Teamwork & CultureChelsea RobinsonLifehack & Enspiral

Presented at Live The Dream - 2015

Stories & Lessons learnt

Just because you have a hammer, doesn’t mean what’s in front of you is a nail.

I made some mistakes trying to solve hard group issues like conflicts by using the same social tools as I would in other situations.

I learnt that this can be very painful and detrimental to group wellbeing. You need different tools / interventions for different situations.

Sometimes hierarchy is great

I’m normally pretty non-hierarchical in my group work and sometimes this is fantastic. Other times this can be the wrong approach.

In Lifehack Labs we were a “flat” team and this proved disorientating and disempowering. In high speed, highly logistical environments with many people, sometimes mandated hierarchy is more effective.

Project based hierarchy can be good

I feel good teams deeply believe that no one person is more important than anyone else. This doesn’t mean that you don’t need clear responsibility and accountability though. It’s really effective to nominate key people as coordinators for projects and give them the mandate to run with their vision without asking for for others’ permission every step of the way

Find founders with Shackleton's way

Put the call out for people who want to:- work on a meaningful problem- Learn a lot- be pushed to the edge of

your self & skills- learn to collaborate and

love others

Fill your facilitation belt with diverse tools

Okay so you can sit in a circle and hear each person speak. But what do you do in half an hour with 200 people?

Learn by experimenting and ultimately try to reach a point where given a group, a timeframe and a purpose you can use a combination of pair work, group work, whole group work and motivational speaking to get results

Recognise & respond to the needs of your team mates

Money? Time with their babies/family? Quality time with the team to build context?It’s inappropriate to exclude team members’ needs when you’re designing your work flow. I’ve lost so many co-founders due to them needing money and bailing out to support themselves.So what if they don’t reply to a 10 pm email? Check yourself and change your expectations

What do you amplify & constrain?

As a leader (we are all leaders) we amplify some behaviours, trends, traits, processes and constrain others. In my work with GenZero I amplified the importance of consensus and consultation because I thought shared understanding was the highest priority, and constrained creativity and autonomy. This lead to a huge lack of creative volunteers. Pay attention to what you constrain.

Identity, Ritual, CULTure

Organisations, and communities of interest have some similarities to church communities. To deepen the connection, use tools like singing songs together, building symbols together, retreating together to build culture. Small rituals like the way you open a meeting by hearing how everyone feels today can build strongly committed teams.

Toolswham these in your tool belt

Agile

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on

the right, we value the items on the left more.

agilemanifesto.org

Checking in and out

Kick off any group meeting by asking how people are really. There is deep value in someone showing up and saying they’re having a hard time at home. It puts all their contributions in context.

Try leaving a meeting by going around and asking how people felt about that meeting space.

MIT “Need help circle”

At the end of a meeting, try going around and each person saying something that they need help with.

Don’t move on until someone else in the group says they will help with that.

Holacracy

holacracy.org

“The system relies on a hierarchy of

circles, each run according to detailed

democratic procedures. However, higher

circles can assign purpose and

responsibilities to lower circles – they

have the power to change or even abolish

lower circles that aren’t performing.

Each circle then, however democratic,

obeys a vertical hierarchy and looks up to

its superior for instructions.”

Great thing to read

http://www.makebelieve.me/resources/purpose-driven-campaigning.pdf