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 Action: Opportunity

What are they angry about Make the specific &

or threatened by? 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 ConversationsPrompted 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 advanceCorrespond personally with each to confirm

participation & interestEnunciate 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 frequentlyEnable private virtual dialogue

Virtual Teams

It’s harder to build a team over a distance. So…Achieve very clear, unambiguous goalsArrange 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 briefingStay close to the microphoneExplicitly 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?