As Aldous Huxley
penned1, “We can pool information about experiences, but never
the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a
society of island universes. Most island universes are sufficiently like one
another to permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or
"feeling into".” NASA
or ISRO would be just a garage of high end technology equipment if people don’t
work with them to place a satellite in to its respective orbital. When people
with different cultural and behavioral backgrounds are deployed in to a group
with size spanning form 2 to 2n, with a collaborative effort the
single lined objective is achieved to benefit the client. It’s the people working in teams to
achieve things.
The changing
aspects in one team will definitely impact the appearance of the organization
in front of the client at some instance in the business world. Letdown
situations in the project delivery do not necessarily happen due to resource attrition
or bad knowledge management process, the interaction among the team members is one
of the key causes. In a delivery project, every team member should leverage his/her
leadership skills and the respective leader’s encouragement boosts the motive.
Frequent “Powerful
conversations” with the team allows them to understand the team’s vision and
goals; transparent ‘recognition and escalation’ progressions build the trust in
the team members that leadership pay attention to the details of the facts.
These few pages
attempt to voice some of the key aspects that could change the team’s empathy
towards the project goals and expectation from the leadership and vice versa.
Where Does the Beauty Lie?
“Dear Gordan
(Masked), you are the best supervisor so far in my career. The confidence
you have put in me, the freedom you gave me, the support you’ve provided me enabled
me to experiment
in my day-to-day work and succeed. Thank you so much.”
Yes, the splendor
is in one frame when the supervisor understands the capability of his/her team
members and gives them what they want to deliver their best.
Equally, Appreciations
like the following accolade with details from a senior manager to his team
member build the approachability to involve in additional project activities.
“David (Masked)
worked as the Proposal Architect on the DiaClient (Masked) Consolidation
Proposal, on which I was the End to End Solution Architect. In the end, we were
able to provide a very good/high quality response to DiaClient, and positive feedback on the strength
received from the client themselves, and this was to a large extent dependent
on the excellent work that David was able to deliver. I see David’s skill, Make
sense of what is being orally communicated and translate that into high quality
content in the response. Being very diligent in completion of work within
timelines and being able to stretch as needed.”
A team member has tried to
step in to the shoes of such senior resources to understand what client is
looking for and communicating in an apt way to deliver what he could deliver. And
here I conclude, the beauty lies between the freedom and support the resource gets from the leadership and the responsibility the team member demonstrates.
Work Life Balance (WLB)
Once a manager
said in an open house with his team: respect your family; we may have a back up
to deliver this project but only you can justify your presence with family. Powerful
Conversations3 help the team that leadership respects team’s personal
life.
Why Transparency in the Team?
Transparency
helps project teams to put everyone on the same page. When a new team member
couldn’t gel with the existing team, it is important to bring every team member
to single page by making role of the new team member clear to erase the
distrust for whatever reason it has caused. Always Boss is happy to see a loyal
project status report from the team as it impacts the client’s view on the
organization; and the team is happy for equal opportunities and transparent recognition from the
boss; Another example for “Give and Give” dogma. Mutual Empathy among Team Members
This builds the
candid relationship among the team members and the above mentioned WLB is
linked with this. Could be a replacement for some time or help provide to reach
the project deadlines. Understanding and empathy among team members
could help the project to achieve the objectives.
In respect of WLB and the employees’ freedom more companies
are experimenting with the traditional two-week vacation policies. Some are
implementing unlimited
paid time off. Others take it a step further, offering vacation
bonuses to entice their employees to get some rest. Subscription video service
Netflix was one of the first companies to offer its employees unlimited paid
vacation as long as they got their work done. FullContact, which
provides cloud-based contact management for individuals and businesses, offers
"paid paid vacation." Once a year, employees get $7,500--about what
it would cost for a family of four to travel somewhere tropical--to go on
vacation. The stipulations: They must actually go on vacation, disconnect and
not work.4
Team Bonding Off Workplace
After dancing for a couple
of hours during a team outing, the dialogue between the boss and team crafts a
bond that empathies to know better people than work place individuals. Repeated
team building vacation and activities in parallel with Project Review Meetings
benefit the team for personal bonding.
Conclusion
Teams
which do not ignore team dynamics apply the principles of Mutual respect and
reasonable time off result in building team synergy and increases performance.
It is necessary to understand a good team environment is influenced by the unconscious minds of the team members. The
loss of skilled resources could be avoided by timely Team Health
Checks5
and right
recognition
to the right
person at
the right
time. Reciprocated
Empathy among team members across globally distributed teams helps them receive
the required deliverables on time. In a team when multiple levels and roles are
to be managed, success lies in handling the roles of team member and a team
leader at the same time.
References
1 The
Doors of Perception is a short book by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1954
3
Powerful Conversations: How High-Impact Leaders Communicate by Philip J.
Harkins McGraw Hill Professional, 1999
5 http://stellarleadership.com/docs/Team%20Working/assessment/Team%20Health%20Check.pdf
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