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.

The post Taking our own advice appeared first on Teamworks Blog.

Our colleague Adam Schorr, a Principal at SYPartners, returns this week as a guest blogger.

As a manager, one of your most important roles is to set direction for your team — to paint a picture of the future, build belief, and get everyone inspired and ready to go. But what happens when you’ve done that brilliantly and yet things still aren’t clicking?

You have a keen sense of what the team needs to do and why. Everyone is motivated, skilled, and has a positive attitude. And yet you’re not seeing the actions you expected.

The transition from intent into action isn’t always smooth, and even the most effective managers and team members can get tripped up by a number of factors. Let’s discuss five common obstacles.

1. Lack of agency

Sometimes people don’t act because they believe their actions won’t have any effect. For example, the team might believe that no matter how good their ideas are, those ideas will get rejected by someone higher up the chain. Or they might believe that the competition is so far ahead that nothing they do will change the outcome.

If you suspect that such beliefs might be stifling the team, try the following exercise:

• List the factors required for success. They might include budget, time, adequate technology, a willing customer, etc. List them.
• Create two columns on a piece of paper or a whiteboard: In one column, have the team write the requirements they believe to be outside their control; in the other, write those within their control.
• For each item in the first column, brainstorm one thing the team can do to increase their level of influence. Ask lots of “what if” questions to help the team summon their imagination. Often this exercise helps the team see that more power is in their hands than they realized. And that reinvigorates the team’s will.

2. No clear “way we do it”

Another obstacle may be that everyone follows a slightly different approach to the work, which can water down the impact of the team’s efforts. Aligning on common methods can help, but creating team rituals can go even further. A ritual is an act with symbolic meaning and predictable structure — something like a daily team huddle or a weekly round of appreciations. Rituals add a certain uniqueness to the way your team does its work, and that uniqueness can help the team bond and collaborate more effectively.

Follow these steps to create a team ritual:

• Gather the team to identify which tasks or activities could benefit from a common method.
• Then go beyond: Discuss how you might tailor these common methods with an element of uniqueness.
• Pick one or two rituals and get started. (If you’re signed up for Teamworks, you can use our ritual-making tool to help.)

3. Poor time management

We often have a faulty sense of how we use our time: Your team might believe it’s acting consistently with your agreed direction but, unknowingly, might be spending much of their time undermining it.

If this seems to be the case, try the following exercise:

• Ask each team member to review their calendars and create a pie chart of how they spent their time the previous week. Pie pieces could include: answering emails, visiting customers, attending internal meetings, etc.
• Get the team together to discuss. After each person shares their pie chart, pick the three tasks or activities that consumed the most team time and discuss whether they moved the team closer to your goals, further away, or had no impact.
• Discuss what work can be eliminated to free team time for activities most likely to drive results.

4. Lack of accountability for the whole

Your team has its greatest impact when everyone is working as one toward a shared goal. If the members of your team are misaligned or acting at cross-purposes — even unwittingly — they won’t be as effective.

To prevent this from happening, get together and, as a team, talk about how your work is interdependent:

• Ask each person to identify how their work is affected by what other team members do or don’t do. Have them identify what they need from other team members and what they are willing to do to support other team members.
• Ask everyone to commit to a few actions in writing.
• In 30 days, revisit these commitments as a team to track progress and adjust as needed.

5. No visibility to progress

Belief gets people started, but results help them keep going. If your team doesn’t see frequent evidence of progress — however incremental — they may lose heart and give up.

If you notice that the team isn’t taking time to take stock of your progress, start a new team ritual of sharing success stories:

• Begin every meeting by asking someone on the team to share a success story — big or small. If team meetings aren’t practical, email is also an effective medium. What’s important is to make sure that everyone on the team has a clear line of sight to all of the team’s successes and wins.
• Remember that your role here is critical because you might be privy to information that your team doesn’t have. If you’re seeing evidence of your team’s success — from external stakeholders, for example — make sure they know it.

Translating intent into action is hard work. There is no silver bullet. If the team is aligned, but you can’t seem to get a foothold or build any momentum, any one of these factors could be a sticking point. So, whenever you get that feeling that the team isn’t making the progress it should be, call a team meeting. Working together, you can start to diagnose and address the problem.

If your team is struggling to launch its good intentions into action, and you need help pinpointing what’s wrong, get an assist from Teamworks. Sign up for a free two-week trial for access to our team diagnostic and web-based tools.

Further reading from Teamworks:

Synching up the team’s working styles: Part I
Synching up the team’s working styles: Part II
Knowing when to manage and when to lead
How to get around decision dysfunction

The post Turning the team’s good intentions into action appeared first on Teamworks Blog.

Note: This is the second part of a two-part series on Working Styles, a Teamworks tool that helps teams better understand and play to each person’s strengths. Read part one here.

In the first part of this series, we discussed differences that can throw a wrench in the dynamics of any team — from contrasts in the way team members think or how they pace the work to conflicts over ideal working hours. And we offered tips to help you bridge everyone’s comfort zones.

This week, we’ll talk through three more clashes we’ve commonly seen, and offer more advice from the Teamworks playbook.

Feedback lovers vs. feedback avoiders

Feedback lovers are continuously working on growth and self-improvement — and feedback is one of their most important tools. They actively seek it out because it helps them assess their progress and understand where to focus their attention. When they’re paired with feedback avoiders, who can be reluctant to both give and receive feedback, tensions can result. Because it takes the second type longer to process feedback and because it feels more loaded, they want it less often, and only under specific conditions. On the other hand, if the first type is starved of feedback, they start to misinterpret behavior, and can fall into a destructive, anxiety-ridden spiral.

Try these tips to get the team in sync:

• Set up rules of engagement before anything goes wrong. Make sure you know how each person you work with feels about feedback. Discuss some potential scenarios and agree on how you’ll approach giving and receiving feedback with each other.
• Expand your feedback comfort zone. If you thrive on feedback, try to slow yourself down so you’re OK getting feedback less often than you’re used to. For those with a slow feedback metabolism, pace yourself with scheduled feedback sessions at regular intervals to help build tolerance.
• As a manager, customize your approach so everyone is getting feedback at a pace that’s compatible with their feedback metabolism. A one-size-fits-all approach will inevitably leave someone feeling exhausted from too much feedback or depleted from too little.

Visual learners vs. verbal learners

Visual learners often need concepts to be sketched out in order to fully absorb them, while verbal learners tend to process best through reading or conversation. People with different learning styles can get stuck if the discussion veers too much toward one extreme or the other: Team members who can’t follow the flow of ideas won’t be able to fully participate or contribute.

Try these solutions:

• Capture conversations in real time using multiple modes. Make sure at least one person is sketching ideas as they get expressed. Have another person write down the thinking on a whiteboard or in notes in a shared document.
• If you’re working with someone who needs to make a concept real and tangible before understanding and committing to it, get in the habit of prototyping low-resolution versions instead of making time-consuming high-res versions.
• As a team exercise, read a book on visualizing ideas like Dan Roam’s The Back of the Napkin. This will help verbal thinkers boost their ability to express ideas visually.
• If there are materials to read, send them out before a meeting to give verbal folks time to read and digest.
  

Perfectionism vs. pragmatism

Sometimes a working styles problem is caused not by too much conflicts but by too much similarity. For example, there’s the kind of team that’s so determined to do amazingly perfect, outstanding work that the finessing never stops. We call this the shadow side of inspired teams with high standards and big ambitions: you keep thinking and rethinking decisions in pursuit of making the work better. Here’s what we recommend:

• Designate a point person to get the team to commit. The truth is that any number of the ideas you’ve developed then rejected in the brainstorming phase is probably great — but the proof can only be seen in the pudding. A team-appointed pragmatist can help lock the team into action so you can move toward the next phase.
• Switch up your rhythms: After the first refining stage, release the work — whether you feel ready or not. Before refining again, gather feedback from clients/users/stakeholders. You’ll have greater momentum, and avoid falling into a trap of refining and refining until you’re forced to release.

How to get started

Everything starts with a conversation. If any of these scenarios sounds familiar, gather the team and start exploring what working style preferences people have in common and where they diverge. Let us know what conflicts you encounter on your team in the comments section or by emailing us.

Also, Teamworks can help! If you’d like your team to take our Working Styles diagnostic and map out a plan for getting in sync, sign up for a free two-week trial. After taking the team diagnostic, select “Strengths” as your first “Focus Habit.”

Further reading from Teamworks:

Synching up the team’s working styles: Part I
Knowing when to manage and when to lead
The transformative impact of great managers
Does your team have decision dysfunction?
You’re in a duo with everyone on your team

The post Synching up the team’s working styles: Part II appeared first on Teamworks Blog.

Note: This is part one of a two-part series on Working Styles, a Teamworks tool that helps teams better understand and play to each person’s strengths. If you’re a manager who would like your team to take the Working Styles diagnostic, you can sign up for a free two-week trial at Teamworks.is.

Does your team have a hard time getting into a good working rhythm? Are your designers reworking layouts late into the night, while your project managers are scheduling early morning meetings? Does part of your team love to brainstorm together, while the other half needs time to think solo?

The conditions that bring out the best of team members can bring out the worst of others. A great manager creates a work environment where everybody’s needs and preferences are reasonably addressed, so that everyone can have as close to their ideal working conditions as possible — without taking the team’s flow hostage.

The smart thing is to apply a proactive approach to working style conflicts. Take some time to map out differences and find possible points of tension before anything goes wrong. Empathy and a willingness to accommodate are key, or working style conflicts can lead to trouble with your duos.

To help you get started, we’ll talk through some of the most common conflicts that we’ve seen and offer ideas for what to do about them.

Morning larks vs. night owls

The team member who’s happily firing off at emails at 6 am is a morning lark; the team member whose finest thinking happens post-9-to-5 is a night owl. Each person’s ideal working time is determined by biology, lifestyles, family obligations, etc. Problems arise when shared conventions aren’t established — for example, if an owl logs on mid-morning to finds he’s missed out on an early-bird decision-making email chain. Or a lark is rocked with a steady stream of incoming emails just as she’s powering down for the night.

Such email disconnects can undermine the team’s happiness and the flow of the work. Create some ground rules so everyone knows what’s expected, and when. Try these tips:

• Establish set working hours. When are people expected to be on call? Except for emergencies or other situations when it’s all-hands-on-deck, make it clear that team members are not expected to be fielding emails during off-hours.
• Develop a shared language for communicating when the emails require answers. For example, a night owl firing off ideas after hours should write in the subject line: “Please review in the morning.”
• If you’re a team member whose ideal work time falls outside the team’s norm (e.g. the majority is in by 8 a.m., but you like to go to the gym in the morning and start working at 10:30 a.m.), the burden is on you to demonstrate responsiveness. How can you avoid creating bottlenecks and frustrating team members waiting for your input? How can you show your dedication, so that your limited availability doesn’t look like a lack of care or commitment?

Collaborators vs. ruminators

Collaborators love to think aloud, finessing ideas through conversation. At the other extreme, there are ruminators — the folks who do their best thinking in solitude, feeling their way through the process. Often, collaborators contribute broad strokes, while ruminators add nuance and detail. Demanding brainstorming sessions where ruminators are expected to offer fully formed responses on the fly can fatigue them. And, conversely, collaborators get anxious when they find themselves doing all the talking, and not hearing much back.

As a manager, you need to make sure that both type’s needs are being met, so that they work doesn’t suffer. Consider these tips:

• Empathy goes a long way. Ruminators should avoiding retreating into silence when asked for their take; a more productive response would be, “I don’t know yet. Let me spend some time thinking about it.” Collaborators should avoid rushing the process and recognize that the extra time ruminators take to apply reflective thinking strengthens the team’s ideas.
• Ruminators might want to do more prep work in advance so that they don’t feel caught like deer in headlights.
• Figure out when the whole team needs to be present for a brainstorming session vs. when a subset of the team tackling the problem is enough.

Methodical planners vs. fly-under-the-wire wingers

For those who like to start and finish tasks early, attempting to make a big dent in the work at the eleventh hour is a recipe for disaster and anxiety. On the other hand, other team members get energized and focused as the eleventh hour approaches; they do their best work flying right under the wire.

Both types provide something vital to the team. The first make great project managers, for example. The second type are often creatives. Most of us fall somewhere in between on the spectrum — but the trickiest thing is to balance the two extremes so the work gets finished with maximum magic and minimum friction:

• Set a few mini low-stakes deadlines throughout the project instead of a single big deadline right at the end. So when one of the smaller deadlines gets tripped, there’s a safety net. Do some scenario planning in advance, and create some shared agreements.
• Be able to determine what projects need the best, most ground-breaking work the team can offer, and what projects can get by on an ordinary quantity of inspiration. This should free those who thrive on deadline panic to work in a more methodical fashion.
• If you’re a PM — or just a natural planner — paired with a team that likes to produce at the last moment, learn to balance method with madness. Even if the process might appear undisciplined to you at first, it can produce magic. Try to understand the patterns and create predictable processes to manage the unpredictability. This will allow you to “bottle the magic” and make sure that it gets out in the world.

In part two, we’ll discuss three additional working style conflicts. In the meantime, let us know what other working style conflicts you encounter on your team in the comments section below.

Further reading from Teamworks:

Knowing when to manage and when to lead
The transformative impact of great managers
Does your team have decision dysfunction?
You’re in a duo with everyone in your team

The post Synching up the team’s working styles: Part I appeared first on Teamworks Blog.

A few weeks ago, Teamworks explored the idea of  “leader vs. manager” as a false dichotomy. Our colleague Adam Schorr, a Principal at SYPartners who has reflected on this topic quite a bit, pushed us to take the thinking even further. We invited him to use this week’s blog space to do just that. Here’s Adam’s perspective.

* * *

Often, the words we use shape the way we think. The words “leader” and “manager” suggest an identity. But, in fact, those words are not really descriptions of what you are; they are simply descriptions of what you do.

Perhaps it’s time to use the words “leadership” and “management” instead. These words suggest that leading and managing are modes of behavior. They are about the way you show up in particular moments.

The change in language can enable a change in thinking: It frees you from the tiresome debate of leader vs. manager and opens up a more useful set of questions about when to apply one mode or the other, and how to refine the skill sets that belong to each.

When is management appropriate?
Management is primarily about navigating the known. It’s about achieving the best result possible given a set of well-understood rules, constraints, and resources. You should be in management mode when your team faces a familiar assignment and needs guidance on how to make the right tradeoffs.

For example, when your team is working on the launch of the next product in an existing family of products, to known customers in channels you’re familiar with. Or when your team is putting together an annual budget for work that will be largely similar to the previous year’s. These situations do not call for radical reinvention because so much is known already about what works and what doesn’t. Your contribution here is to help your team see the patterns you’ve seen so they can learn from history, and to give them sufficient context so they can optimize across all the variables.

By using established best practices and reference points to chart the way forward, you create clarity and accelerate progress.

How do you develop a management skill set?
Developing your management skill is all about learning to be brilliant at seeing patterns. Not just what can be observed on the surface, but deep patterns of cause and effect, the underlying connections and dependencies.

To do this, you need to study the market, the competition, and your own organization. Learn from what has worked in the past and what hasn’t. Zoom out to truly see the whole system. It’s about observation and practice, practice, practice.

When is leadership appropriate?
In contrast, leadership is about mastering the unknown. After all, we don’t need a leader to take us someplace we’ve already been. We crave leadership when the right path — or even the right destination — isn’t obvious.

For example, when your team is launching a new product based on first-of-its-kind technology via new channels. Or when your industry has been radically reshaped by new regulations. You have no real precedents to draw from. There are no best practices that truly apply. You’re dealing with uncharted forces. Your team is counting on you to innovate, while keeping your eye on the horizon.

When old assumptions and existing models are no longer reliable, you need to use your imagination — to conjure a vision for what the future could be. You must inspire your team to follow you on the path forward, even if you can’t be certain of how it will all play out. It’s about the bravery to take that first big leap forward and the creativity to keep figuring it out as you go.

How do you develop a leadership skill set?
While you cannot study your way to leadership, you can learn to overcome, or at least mitigate, the crippling fear of the unknown. And the best way to do this, is by putting yourself into situations where you’re facing the unknown and you have to act without the benefit of a blueprint. The more familiar you become with what it feels like to operate in the unknown, the less scary it will seem to you.

Start small. Build this skill at first in less risky situations. Determine what’s possible, and encourage the team to go just beyond. Then, ask yourself what more is possible. Eventually, let yourself articulate some truly audacious hopes and dreams. Draw out those who share your sense of possibility and get creative together.

Finding the right mix
While you may naturally find one mode more in your comfort zone, both leadership and management are vital to the success of the team, the work, and the organization. And your team likely needs you to be able to switch between the two modes. The key is learning to identify which situations call for management and which for leadership. Your job will almost always be a blend of the two, regardless of whether people call you a “leader” or a “manager.”

* * *

Looking for more provocations from Teamworks on the arts of leadership and management? Read our post The false dichotomy of “leader vs. manager”.

Want more of guest blogger Adam Schorr’s practical, battle-tested insights on what it takes to lead a team? Read Adam’s Turning the team’s good intentions into action.

The post Knowing when to manage and when to lead appeared first on Teamworks Blog.

Does your team have decision dysfunction? If so, you’re not alone. In our work with teams over the past 20 years, we’ve found that decision-making is one of the biggest challenges teams face. When the team’s decision-making is impaired, it can feel like a pebble in the team’s shoe — a constant irritant. Or like a layer of molasses that seeps through the internal machinery, making forward motion feel agonizingly slow.

But we’ve also seen that, no matter the decision’s kind or size, most dysfunction falls into familiar patterns — and that’s good news because, once you understand the patterns, it’s easier to come up with a plan to manage them.

Decision dysfunction generally falls into one of six categories. If you recognize your team in any of the descriptions below, it might be time to pause and all have a conversation together. Acknowledging the problem is the first step to getting rid of it — but you need the whole team to be on board. Have the team brainstorm things to change. If you need a place to start, consider these tips:

Discovery problems: The team makes decisions a little too quickly and spontaneously, cutting out due diligence and research. It saves time up front but causes complications down the line.

Possible solution: Ask someone to play the role of research champion. Look for a team member who naturally likes to gather data and approaches decisions fairly methodically.

Deliberation problems: The team endlessly debates decisions, considering every factor from every angle, ad nauseum.

Possible solution: Consider whether there are conflicts between different team members’ approaches to decision-making (e.g., some people like to decide with certainty; others feel comfortable learning as they go). Ask team members to consider what they can do personally to accommodate different styles.

Commitment problems: The team makes a decision, but then one or more people start second-guessing it. You never fully commit as a team.

Possible solution: Get underneath what people’s fears are. Ask the dissenters what they would need to see in order to believe the decision is the right one.

Communication problems: A subset of your team makes the decision but doesn’t document or clearly communicate about it, causing ruffled feathers and crossed signals.

Possible solution: Schedule a team meeting where everyone gathers to talk about what’s happened that week, including the decision. Have a point-person write up meeting notes and email them to everyone.

Execution problems: You make decisions in broad strokes but fail to put a realistic plan in place for what needs to happens next.

Possible solution: Visually map out the plan. Create a detailed chart, describing each phase of the plan, step-by-step. Blow it up and pin it to the wall, or make a copy for everyone to have at their desk.

Review problems: After the decision has been made, you forget to test your thinking over time to make sure that your assumptions are still in tune with reality.

Possible solution: Create a team ritual, such as a weekly check-in where everyone shares details about the progress of the decision’s implementation, including snags that may have come up.

Luckily, good decision-making is a habit any team can build. And, once you get your decision-making form in shape, almost everything else becomes easier. It becomes easier to say no to projects not in line with the team’s purpose, for example, and to say yes to bold moves that produce big outcomes. Not only will the team create excitement by making great decisions, but you’ll have the momentum you need to carry them out.

The post How to get around decision dysfunction appeared first on Teamworks Blog.

Poke around any organization, and you’ll find managers who lead from a place of fear. The ones who assert their authority and shut down opposing points of view. Who rarely let down their guard or admit uncertainty. Maybe you’ve worked for this person in the past — maybe you’ve even been this person in the past.

While these managers see vulnerability as a liability, we believe the opposite is true: Vulnerability can be one of a manager’s greatest sources of strength. It’s a well to draw from when you’re trying to connect with people on your team, work through moments of friction, or explore unknown possibilities.

SYPartners President Tom Andrews often finds himself encouraging new managers to lean into vulnerability — to let down their defenses and be more fundamentally human. We asked him to explain why managers fear vulnerability and what they can do to adopt a “vulnerability as strength” mindset. Here’s some of his advice:

Stop posturing — it masks your humanity and muffles your potential.

“In corporate culture, we want to maintain a sense of control, and we want to avoid being hurt,” Tom says. “If you’re a manager, this instinct is amplified.”

Fear-based management involves a lot of time spent post-rationalizing mistakes and maintaining a veneer of control, even when it’s not there. “You fear the loss of identity if you show any vulnerability,” Tom says. “After all, if you’re exposed to critique, how will you maintain the conceit that you are superior? This might result in avoiding difficult conversations, and staying away from the possibility of mistakes.”

Such an attitude, however, can ultimately hold you back.

“Maintaining a conceit of invulnerability is alienating for others—because it dehumanizes you and makes you simply an idea, not a person,” Tom says. “But, if you lower your shields and choose to be vulnerable, you can see many of your defenses for what they are: conceits that can be barriers to fully engaging in the world. If you are willing to be vulnerable, you have the courage to try new things and test your own conceits. That is a source of power, because it enables you to grow.”

Pay attention to your gut — it’s where fear first takes root.

Lowering your shields is hard because you have to overcome instinctive fears of shame. But Tom says that you can do it successfully if you pay attention to the earliest moment when you start to erect psychic barriers or catch yourself being defensive.

“There’s a moment when you feel a little shift in your gut, a little dissonance between what you’re saying or doing, and what you feel deep down,” he says. “If you can learn to recognize that moment, you can shift your stance.”

He adds: “Don’t be afraid to literally call yourself out. I’ve seen some of the most amazing managers pause mid-stride and say, ‘You know, let me back up here. I’m closing things unnecessarily and not being open. I don’t think I know the answer here.’”

Start admitting what you don’t know — it creates possibility.

Admitting that you don’t have the answers allows for a powerful perspective shift — and also opens up a space for inquiry. And, by giving into the process of questioning, you allow your vulnerability to become a source of creativity and power for the whole team. Ultimately, it helps produce work that is more imaginative and multidimensional.

Tom recommends asking the following questions out loud with your team:

• “What am I missing here?”
• “I know I’ve overlooked something, can you see what it is?”
• “What are we not thinking about? Where are my blind spots?”

Take your cues from the most vulnerable people around — babies.

“The most powerful source of strength a baby has is its utter vulnerability,” Tom says. “Take a moment to wonder at the effect babies have on everyone around them — and how fast they learn and grow.”

Babies and young children grant trust before it’s earned because they don’t know to act any differently, and this acts as a powerful bonding mechanism. Also, their vulnerability and lack of preconceived notions about what’s wrong or right gives them freedom to explore, to ask (or howl, occasionally) for help, and to express their need for the people around them. It also translates into curiosity, wonder, and an amazing ability to keep going in the face of failure.

When you open yourself up to being vulnerable and lower your shields, you tap into a fearless childlike capacity for exploration and immediate connection that still exists beneath all our defenses. This creates a positive ripple effect through the whole team. “Exposing your vulnerability as a manager can draw in team members and help your team bond faster, because they’re not posturing as much,” Tom says. “It can set an example for everyone, symbolically, that it is okay to be vulnerable.”

A team with its shields down can work with more safety, openness, creativity, and insight. And that’s where great ideas come from.

The post How vulnerability can be a source of strength appeared first on Teamworks Blog.

Last week marked a big milestone for Teamworks: Our beta is now open to any manager who wants to try Teamworks. As we ramp up from a private beta to a public one, it seemed like a ripe moment to step back and reflect on a few lessons we’ve learned (or relearned).

Our team, by the way, fits many labels. We’re a small start-up — and we’re a group of upstarts in an established company. We’re design-minded coders and code-curious designers. We span multiple time zones (and multiple generations). We’re perfectionists and pragmatists. Maybe some of these labels apply to your team as well. Even if they don’t, we hope the following lessons ring true.

Lesson #1: Never take communication for granted.

It’s easy to forget this. You get busy. Or you share information with one person and hope it makes the rounds. But spending a few extra minutes to download and debrief helps prevent confusion and wasted effort down the road. Our team learned to start asking, “Is there anything I just discussed, did, or decided that someone else needs to know?”

Lesson #2: The same word can mean different things to different people.

We learned this early on, when our designers and developers agreed to do a “low res” version of one of our first tools and quickly discovered that one person’s rough is another’s refined. It was a lesson we learned again and again, with words like “test,” “failure,” “bug,” “constraint,” and many others.

Lesson #3: Being remote doesn’t need to feel remote

When you work in different locations, you rarely have casual interactions. You can’t catch someone’s eye or stop by someone’s desk. We addressed this problem by creating an always-on video chat between our NYC and SF work areas. It allows for spontaneous conversations as if we were all in the same room. We also learned to carve out time for cross-coast 1:1 check-ins — even when we don’t think there’s anything to check in about. This helps strengthen bonds that can easily fray when you don’t work together side-by-side.

Lesson #4: Gratitude trumps grumpiness

Each week we have a team meeting to reflect on what’s working and what needs improvement, and we save the last few minutes for appreciations. It’s a chance for each person to directly address another person on the team and express gratitude for something they’ve done. There’s no quota on how many you get or give — and, frankly, it feels just as good on either end. Appreciations help us reset trust and defuse the small tensions that crop up throughout the week. The ritual may sound cheesy, but if you can get over the self-consciousness of saying your first one, you’ll be hooked.

Lesson #5: The “what” is best discussed in the context of the “why.”

We are often reminded that when people see and understand the fuller context of the work, they can make better, more informed contributions in the moment. Even seemingly small decisions benefit from an understanding of the big picture. We learned to begin every meeting — every conversation, in fact — with asking and answering the question, “What’s the underlying intent?”

Lesson #6: It can be rocky joining a team that’s on a roll.

No one wants to join a team at its worst, but we also learned that it’s hard to join a team at its best. There’s an established rhythm, a common language, a shared history — all of which can be tough to break into. If you’re new, we recommend staying focused on the contributions you can make to avoid feeling paralyzed by what you don’t know. Stay curious, ask for feedback early and often, and build on your experience while being open to unlearning. And if you’re an old team member, dial up your empathy. Slow down and explain what you’re doing and thinking and why. Give thoughtful feedback when you notice small disconnects, and ask for feedback, too.

Lesson #7: Any team can be a great one. No team stays great without work.

We often joke that over the course of making this product, we’ve moved though all the Teamworks team types—from “Inspired but Tired” to “Fierce but Fragmented” to “On a Roll.” Teams are constantly changing, and keeping a team in flow requires deliberate attention. When we took the Teamworks diagnostic last week, we got On a Roll. We’re hoping to stay that way for a while, but we’re starting work on a new habit next week. Because you never know…

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We’d like to end this post with a round of appreciations: A big thank-you to the smart and dedicated folks in our private beta — your insights have been invaluable. Thank you to everyone on our team for putting their hearts and souls into Teamworks: Audrey, Beth, Dan O., Dan P., Diana, Jo, Julie, Keith, Najati, Susan, and Shahirah. Much gratitude as well to Brian for pouring so much of himself into Teamworks in our early days — we wouldn’t be here without him — and to Aldric and Jacob for being here in our most crucial hours. Thank you to Nancy for sharing her learnings from Unstuck. And, finally, thank you to Denis, Jeremy, Melissa, Michael, Pablo, Patrick G., Patrick P. Wes, and everyone else who helped us make it this far.

The post Lessons learned from the team behind Teamworks appeared first on Teamworks Blog.

Here’s a quick quiz. Think about your relationship with each person on your team, and note whether any of them match the following description:

• You know some basics about each other but not much more.

• Your conversations are cordial and generally stay on the surface.

• You only really interact when the work requires it.

• There’s very little friction but also no real connection.

Sound familiar? Then you likely have a lukewarm bond with someone at work, or what we call a “neutral duo.” A duo, by the way, is simply you plus another person. You’re in a duo with each person on your team, whether you think of it that way or not.

And, odds are, you’re not thinking much about this neutral duo. There’s nothing overtly problematic about the relationship, so you don’t see it as a liability. And because there’s no deep connection, you don’t see it as an asset. But weak bonds like this have hidden pitfalls — and also hidden potential.

To put this in context, consider the three main types of duos: Strong, broken, and neutral. It helps to think of all three in terms of basic equations.

Strong duos have deep reserves of mutual trust and understanding. When there’s friction, it’s productive. You bring out the best in each other — and accomplish far more together than you do alone. It feels like 1+ 1 = 3.

Broken duos are characterized by a lack of trust. You both feel misunderstood or unappreciated by the other. You tend to work at cross-purposes, and the relationship drains you each of time and energy. It’s like 1+ 1 = 0.

Neutral duos are neither strong nor broken. The bond is just kind of weak. There’s no negative effect — but also no added value. It feels pretty much like 1 + 1 = 2. For now.

Here’s the thing: Neutral duos can easily be broken or boosted. And that’s why it’s a mistake to take them for granted.

A weak bond is fine so long as the pressure’s off. But when the team hits a wall or something goes wrong, there’s no bank account of trust to draw from and no deep understanding to trigger empathy. That can lead to misinterpretation, frustration, and even outright acrimony.

With a neutral duo, it might also feel as if there’s less at stake. There’s a reduced sense of personal investment, because you haven’t yet put care or work into the relationship. So, if things take a wrong turn, it makes it easier to shrug your shoulders and write the person off. And even when things aren’t going poorly, neutral duos suppress the overall energy of the team. They make the work feel more transactional.

But even more important than the hidden risk is the hidden potential. With a little extra effort, a neutral duo can become a strong one. And strong duos have a positive effect on the entire team. They not only get more done, they get it done more easily. They have a shorthand that expedites collaboration and a shared sense of purpose that drives the work forward. They boost each other’s confidence and optimism — thus elevating the belief of those around them.

A neutral duo is really just a strong duo that hasn’t yet been activated.

So, what does it take to turn “1+1=2” into “1+1=3”? Honestly, it all comes down to a little curiosity and the desire to make a human connection. Presume the other half of your duo is interesting, and try to find the parts that interest you. Grab lunch or coffee together. Book some 1:1 meetings. Make time for casual banter. Fill in the gaps of knowledge about your respective backgrounds, interests, passions, and pet peeves. Consider what you have to learn and what you have to offer.

And begin making deposits in your trust bank account before you need to take out a loan. The more you signal faith in people, the more they live up to that expectation. If you start acting like you’re in a strong duo, pretty soon you will be in one.

The post How lukewarm duos can get you into hot water appeared first on Teamworks Blog.

When we first developed Teamworks, we had a small debate about whether to call our customers “leaders” or “managers.” Ultimately, we decided to go with “managers,” because it was important to let you know that Teamworks isn’t just for folks who live in the C suite. Yet something about that decision has always felt unsettling. It plays into the misguided idea that you can’t be both.

At SYPartners, we’ve never been fond of false dichotomies. (You’ll often hear our project teams exclaiming, “It’s an AND!”). But even we have been guilty of using the old “leader vs. manager” trope in our consulting work. It’s an easy provocation — “Are you a manager…or a leader?”

The problem with the “leader vs. manager” dichotomy is that it does everyone a disservice. It casts leaders in the role of disconnected visionary and reduces managers to the part of pragmatic administrator. It gives each side permission to ignore the responsibilities of the other — or to outsource those duties to someone else.

Being the CEO shouldn’t mean you’re off the hook when it comes to the growth and development of your direct reports. And just because you’re in the middle ranks of a company doesn’t mean that your team isn’t looking to you for big picture thinking and inspiration.

We believe that people who are responsible for work beyond their own — and responsible for the people who do that work — should strive to be both leader and manager. Yes, it’s an AND.

Great managers should lead in a way that…

• Elevates the team’s ambition
• Removes obstacles from the team’s path
• Pushes the team to defy gravity

And great leaders should manage in a way that…

• Balances aspiration with practicality
• Takes the nitty-gritty details into account
• Produces clarity and coordination

We know it’s a tall order. Few people are naturally gifted at all these things. But let’s aspire to see “leader” and “manager” more as two sides of the same coin than as entirely different forms of currency.

The post The false dichotomy of “leader vs. manager” appeared first on Teamworks Blog.