And then a funny thing happened: We decided to take our own advice.

As our loyal customers know, the Teamworks team is a small one. The same person who answers your customer service tickets is also the person writing content or doing QA or doing user testing. We all wear many hats.

And right now, we’re deep in the creative process, as we look at ways to take Teamworks to the next level—making our tools even more accessible for more people. So, we asked ourselves: What can we afford not to do?

And the answer, at least for now, is to cut back on our publishing schedule here. For the last eight months, we’ve tried to bring you thoughtful, quality content most days of the week. But now we need to dial that back a bit. (It was either that or dramatically reduce our standards when it comes to what we publish, and we’re just not willing to do that.) We’d rather speak to you less frequently with the high-quality thinking you’ve come to expect from Teamworks than send lots of weak signals into the social media noise.

We’ll still be sharing inspiration for teams who believe in fighting for greatness—just with a different metabolism. So, if you haven’t heard from us in a bit and you’re wondering what’s up, know that we’re back in the kitchen, cooking up new things we think you’ll love.

And, by all means, stay in touch. We’d love to hear about your needs, questions, problems, hopes, and fears. And we’re always looking for smart people to test concepts with. Just shoot us a note.

And stay tuned.

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What can we afford not to do?

Giving yourself permission to ask this can help you take an unsentimental look at your wish list and narrow it down. It can reduce bloat and keep you focused on the most high-impact ideas while letting the nice-to-haves fall by the wayside.

Let us know what your favorite questions are by leaving a comment below, or by emailing us. And bookmark this page to see our list of questions grow.

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• At the start of the meeting, someone says, “So what are we meeting about?” and there’s a pause while everyone looks around.
• You’re invited to a meeting and an hour before it starts, you get an email with all the materials you’re supposed to read in advance.
• Your team is having a check-in. When someone’s update turns into a question, the meeting turns into a working session that goes on well past the scheduled end time.

The key to avoiding each of these scenarios is to take a little bit of time to do some advance planning and to stay disciplined once the meeting starts. Here are some common-sense tips worth restating:

• Decide exactly what you need to accomplish before you get in the room. Summarize the goal of the meeting in one sentence, and include it in the invite.
• Consider whether people will need to read or do anything in advance. If so, give them at least 24 hours to do so.
• Don’t blend meeting types. If it’s meant to be a short check-in meeting, keep it that way. If it starts to turn into a brainstorming session, set up time to do that later.

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Which former team member(s) do we miss the most — and why?

List out all the things (big and small) that those former team members brought. It could be everything from technical skills to softer skills, like knowing how to elevate the team’s mood. Then talk about what the team can do to make up for those gaps: Are there other people on the team who can rise to the occasion? Are there qualities you’ll look for when recruiting? Or processes that could help smooth over the gaps?

Let us know what your favorite questions are by leaving a comment below, or by emailing us. And bookmark this page to see our list of questions grow.

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When you’re in a heated conversation, reframing can remove some of the emotion and allow you to gain a better understanding of what’s really going on. The trick is to see an angry or defensive comment as simply something to get curious about rather than seeing it as an attack. Instead of responding with more anger or defensiveness, you ask a clarifying question.

Here are some examples:

They say: “I feel like you totally misunderstood me.”
Typical response: “That wasn’t my intent.”
Better response: “OK. Tell me what you saw or heard that made you feel that way.”

They say: “I was just doing what I was told to do.”
Typical response: “Yeah, but you didn’t ask.”
Better response: “Was there a moment when you had a question but decided to ignore it?”

They say: “I feel like you keep changing your mind.”
Typical response: “I only change my mind when there’s a good reason for it.”
Better response: “What about my changing my mind is hard for you?”

When you get creative about how you respond to an angry or defensive comment, you’re able to avoid a stand-off, find common ground, and land on a resolution that works for both of you.

The post When you’re not seeing eye-to-eye, change the lens appeared first on Teamworks Blog.

Problems arise when issues linger unacknowledged, and folks are left clinging to a sense of grievance or righteousness without trying to understand the other side. That’s when your duos suffer. And the whole team suffers as a result.

To keep your negative feelings from spiraling, it’s important to learn to separate flaring tempers and hurt feelings from the basic facts of what happened, and then to effectively navigate a conversation about how to repair the broken trust. This is why we love Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen. This duo-saving guide offers a step-by-step primer for talking out problems in the workplace. At the heart of the book is the idea that people need to make a mental shift from “difficult conversations,” in which you focus on right and wrong, to “learning conversations,” in which you listen with empathy and stay genuinely open to absorbing the other person’s point of view.

To have a productive learning conversation, the authors suggest looking at three components.

Part I: What happened?

Before you can agree on how to fix things, you need to understand the other person’s version of what happened. Often, disagreements stem from drawing incorrect assumptions about someone’s intentions or actions — and that leads to a blame game where all you can see is what the person did wrong. You get stuck in judgment mode, and you can’t move forward.

Stone, Patton and Heen say to find out what really happened — not just what you think happened — you need to shift your inner voice:

 Avoid the “difficult conversation” mindset:

“Whose story is right and whose is wrong? It’s either/or.”
“They meant to have this impact on me.”
“This is their fault.”

Embrace the “learning conversation” mindset:

“I wonder why we see things differently?”
“I don’t like the impact they’re having on me; I wonder what they were intending?”
“We’ve both contributed to this result. Let’s identify contributions and figure out how to fix this.”

Part II: How does it make you feel?

A learning conversation also requires honesty about how both of you are really feeling. That’s not always easy. Too often, people are afraid to be vulnerable. So, they bury their feelings and paper over the conflict — all the while nursing continued resentment. Or sometimes people do express their emotions, but they don’t allow room for the other person’s emotions too.

To make sure both of you have a chance to say what you feel, the authors suggest this reframing:

Avoid the “difficult conversation” mindset:

“My feelings are their fault, and I should either let them have it or keep quiet (since it probably won’t do any good).”

Embrace the “learning conversation” mindset:

“My feelings say something about me and something about their actions. I can share my feelings without blame, and acknowledge theirs with empathy, without saying that their story is right.”

Part III: How does this conversation threaten your ideas about your identity?

The hardest, most painful part of a disagreement is how it can bring up fears about your competency and sense of self-worth. “The bigger the gap between what we hope is true and what we fear is true, the easier it is for us to lose our balance,” say Stone, Patton, and Heen. When a problem shines a spotlight on that gap and we start to feel unsafe or unwanted, it’s easy to deny the other point of view or simply to withdraw.

Before addressing a disagreement within a duo, it’s important to be aware of your identity hot buttons and remember that the other person probably didn’t mean to push them. And you need to be prepared to admit mistakes, even when those mistakes don’t square with your self-image.

Avoid the “difficult conversation” mindset:

“They are attacking my identity unfairly! I am not____!”

Embrace the “learning conversation” mindset:

“Realistically, some part of what they’re saying makes painful sense. What am I really afraid of here? How can their story have validity without negating who I am, and vice versa for them?”

Finally, as you go into any learning conversation, work hard to stay present, open, and vulnerable. If it seems like you’re being self-protective and withdrawn, the conversation is unlikely to produce meaningful results. And don’t go in with a fixed idea of how the conversation should unfold. A great duo will help you find what you can’t see on your own — and that applies even in a conflict.

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If you find yourself paralyzed after you’ve analyzed a problem, try asking a different question:

What will be different when we don’t have this problem anymore?

As soon as you can imagine the world post-problem, your brains will kick into solution mode. You’ll feel renewed optimism, and you’ll start to generate ideas for what you can actually change to achieve that ideal future state.

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