All the Feels: Sweet & Salty

As we wrap up our All the Feels series to aid you in developing teams that actually enjoy working together and who produce strong results, take a few moments to evaluate your own role in leading a team and participating in it, the sweet and salty components. What behaviors can you tweak to enhance your team output and satisfaction?

Disagreement Without Dissipation

Have the capacity and commitment to allow room for a dissenting voice to strengthen your team. Read that again. When a divergent perspective is given, each member responds according to this rule: attack issues, not personalities. Thus, disagreement is processed and resolved collectively. Differences between people are identified and worked through rather than suppressed or allowed to build into open conflict.

Teams deal maturely with disagreement and recognize its value. Drucker recounts, “All the first-rate decision-making makers I’ve observed, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt, had a very simple rule: If you have a consensus on an important matter, don’t make the decision. Adjourn it so that everybody has a little time to think. Important decisions are risky. They should be controversial. Acclamation means that nobody has done the homework.” Importantly, while disagreement is acceptable, beware of allowing negativism on the team.

Shared Leadership

Though one person may serve as the designated leader, often the shared leadership role rotates among team members according to the current project. The leader relinquishes his or her headship role willingly, and team members do not greedily grab it. The team entity is too important for that power struggle. For effective teamwork, the success of the team must supersede individual success. Individuals win or lose as a team.

When the team leader discerns that a certain team member has greater expertise or experience in the current situation, he or she gladly passes the baton. Then the partner, taking the leadership initiative, leads discussions, identifies issues that should be addressed, and brings appropriate resolution. Could your team function successfully if given this amount of freedom?

Constructive Atmosphere

The team establishes a wonderful environment when it possesses a firm purpose, unity, strong channels of communication, value given to dissenting views, and mutual chieftainship. A constructive atmosphere of optimism and esprit de corps rule. Words such as “Thanks” and “Great job” ring through the offices and virtual meetings. Team members accept and appreciate each other. When tensions arise, they deal with them openly, quickly, and constructively, seeking to spur one another on toward love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24). Such a spirit is more caught than taught. Members must witness their leadership doing so to birth and grow such a culture.

Derogatory comments, negative statements, and defeated attitudes are noticeably absent from the team environment. Members practice Ephesians 4:29: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

Active Participation

No one remains on the bench within a collaborative team. Such dedication to the team breeds willing active participation. Participation includes voicing an opinion, which affects the eventual outcome.

As management author Thomas Quick states, “[In participatory management] it’s possible that not all decisions are voted on. What is likely is that everyone has the privilege of trying to influence the decision-making process when the decision affects him or her. At the very least, employees in a participatory environment are confident that management does not knowingly and arbitrarily make decisions that are contrary to the welfare of employees.” Succinctly put, if you want people to take ownership, invite them to give input.

Honest Appraisals

The wise leader asks the team to examine themselves by asking, “Are we closer to our shared purpose today than we were yesterday? Have we allowed our energies to be channeled in off-target enterprises? As a team member, am I giving my best?” Not only do they examine themselves, but they trust the leader to give feedback for the growth of the individual and the team. A good team assesses itself consistently. There is always room for improvement.