - not exactly.

It's understandable that games and ice-breakers come to mind - they are generally what has been offered to teams going offsite. While they may help folks get to know one another, they aren't strategic.

Strategic programming focuses on the things that are likely running through members' minds when doing a trust fall or ropes course - they think, "We should really be working on how we communicate with clients." Space is often not made during these activities to discuss the reality at work.

Strategic facilitation focuses on creating a safe and productive space to discuss the hard stuff. Instead of building a learning session where we discuss concepts in the abstract, we discuss them as they exist for you and help people feel comfortable expressing their perspectives.

By discussing topics that matter in a productive environment, your team can leverage the time you spend together to make progress on your future.

While there is room for team-building exercises at your company offsite, I recommend you make space to discuss what matters most and create space to produce the most representative, valid, shared understanding of what's going on. This way, you'll have actionable items for the future and relevant topics to check in on at your next offsite.

I say offsites are a place to start the conversation on the hard things; they help you build the language you need to continue the conversation once you are back at work.

Something to consider if you plan to make the investment to be together.

3 Steps to Creating Strategic offsites

When you get together to focus on things other than the day-to-day, you create an opportunity for making updates to HOW you work. Here is how to build transformational offsite programming:

Step 1, before the offsite:

• Learn what is top of mind for folks (this could be the challenges associated with an ongoing project, reviewing what worked during a client engagement, general items you don't often discuss but need attention, etc.)

• Create an agenda with sessions focused on the topics that matter to your team

• Get agreement on the agenda

Step 2, during the offsite:

• Create a comfortable and safe space for folks to discuss agenda items

• Remind people why you are there - to effectively address topics that matter to the team

• Work through each topic for about 1 to 2 hours, holding space for discussion, exploration, and action planning next steps

• Hold a final session to discuss how each topic fits into the larger whole of the team and integrate action plans to reduce overlap and develop a broader "go forward" plan

Step 3, after the offsite:

• Implement actions determined during the offsite

• Keep track of how things are going between offsites

• Leverage offsite practices to keep the conversation going

• Have folks keep all of the above in mind when considering topics for the next offsite

Repeat steps 1 through 3. Through practice, offsites can become your vehicle for change.

Are You Effectively Evaluating Your Managers?

Among their many responsibilities, managers must assess, provide feedback, and reward or sanction employees based on their performance and productivity. A manager is expected to act when an employee exhibits poor performance or counter-productive work behavior.

The above is achievable in a “manager of individual contributors” scenario, where work product is directly observable through output. However, the activity is less achievable in a “manager of managers scenario,” where performance is dependent on management behaviors and is thus less easily observable – unless the manager of managers attends every meeting and reads every email of their subordinates – an unlikely feat.

To effectively assess the performance and productivity of managers (i.e., their ability to manage), a manager of managers must have input from the teams working under these managers. If this input is absent, then the manager of managers is ill-equipped to make assessments and provide feedback to managers.

Through a feedback system, the manager of managers can gather several metrics for manager performance, including how well they produce employee satisfaction, support, motivation, and engagement, all of which predict employee performance [1, 2, 3].

We hear a lot about managing up. We also hear that managing up is a collaborative activity between employee and manager to get the best out of the employee. However, this is only half of managing up. While managing up can be a collaborative activity between employee and manager, it should also be an evaluative activity, whereby employees provide feedback on manager performance.  

Giving employees the same tools as managers to create a positive, thriving, and safe work environment may seem counter-intuitive, but it is a critical element to managing up and managing managers in general. Techniques for empowering employees to give feedback on their managers include 360 feedback reviews, surveys, and simple 1:1 conversations.

How equipped are you to effectively evaluate your managers? Shoot me a note if you want to discuss your feedback and performance system. 

References:

1.    https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mohammad-Rubel/publication/281389739_Perceived_Support_and_Employee_Performance_The_Mediating_Role_of_Employee_Engagement/links/55e513c108ae2fac4722fa6d/Perceived-Support-and-Employee-Performance-The-Mediating-Role-of-Employee-Engagement.pdf

2.    https://core.ac.uk/reader/234625730

3.    https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shikta-Singh/publication/347348993_Linkage_Between_Employee_Satisfaction_and_Employee_Performance_A_Case_in_Banking_Industry/links/60955e18458515d31503eaae/Linkage-Between-Employee-Satisfaction-and-Employee-Performance-A-Case-in-Banking-Industry.pdf

5 Steps to Group Alignment

Alignment has to do with understanding and agreement. It is about building a shared sense of reality. It involves getting everyone on the same page and working in the same direction. Groups can develop alignment across a wide variety of important factors, such as identity, purpose, practices, processes, direction, and strategy – or who we are, why we exist, what we do, how we do what we do, where we are headed, and how we plan to get there. From an organizational perspective, we could call these factors organizational arrangements. Developing alignment on organizational arrangements can produce more effective teams, functions, and organizations. For instance, regarding strategy, research shows that when organizations share their goals, teams are better able to focus their work on activities that drive organizational performance [1].

It makes sense that alignment leads to positive outcomes; when people understand and agree on important organizational arrangements, folks can take committed action. So, how do we develop alignment? – by iteratively developing understanding and nurturing agreement. Understanding and agreement are continuous processes, they must be negotiated in an ongoing fashion as circumstances change. Thus, the key to alignment is to develop and maintain the tools that enable folks to continuously understand and agree on organizational arrangements. That is, we must build our “group alignment toolset.” Here are five steps you can take to work toward getting aligned with your people.

Determine What Needs Attention

While many of the organizational arrangements discussed above play an important role in effective work, some items will inevitably need more attention than others. Determine areas of focus by checking in with members of the group with whom you are seeking to develop alignment (i.e., team, unit, or whole organization). These folks know what is going on, and learning from their experience will offer insights about what is top of mind and what is particularly challenging, or what is going well. Insights can come from interviews, focus groups, or survey data. What you are looking for here is your first sign of agreement in the alignment process, that is, what people agree on that is challenging or going well for the group. In addition to what you learn, you may have particular things you know you want to work on, be sure to check in to learn what members think of these topics. What you learn in this process will allow you to focus on the challenges and opportunities that may be inhibiting alignment.

Bring Folks Together

Work today is highly distributed. Folks might be in different parts of a building, parts of the country, or parts of the world. We work remotely, hybrid, asynchronously, and in-person, and will likely work in new ways in the future. Thus, getting folks together, while tough, is important for making progress toward alignment. Providing the space to discuss, explore, challenge, and exchange ideas ensures that important topics get the time and attention they deserve if critical decisions are going to be made and committed action is going to be taken. You can bring people together online or in person, but the key is to develop a thoughtful approach to holding discussions and capturing insights.

Discuss and Decide

While we have achieved one level of agreement (e.g., the challenges and opportunities of the group), we must now develop understanding and agreement on the way forward. This starts with discussions on the organizational arrangements of focus and leads to decision-making on actions to be taken. For instance, say folks are unclear on work practices and believe there is a need to make updates within your organization. The only way to make updates is for folks to have a sense of where things stand and how they might make changes. Asking questions like “How have we worked in the past?” “How do we work now?” and “What shall we update about our ways of working?” can serve to get people thinking critically about whether the past and present match future ambitions. Here is where new learning and insights can develop, and folks can begin to discuss alternatives to the present practices or learn how to leverage best practices currently in use.

Check Your Assumptions

Our understanding or perception of a given topic may be different from that of our colleagues. The only way we learn how far apart we are is by questioning what we think we know about the other person’s understanding. You might be surprised to learn that a colleague does not know the meaning of an acronym you’ve been using for a whole meeting or that a decision to update database definitions has not yet been communicated to the team you are presenting to. However, when you operate under assumptions, people get left out of the loop, and misalignment can occur. The only thing it is safe to assume is that folks may not know what you are talking about. Checking assumptions is a super hack for developing alignment. When holding discussions with members, it is often facilitative to start from the beginning and work toward a more advanced understanding of any particular topic.

Hire an Expert Consultant

Getting an expert to aid in the alignment process can provide huge value. In many circumstances, in the absence of a consultant, a team, unit, or organizational leader might take up the role of facilitator. This makes sense as they are formally in charge and have a wider view of the organization. However, holding the dual role of leader and consultant can force the leader into an either/or position; either they maintain their leader role, which allows them to think critically about the topics at hand but makes it hard to consult and take that higher-up view to tune into the dynamics and broader insights shared by the group, or they take a consultant role, which allows them to capture the essence of what is being shared and develop key insights but makes it harder to keep their leader hat on and listen from their vantage of supporter and enabler of productivity. Breaking these into two roles gives leaders the freedom to show up and contribute as a member of the organization and allows the consultant to develop an understanding of the group, drive inquiry, unlock curiosity, surface assumptions, and guide the group toward updated ways of working.

Making progress toward alignment in your team, unit, or organization is a continuous process. Taking the steps above and repeating them once a quarter or twice a year can aid in your pursuit. Launching these activities can provide people with a more predictable, coherent, and engaging experience at work.

References

1. Harris, C. L., & Beyerlein, M. M. (2003). Team-Based Organization: Creating an Environment for Team Success. In M. A. West, D. Tjosvold, & K. G. Smith (Eds.), International handbook of teamwork and cooperative working (referenced pages: 193–194). New York: Wiley.

What is the Power of Social Support?

Lifting others means lending a bit of ourselves. This might imply providing access to our perspective, experience, opportunities, or simply our time.

By giving support you help to ensure the success of others. Their success enables them to provide support to others in turn.

So, by lending support you produce social support, whereby your efforts are compounded by fresh efforts of those you help.

How can you provide support? Reach out to that person in your inbox who has asked for your advice, re-share someone’s LinkedIn post about seeking an opportunity, or connect two people who you think might mutually benefit. You can make real impact in someone’s life today.

Virtuous Professional Cycle

The Virtuous Professional Cycle illustrates the activities that, when pursued in concert, serve to produce, and boost your whole work self. It captures those core pieces that make work fulfilling, interesting, and impactful, and can reinforce one another.

That’s why I chose a cycle – whether it is clear or not, everything we do is connected. The Virtuous Professional Cycle activity offers the opportunity to identify and reflect on those connections. The cycle can also be used to map out who we hope to become!

I posted the cycle template(s) to LinkedIn. Use the button below to download.

You can use the template(s) to identify the core activities that produce your own Virtuous Professional Cycle. Use it again to create an aspirational Virtuous Professional Cycle by including future activities you hope to pursue.

Due to space limitations, I have included fillable templates with up to six activities in the cycle, but I encourage you to extend beyond and think about all the things that produce your Virtuous Professional Cycle. On page two I share my own Virtuous Professional Cycle as an example. I hope the tool provides you much insight. Feel free to share with others!

Learn Out of Pure Interest

Once you try it, there is no going back!

Before I became a management consultant, I spent eight years in academia – from community college to four-year and four-year to graduate school. I learned a LOT.

I ended up with five associates degrees, a bachelors, two master’s, and a PhD. How did I accomplish this is eight years? I learned out of pure interest. 

I only took the courses that interested me, sought out experiences that drove me, and engaged in research that inspired and challenged me. By learning out of pure interest, academics was less of a chore – something I had to do so I could get a job – and more of a delight.

Learning out of pure interest gave me the energy to succeed and my subsequent success and qualifications are a happy byproduct.

I bring this same philosophy with me to the work I do today. Learning out of our interest allows me to show up, listen, understand, and help solve true challenges – those that may not be apparent at first glance.

I encourage you to follow the path that keeps your interest. By doing so, you will bring a unique perspective rooted in genuine curiosity, a combination that I have found can produce powerful results.

How Needs Alignment Produces Thriving Organizations

Aligning the needs of employees with those of the organization can produce powerful outcomes. When an employee’s need for exploration meets an organization’s need for innovation, you get invention. When an organization’s need for productivity meets an employee’s need for useful processes, you get optimization.

Alternatively, misaligned needs can produce deleterious effects. When an employee’s need for stability meets an organization’s need for contingency, you get disruption. When an organization’s need for risk-taking meets an employees need for safety, you get accidents.

How well does your organization’s needs align with those of your employees?