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3.5 | What have you learned from / observed around your team effectiveness?
Below, you will see the Session #3 reflection questions. Please answer these questions at the bottom of the screen.
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43 Replies
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I’m in a special situation where I have the honor of creating a mindfulness Pgm for a large federal agency, and the team is volunteer-based. Therefore, the personalities that are drawn to such an endeavor are, by self-selection, more mindful than the baseline (in my opinion, and from all that I’ve seen). This is a team, actually, with whom I will feel comfortable sharing the Google Aristotle findings, and with whom I will strategize about how to incorporate more aspects of Factors 2-5 (rather than trying to attempt to improve upon team effectiveness from the stance of “team leader going at it alone”!
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I’m calmer, more focused and actively listening more than I have been in the past. I am seeing others starting to respond to that as well. I have also been trying to keep the conversation a bit “lighter” and try to keep it grounded in what we really want to accomplish. Next step…pushing for more voices being heard around the screen.
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We are currently working through a restructure. I think there is a lot I’d like to do to focus on structure and clarity. There is a lot of opportunity to help team members figure out their role, and therefore not feel burnout and overwhelmed, or spread too thin. While I do understand that ‘psychological safety’ is the top priority, clarity and structure is where I see the most opportunity right now in my organization and I’m excited to create a more effective team by focusing on that area.
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I’m definitely observing currently and making small changes in meetings, team construction (based on the skills I need which I don’t have), psychological safety and clarity of structure. I find that there are very big decisions that need to be make for the benefit of the organization. Some of them are to correct errors I’ve made. So, I find this very humbling in many ways.
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Our teams are more effective when they are aligned in their values and true on another and while incredibly resilient they struggle when they/we don’t have time fo self care.
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As I mentioned in another post, my team has recently had a change in leadership and were still trying to find our way through the different aspects of team effectiveness. My previous manager did an excellent job at connecting on a personal level in creating psychological safety that way where is the new person is the better people manager overall and does a great job at dependability, structure and clarity. I’m part of our organizations DEI Office so our impact is clear and remains so despite the change in leadership. I have always struggled with the meaning aspect of office jobs and, despite the fact that this is meaningful work, I don’t often connect with it on a day to day level in my work.
It’s been really interesting to watch what has/has not shifted with a new leader and see the strengths and areas of growth of the team and the team members with the change.
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I own a small business and, insofar as I know (because I am always the last person to learn about any issues), we have a great deal of psychological safety in the workplace. Staff feel comfortable helping one another, and own up to mistakes and take corrective action. Similarly too, if I am part of the mistake (thinking of one situation where I was inadequately clear in my instructions-which I realized later was the probable source of the problem), I own up to my part in the situation and explain how or why we will proceed to avoid this in the future. This is relatively easy in a very small business. But it means I have to be the light and keep the light on when I am at work and even when I am at home (and available for text messages). This gets tiring, but I realized long ago that this is what I signed up for (even if I didnt know it at the time) and to chafe against it is only secondary dukkha of my own creation.
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It has been an exhausting journey of learning and teaching new systems to teammates across the country, seasoned and newly minted. I’ve learned that when a majority of the team has a history and foundation of collaboration built on trust, dependability, safety, and transparency, seasoned members can help champion others and also vice versa. New teammates who are perhaps less exhausted and with beginner mindsets can help return the favor in other areas creating effective change and a collective achievement of goals, despite the presence of predictable and unpredictable moments of chaos in their environments.
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I was a member of a teaching team over the summer and on another teaching team this fall to teach a similar course. Both teams consisted of 4 faculty members yet the teams were very different. Both teams were effective yet I looked forward to the meetings with one team and not as much with the other team. So, I’m curious, is effectiveness enough?
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We are a very small team (3 people) and interact almost exclusively virtually (one of the team members is in Santiago, Chile). Although we use online collaboration tools and have a standing daily meeting (scheduled for 30 minutes, but sometimes expands to 2 hours or more), it still feels like we’re not that aligned on the bigger questions. I think it’s mostly due to a lack of time discussing them, but also that our leader is trying to shield us from some of the roller coaster of external discussions so that we can focus on building the product. While I think it’s well intentioned, it may be counterproductive, since I think the lack of clarity is weighing on my productivity.
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We have great strengths in our women’s organization. Many of our members are committed to volunteer and put in their own time to get the work done. However, due to the lack of funds, some of the projects, such as development of courses and marketing videos, haven’t been produced as we wished.
Therefore, we are in the process of evaluating what projects are more urgent and can bring profits to our organization. This will support the overall vision that we have and help us grow and become stronger.
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I noticed that openly reinforcing notions of interdependence and mutual care with my team has a dynamo energizing effect. This eventually allows me to step back and let the team do the work on its own terms, allowing me instead to focus on managing the team’s direction and overall well-being (ensuring that, taken by the energy and excitement of collaborative work, no one overburdens themselves, or careens towards burnout).
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I have been more focused on how to ask people when I need something of them in a more effective way and noted that this has been very helpful
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In my team we had a wisdom circle instead of chatting about these topics. I’ve noticed my own urge to take care and provide solutions. In the last meeting I was better able to pause and notice, not reacting and letting go of the desire to give solutions.
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Within my smaller team (me + 2 direct reports) there appears to be lots of trust, camaraderie, and psychological safety. I think part of this stems from how much time we spend together and the collaborative nature of our work. Where things tend to break down is how our group fits within our larger team of ~15. What we do differs from their work and it often feels like we are the outcasts. I think ‘outcasts’ is a bit dramatic, but it does not feel like we are on the same team or have the same respect from leadership. This lack of respect from leadership does inhibit our effectiveness and I’m currently working to bring more visibility of our workstream to senior stakeholders.
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