Building & Leading Teams for Impact December 20, 2011

There’s no “I” in team.

There’s no “1” in the One Million Campaign.

We all have a piece of the puzzle.

Building Your Team

You’ve got to organize & mobilize!

Mobilizing to Action: PSA

Solution

: Hope What specifically & meaningful can be done about?

Problem

: Anger What are they angry about or threatened by?

Action

: Opportunity Make the specific & doable ask

Organizing Conversations

Intentional

conversations that go deeply into a person’s:  Issues: What we act on  Values: Principles, what motivates us  Interests : What’s our stake in it Assessment from the conversation:  Capacity: What resources can be offered  Commitment: What resources are offered

Goal:

Learn a person’s story and what matters to them. Build a relationship, assess them, and figure out potential common concerns.

Mobilizing Conversations

Prompted

conversations that make the ask.

Solution Problem Action Goal:

Find common concern. Find what is a problem or point of agitation for a person to make link between person’s problem and the solution that leads them to take some action.

Coming Together As A Team

Team Phases

Team Phases

1. Forming: Team meets & learns about challenges & opportunities; agrees on goals; begins to tackle tasks 2. Storming: Team addresses issues, such as what problems they are really supposed to solve, how they will function independently & together, & what leadership model they will accept 3. Norming: Team manages to have one goal & come to mutual plan for team 4. Performing: Able to function as unit as team find ways to get job done smoothly & effectively without inappropriate conflict or need for external supervision

Working Together: The Team Charter

Team Charter: Purpose

 What kind of team?

 What “work” does the team do?

 What topics belong “in” this team and what’s “out”?

 What is the team responsible for accomplishing?

Team Charter: Context

 Who are we accountable to?

 What other groups / teams do we connect?

 What do they want / need from us?

Team Charter: Goals

 What specific results do we expect from our efforts?

 What outcomes?

 How can we measure that?

Team Charter: Roles

 Who is on the team?

 What perspective does each member bring?

 Are there special roles or subgroups within this team?

 What do subgroups require of us?

Team Charter: Procedures

   Work Processes:  What processes will we use to do the team’s work?

 How often will we meet?

 Who determines & manages our agenda?

 How will we connect with our stakeholders & other sponsors of our work?

Decision Making:  What decisions are made within this team?

 What is out of bounds?

 What level of decision making responsibility do we have?

 What decision process will we use?

Communication:  How will we communicate & connect to others within the organization?

Team Charter: Norms

 What do we expect of each other?

 How do we agree to handle conflict?

 What are our team norms and/or operating principles?

Team Norms Exercise

 Think of the worst team you have been on  Spend 2 minutes writing down what made that experience so terrible  Think of the best team you have been on  Spend 2 minutes writing down what made that experience so good  Write down suggestions for behaviors that would make being on this team a positive experience

Working Together: Team Needs

Team Needs: Planning Phase

 Team Charter: Overall objectives, resources, & constraints are defined by or for team   Goals: ID of measurable team output & related milestones Team Norms: Agreed upon standards of behavior that regulate team member performance during & between interactions  Task Performance Strategy: Development of overall approach to task & key actions to achieve goals  Shared Understanding: ID of key assumptions & beliefs that will affect performance to create a common perspective  Team Memory: Inventory of relevant knowledge, information, & skills available to team (& gaps)

Team Needs: Action Phase

 Monitoring Output: Tracking & communicating progress toward task completion & goal accomplishment  Monitoring Systems: Tracking resources available to team & tracking external environment  Coordination: Prioritizing & orchestrating sequence & timing of key activities & events   Communication: Ensuring high quality communication within group Monitoring Team Behavior: Providing feedback & coaching to help members perform tasks or ensure others complete those tasks  Managing Boundaries: Ensuring high quality information flow with other groups or units, including acquisition of resources, coordinating activities, & advocating team interests

Team Needs: Interpersonal

    Motivation Building: Generating sense of personal accountability for individual & team performance, team cohesion, & motivation toward task accomplishment Psychological Safety: Developing shared sense of trust so team members can openly speak their minds without fear of rebuke or retaliation Emotion Management: Ensuring set-backs & frustration (& even over confidence) don’t undermine team performance Conflict Management: Proactively ensuring differences of opinion don’t prevent task accomplishment; helping team have healthy debate without personal acrimony

Working Together: Virtual Teams

Virtual Teams

It is harder to follow a meeting from a distance. So…  Make meeting plan very explicit & more detailed  List all planned activities, timelines, processes, etc.

 Engage vested interested of participants in advance  Correspond personally with each to confirm participation & interest  Enunciate interim process goals & make smaller & chronologically shorter

Virtual Teams

People don’t get feedback when working over a distance. So…  Proactively seek out & provide feedback from all participants  Engage in process check-ins frequently  Enable private virtual dialogue

Virtual Teams

It’s harder to build a team over a distance. So…  Achieve very clear, unambiguous goals  Arrange for distributed “breaks” to allow informal dialogue

Virtual Teams

There is an art to using audio & video in a distributed meeting. So…  Engage in a dialogue rather than giving a briefing  Stay close to the microphone  Explicitly ask for comments and feedback

Teams in Review

 Have organizing & mobilizing conversations to add team members  Teams go through phases – it’s perfectly normal  Create a team charter  Spend time developing team norms  Teams require trust  Manage team conflict before there is conflict  Virtual teams require a little extra TLC

Sample Team Meeting Agenda

 Round of introductions / personal stories  Team norms exercise  Set team norms  Determine how team will meet  Determine how team will communicate  Create team charter  Assign team roles & general responsibilities  Lay out plan

Questions?