chapter 7
Ways to work together
If you are a team of task-focussed achievers, it’s often tempting to just crack on with the work rather than take the time to set up ways of working. But this is a false economy. The highest performing teams work well because they’ve decided how to work together in the best way. Ineffective teams use a standing agenda put together years ago or work in certain ways simply because that’s how they have always done it. We are all pressured for time and haven’t been able to consider better ways to work because we are only just keeping up with doing our jobs.
When I describe my work as a workshop facilitator to my family, I tell them it boils down to helping adults behave so they can get the best from each other. Poor ways of working together have become the norm, but we don’t have to accept them just because that’s the way it is. Now we have the chance to change poor practice into truly fantastic teamwork – not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s the most effective way to achieve our goals.
This chapter gives you simple ways to deliberately decide how to work well together. When your team commits to their own ways of working, they will be able to get the most from each other, and enjoy the work more.
The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.
Babe Ruth (1895–1948)
What you will learn in this chapter:
- • How to build trust and develop ‘teamship’ within a team.
- • How to agree language, processes and behaviours for a team.
- • How to work together effectively when a team works across different locations.
Building trust and teamship
When you think about a great team you have been in, do you think about the work, or do you think about the people you worked with? For me, it’s the people.
Thinking back to my first start-up, my team and I led creative workshops for some of the biggest global TV shows in the world. Every year the production teams would meet to share ideas, collaborate and plan, and we made these events happen. Working for the best creatives in the world was inspiring, but not without its challenges.
One project stands out in my memory as the very best of times and the very worst of times for our team. We were working on a very successful TV format with incredibly high-profile clients who were clever and collaborative, but our main contact tended to bully the people around her when under pressure, especially us. As a consequence, we were pushed to deliver far more than had been agreed and budgeted for in a very unpleasant atmosphere. Despite this, our team believed in the project and we worked positively with each other to deliver a brilliant event. I am still proud of that work today, not just for the quality of the workshop we delivered, but for how we were able to work well together, and support each other, despite the difficulties. A decade later, our team from that project remain friends and colleagues, and continue to work together.
Brilliant teams manage to work well together under pressure, so long as they believe in what they are doing and treat each other with respect, especially when things become difficult. For this reason, teams are a great way to make good friends. If you can work well despite the challenges and deliver something excellent together, it feels wonderful long after the project is done.
Teams that respect and value each other are better for us too. Teams that value honest feedback, respect for each other, and openness are 80% more likely to have good emotional wellbeing. Happier employees are up to 20% more productive than unhappy ones.1
In order to be efficient and productive, we need to be heard and understood as people. Good teams create a bond with each other, and because of that they can share ideas, concerns and issues openly. Project Aristotle, a research project at Google, investigated the secrets of effective teams. They found that the top two factors for successful teams were ‘psychological safety’ (“If I make a mistake on our team, it is not held against me”) and ‘dependability’ (“When my teammates say they’ll do something, they follow through with it”).2
Google’s intense data collection and number crunching have led it to the same conclusions that good managers have always known. In the best teams, members listen to one another and show sensitivity to feelings and needs.
Charles Duhigg3
But team bonding is at risk. Michael Schrage, author, researcher and advisor on the behavioural economics of iterative innovation, says that one of the main things that will change in the future of work is the loss of the water cooler moment: those serendipitous moments between meetings where people connect and catch up.4 Of course, we can still text, email and talk, but when people work remotely, we have less informal time together because we don’t have those moments waiting outside a corridor or grabbing coffee together between meetings. When Michael and I discussed this, he asked me if we should mandate social activities for teams to create a bond.
My answer was that I don’t believe we need to make people socialise, we simply need to bring those moments of connection into our meetings more consciously. This can be as easy as asking people about why they are on the project, or what else is happening in their lives, before getting down to work – what we used to do when we weren’t so time pressured. The key is that the team gets into the habit of the personal check-in as a regular activity and an important part of the team’s business. Michael called this ‘efficient socialisation’.
Anne Lewnes, Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer at Adobe, says that when working remotely, they prioritise talking about people’s wellbeing first in remote meetings, asking “How is everybody feeling? What’s going on in your group? Do we need to do something to help you?” She says this was even more necessary when teams had to go online rapidly due to the COVID-19 crisis, because people weren’t in a great situation at first and needed compassion from each other.5
All of this develops teamship, the bond that forms between team members.
Tool 16
Three-point check-in
The three dimensions of working well together as a team are building personal relationships, sharing professional empathy and committing to work together well. These can be organised into three types of questions to ask people at the start of every meeting. Whether you are starting out together or have been working together for years, use this tool to build trust and develop empathy.
How to use this tool:
- • At the beginning of a project, or with a new team, get people to answer all three types of question.
- • In subsequent meetings, choose one type of check-in sentence per meeting or let people choose which check-in they want to use that day.
- • Give people a choice of which specific sentence they want to complete. That way they have some control over what they choose to reveal.
- • Always let people know in advance that there will be a check-in to give them some time to think of an appropriate answer. If you spring this type of exercise on people they can feel worried about what to say, which defeats the trust building intent.
Personal check-in:
- • Something you may not know about me is . . .
- • I am at the stage in life where . . .
- • What keeps me awake at night is . . .
- • Something else that’s going on in my life right now is . . .
- • One thing I am thankful for is . . .
Professional check-in:
- • The reason I’m on this project is . . .
- • You can rely on me in this team to . . .
- • I would like this team to help me learn about . . .
- • The people I work for want . . .
- • The ultimate success on this project for me would be . . .
Productivity check-in:
- • The best work I do is when . . .
- • I like to value other people’s time by . . .
- • We must make sure that this team does . . .
- • The hardest thing about working in a team is . . .
- • This week my work will be limited by . . .
Setting rules of engagement
To be a good team we need to behave well together. Collective intelligence research6 has shown that teams who work well let each other speak, taking it in turns to make sure everyone is heard, and they properly listen to what each person says, with empathy. Empathy and balanced airtime are the basis for any solid friendship, and teamship too.
The problem is that good team behaviour doesn’t come naturally. In some teams people spend more time pointing out what’s wrong with each other’s ideas than building on them and suggesting improvements. When we are stressed we are less likely to be able to listen well, empathise with other people, or give each other airtime. At worst, people can become competitive, confrontational and feel they need to battle with each other, rather than work together.
In the marketing industry it is quite common to hear ‘warlike’ language when people talk about projects. Many teams run wargames, talk about ‘battlegrounds’, set up ‘squads’ and ‘scrums’, and focus on ‘key thrusts’. But not every project needs to be a battle, and the language we use can powerfully frame a project and how its team works together.
Head of the Guinness brand at Diageo, Grainne Wafer talked to me about setting rules of engagement. Guinness is one of the world’s most iconic brands, and the team works to keep the brand as relevant and popular today as it has been for over 250 years. What struck me most about Grainne’s approach was that she set out both the language and the spirit of the work for her team, consciously laying out the rules of engagement, such as:
- • We do this work because we love this brand.
- • We have been given the time and the freedom to do this well, so let’s make the most of it.
- • We can hold conflicting views simultaneously.
- • We will communicate early and often – WhatsApp/Slack is fine, no need for polished PowerPoint presentations.
- • We must challenge each other to make this project authentic to Guinness and worthy of its legacy.
- • The impact of this work will be positive for our customers, for the brand and for the people on this team.
Framing the spirit of the work, and therefore how people will work well together, has given positive energy to the project, the team, and their stakeholders.
At the Budweiser Brewing Group, Rachel Green, who trains and leads sales teams in the UK, talked to me about getting people excited and recognising great work, but in simple and easy ways that don’t take up too much time. Their sales team has a WhatsApp group where people share team banter, and where people post observations about the market and work questions for quick answers. Rachel says this means that people are constantly connected whether they’re sharing something personal or work related.
Whether a new team or a long-standing team who’ve worked together for years, there is huge value in resetting your rules of engagement together. Things might have changed, new people may have joined, and some processes and behaviours may no longer be needed. Setting up rules of engagement as a team is a crucial step towards supercharging it. So how do you do it?
Tool 17
Our team rules
Using this tool, the team decides on their own rules for how they agree to behave, what they agree to spend time on, and how they agree to communicate. Avoid falling into the trap of using the same rules for every team. The crucial thing here is to make sure that the team consciously and deliberately chooses these rules, and that they are reviewed and updated through the course of the project, especially when new members join.
There are three types of team rules to consider: language, process and behaviours. Use these three-question lists to kick-start your team’s discussion, and publish ‘Our team rules’ to all in the team once you’ve decided.
Language rules: How do we agree to talk about this project?
The language we use carries meaning, and what you call your team and how you talk about the project can make an enormous difference. Discuss these language questions in your team before you agree your rules:
- • Do we have the right name for the project and team? Does our name accurately represent what the team does? What should we be called?
- • Are we carrying language baggage, old names or terms that associate us with the past, with other teams or hold us back in some way? How can we change this?
- • Can we rebrand our team, our meetings or our work internally so that this team and our stakeholders understand more accurately what we are doing?
- • In the language we use, are there terms we need to stop using because they are outdated, incorrect or prejudiced? What language should we use instead?
BCSS
The right language
As a member of the British Cactus and Succulent Society (BCSS) I was asked to lead a group to modernise our branding in order to attract new members. Instead of leading a committee, the very worst example of teamwork I can think of, I agreed to lead an action group for a fixed, six-month time period. The members of the group represented different members and branches, and we were empowered to make decisions and crucially to take action on behalf of the society, not just talk.
Process rules: How do we agree to work together productively?
The way the team works can make decisions and alignment easier. Consider these process questions to lay out your team rules on how to get things done:
- • How can we challenge our current agenda to make better use of the meeting time we have?
- • How do we make sure that we cover important discussion, debate and decisions in meetings?
- • Can we avoid wasting meeting time on items that could be covered as pre-reads, such as meeting minutes, debriefs and updates?
- • How often do we need to meet? Can we set the dates in advance and agree that they won’t change?
- • Do we need to be face to face when we meet, or will video calls do?
- • Does everyone need to be at every meeting? Are there sub-teams who could meet more frequently than the whole team?
- • Who leads the meetings? Can we rotate the person who acts as the chairperson, and ask different team members to each be responsible for a different meeting to vary the topics, location and meeting style?
BCSS
A good process
In our BCSS action group, we agreed to meet via video conference every month, with the meeting dates and topics for all six meetings set in advance. Each meeting had a pre-read and a prep work task based on the decisions to be taken. Prep work was compiled into one document for the meeting in advance and presented by the host. If people weren’t able to attend, they sent in their opinions before each meeting, and we recorded the meetings for them to catch up on the discussion afterwards.
Behaviour rules: What behaviours do we commit to?
Committing to specific behaviours (and agreeing to avoid others) gives a team the best possible chance of success. Ask these questions as a team, and create the rules that suit what you want to achieve together:
- • Can we all agree to starting and ending meetings on time, and if people are late we won’t wait for them or catch them up?
- • Should we all agree to do at least two hours of actions for this project between meetings?
- • Could we all agree to complete any pre-read and prep tasks before each meeting?
- • How can we best communicate with each other and save each other unnecessary emails? Shall we avoid ‘Reply to all’ and use an instant messaging group instead of emails where possible?
- • How can we challenge each other constructively and respectfully when we don’t agree? (if your team is struggling with this, visit chapter 8)
- • What happens when we don’t agree, how will we take the final decision?
- • Once a decision has been taken, can we all commit to supporting it fully?
BCSS
Constructive behaviour
In our BCSS action group, we agreed early we could only challenge each other’s ideas with a better idea – so if we didn’t like the idea but had no better alternative, it stayed in place until a better solution was found. We started and ended meetings on time, and most people did their prep work before meetings (or accepted that their opinions weren’t included). After six months our action group delivered a full set of new branding guidelines and materials to the BCSS to be used across the group’s 70+ branches and 3,000 members.
Tool 18
Distance culture code
Remote working is time-efficient, saves companies money, and can give career and lifestyle benefits to team members. However, it does bring significant challenges to effective teamwork. We can no longer expect that teams will meet face to face regularly, and for some teams they will never be in the same room as each other. Therefore, we need to work on how to best work together despite the distance. In my company I employ around 30 people who work remotely, flexibly and on specific projects. We don’t meet very often in person, but we do meet face to face via Zoom, and we have our own culture of working remotely that we ask people to sign up to when they join the company.
If you can’t trust your employees to work flexibly, why hire them in the first place?
Adam Henderson7 Founder of Millennial Mindset
Use the distance culture code to help you set up the best ways of working for your team so that you are making every encounter as productive as possible, building trust and good communication, and reducing the risks of distance getting in the way of teamwork.
| Face to face always | Commit to every conversation being face to face, via video conference with cameras on (or using Facetime on your phone if you don’t have Zoom or Teams. This helps people to properly connect, build rapport, allows non-verbal communication, and prevents people from multi-tasking while they talk. |
| 3 Ps check-in | Start each meeting with a check-in using the 3 Ps – personal, professional and productivity – tool. As we are not meeting each other socially we need to build our understanding of each other beyond work. |
| Be honest | Insist on complete transparency so that people can be honest about anything that affects their work, whether personal or related to other work commitments. It is important to communicate early and often, sharing worries early so that we can support each other. |
| Track time | Track time on different tasks by clocking in and out of timesheets. This makes it easy to see how long tasks take, what time was spent on them, and how much people are working. |
| Look professional | Even if working from home, people should look professional, dressed as they would be if they were meeting at an office, and don’t have a bedroom or personal items in the background. |
| Buddy up | For junior or new members, arrange for them to work alongside established team members on the first few projects so that they can learn, get feedback and become comfortable in the culture. |
| In-person time | Schedule regular, in-person working sessions where possible, weekly for teams in the same city, monthly or biannually for those further afield. These can be training sessions or just co-working together in the same room to build relationships. |
| Rotate meetings | For people working across time zones, we rotate the time of each meeting, so that we respect each other’s lives and time zones. |
A regular meeting pattern
The final way to work well together as a team is to have regular, scheduled meetings.
Neil Mullarkey has been a member of a successful team longer than anyone else I know. Neil is a founding member of the Comedy Store Players, a team of improv artists who meet and perform every Wednesday live at The Comedy Store London, and have done so since 1985 – 35 years. The members of the group have changed over the years, but there’s a core team who have continued to work together, very successfully, for all this time.
Neil says that one of the reasons why the Comedy Store Players have been successful for so long is that they meet in the same place, at the same time, on the same day and they run pretty much the same kind of games every meeting. Because they all choose to be there and they only see each other once a week, they don’t get sick of each other like many people who see each other daily. The people in the group do change over time, and new people bring inspiration, but the meeting itself is fixed, predictable and provides the structure around which they all perform at their best.
Back at the Budweiser Brewing Group, the 110 people in the UK sales team have a 15-minute standing team meeting every Tuesday morning. There is a discipline about a regular catch-up, being on time, with everyone there, and the predictability and momentum of knowing there is a meeting to go to.
Make sure meetings are timely, scheduled far enough in advance so that people can plan to be there, and the expectation is that you will attend, or will send your thoughts in advance (rather than expecting the meeting to be rescheduled if people can’t make it).
How you work is how you will succeed
Brilliant teams work well together. They don’t need to be each other’s best friends or socialise often, but they do need to respect each other, be able to challenge each other constructively, and commit to achieving a common goal by making each other’s lives easier rather than more difficult. If your team enjoys the work and the people they work with, it will be more successful. Taking the time to consider and agree how you will work best as a team is a crucial step in supercharging your team and will make sure you will do your best work together.
Key take outs
- • Connecting on a personal level and building teamship make us happier and more productive.
- • Agreeing team rules is crucial to ensuring our team rules.
- • Distance is no barrier to effective teamwork.