Team Development: How to (be ready to) Deliver Big Things
I want my work to be big and meaningful. It's got to have big impact. It will mean something huge for the people who need it. It’s hard to do. It will not happen instantly, but be a journey to accomplish. It will be painful yet rewarding. But like a marathon or reaching a peak, you can't just show up expecting to crush it in on race day if you haven't prepared and trained. Even if you have all the natural talent in the world. And trust me. My 23andMe report said my muscle DNA is akin to that of an elite power athlete, and I still can't run 26 miles or even 1 without conditioning. (That's for another blog. Frankly, it wouldn't even occur to me to even TRY running despite my genetic "gifts.")
Back to my point. To get to that big and meaningful thing, I have to take a series of small steps and maintain momentum to stay in peak condition so I can be ready for it when inspiration or opportunity hits. The same goes for your team! Let’s dig in on how you and your team can train for your own big thing together.
Do challenging things together. I will keep coming back to how critical Psychological Safety is to a high-performing team. And there are tons of ways you as an individual can foster and model psychological safety thanks to a handy Google toolkit. But in this case I was specifically thinking about a recent Podcast I listened to: Adam Grant and TED's Worklife. And it reinforced my belief that the best teams aren’t polite and breezy, but are able to handle and overcome adversity and challenges. So, what are some things you can do to challenge your (often times) spread-out-across-locations, distracted team? How about doing something that actually embraces your virtual teamness that people can work on together like an online game? I once had a team even turn achieving great results during a testing phase into a competition and we had a blast. There are tons of ways you can make this happen. The point is build collaborative challenges into your work and process early on.
Take small risks (and then learn from them). When kicking off a project, I try to find ways to test out big ideas in low risk ways. Things like building prototypes or having candid exploratory discussions with customers and stakeholders. I once attended a conference which was using a new technology so I could see it in action and evaluate the big change I was considering as an anonymous outsider. The idea is to prepare for the big thing by trying something different and learning. I often call this a proof of concept phase. More importantly, encourage others to test out ideas and explore. Great ideas often come from experimentation. So do this yourself and then encourage and praise others for trying something as well.
Hold people accountable to higher standards. It's not enough to test out creative and/or wacky ideas. In fact, if something isn't even a good idea to pursue, ditch it or try to help make it better. Let people know if something isn't right. You should hold yourself and others to high standards for delivery of something impactful. I just read a great post in Fast Company by Anett Grant on How to Turn Conflict into a Communication Tool which gives actionable takeaways on embracing friction to get traction and impact from your team. This is an important balance. Pushing the envelope is only halfway there. Ask yourself and others the question, what would have made this exceptional? Care about their success and make sure they know of your belief and trust in them. Don't take it personally or be defensive that something wasn't perfect. I once heard a quote that went something like this: If you aren't embarrassed about what you did last year you aren't growing enough. I have lots of things I'm proud of, but plenty of early stage prototypes that I cringe thinking about, and that's a really good thing.
So. It’s time to get to work. In order to do something transformative and impactful, you and your team need to get ready by putting in the work of forming a strong connection, and then practice, train, and practice some more. You want to be in elite shape. This means being intentional in how you set up a trusting environment, become aggressive in taking meaningful risks, and holding each other accountable to reaching for exceptional results. I can’t wait to hear about your big and meaningful results!
