Lucy Barkas reflects Restarting the team and getting back to basics

In any leadership programme I do with teams, we do a levelling exercise. We get back to basics to discuss, what is the team for, who is on it and why does it matter? 

It doesn't matter whether it is a new team or one that has been around for ages. I recommend the restarting discussions at least one a year. It clears the decks, lets go of the past and get's all members to focus on the future.

So here are my reflections on how to do it well.

Transcript

00:09

Hey there, it's Lucy Barkas. And we're back for another Lucy reflects episode. Now in my conversation with David, we explored four questions that every team needs to ask each other to really get team started off in the right way. So we're going to deep dive into those four questions, and just reflect on how you can bring a little bit more of them into your teams. So even if you're an established team, the goals and dynamics in the priorities are always changing. So it's worth revisiting these questions periodically, and checking that you're all on the same page. So last week, I was in Wales. And I was working with a team who, although they were classed as an established team, and some of the members have been, you know, working together

00:59

for 20 odd years. And some members had been with the team just two years and still felt like they were the new people, the newbies, even though two years is gone a long time. And then a week before the first lockdown started, they there was a new General Manager appointed. And he had never actually been in the physical room with all of his team. Of course, they've met on teams and stuff, but they hadn't really got together. And his intention was always to have a day two or you know, a couple of days to really get to know each other to work out the business plan, work out how they're going to work together. And he knew how important it was to do it in the room, face to face. And of course, this isn't always possible for people. So even if you can't be in the room with one another, having these kind of conversations and are some of these questions remotely in a hybrid environment, face to face is so important. So I'm going to talk you through these four questions that David presented and show you some tips and tools, maybe some reflection pieces that you can do with your colleagues to build better relationships. So here we go. Question one, do we know who we are? Now this really is about, you know, the people on the team rather than the job titles and the to do list and the priorities. It's really about who's here? Who is it that I'm actually working with and having conversations with day to day. So it's talking about their skillset, their experience, their values, their working styles. Now people tend to know, honestly, people tend to know more about their favorite soap character, or their favorite pop star football player, then they actually do about their colleagues, because with colleagues, or you tend to talk about his work, and especially if you're in that remote environment, you get on that call, you talk about the actions, and you don't tend to spend too much time saying, tell me a bit about yourself.

03:01

Now, you will make assumptions based on what you see about you know who they are and their experience, the snippets come out over time.

03:12

But imagine if you were proactive, and you really started trying to get to know people early, what a difference that would make.

03:19

So there's a number of ways that you can set up these kinds of questions. And one of the first easy routes in is using personality profiles. And it really does help start the conversation because it's not about the person, but it's about their behaviors and their strengths and their weaknesses. So when people understand their personality traits, they can understand, well, this is why you work the way you do. This is why you behave that way in meetings. This is how you come up with ideas. And they start to understand each other's frustrations. And yeah, the bits that they're really good at and the stuff that they actually find really hard that they may not have told you. It's amazing how it can really shift the relationship from assumption and judgment, to understanding and appreciating one another. It's really relationship building. Now, previously, I'd give you a PDF version of your report, and you'd sit with somebody and you talk them through it. But over the last 18 months been using a new format called disc catalyst, where you both got an online version. And although you've still got your PDF version, it's also got like, lots of questions that you can ask one another, it shows you how close and how far apart you are in certain areas, really useful in it so you can have those conversations remotely. It really just gets the conversation started. Another great technique I like using is asking people about their career journeys. You know, just saying, Tell me, what was your career highlight? How did you get to this point? Now I only genuinely share those career journeys when we're in our interview processes. And then once we start on the job, we almost forget that there was a whole world and a whole life Before that, so sitting down with somebody and just saying, what was your first job? How did you get from there

05:06

to here? What were your career highlights? The stuff you really feel proud of? was the worst job you had? Why was it so bad? What made you leave that job and move to this one?

05:19

Did you have any lucky breaks along the way, these conversations help you really to understand people's experiences and skills, but also their motivations, and maybe even peppers, through you know, salt and pepper, their personal values, and their life experiences. You know, people are judged so much by their current job title. And then team site, forget that they've got all of this mountain of value that they can bring. When you bring all of that value to the table, you're really tapping into almost like an untapped potential. And, you know, you bring in the the genius of the team together. I remember chatting to a colleague, she was very structured, very black and white and very logical about things. And I was there being all heart based and expressive. And our conversations often missed the mark, and we'd get into meetings, and we just wind each other up. And then you know, you know, biting at one another. So I don't know how it happened. But one day, we ended up just chatting about our careers, we were in a much more relaxed environment. And yeah, over coffee, we just started talking about how did you get into this? What brought you here. And it was amazing what I found out, she'd actually spent a year out volunteering with volley International, and helping children in South America learn. She also did some, you know, building projects, and she was there. So she was learning new skills. And it completely changed my opinion of her. So although her approach was still methodical, I realized that she wanted to be of service to others, and she was brave, and she was adventurous, I judged her completely wrong. And my assumptions totally clouded my opinion of her, which then influenced our relationship. So now I understood her a little bit more, it taught me the real valuable lesson that don't judge anybody by their current job title, or their current behaviors, really try and get to understand the real person and what drives them. And that kind of leads me to the next exercise you can do, which is understanding people's values. So when you understand what drives somebody there, that the fire in their belly that the way in which they see the world, you can find out what really matters most to people and why and how it informs their decision making and their life choices, why they see this in a different perspective to you. And my conversation with my colleagues really did show me that we are very similar values, we just approached them in different ways. It was really transformational. So if you don't know how to do values work, there's a whole section of it in my book leader x, and you can just google values, exercises. And but if you want to go a little bit deeper, you can head over to the website and the courses section and there's one on values, and you can do it on your own, or you could do it as a team. It really is quite powerful. But why is all this stuff important? Well, without understanding the people on your team, you're unable to leverage all of their wisdom, their skills, their experience, and you're only tapping into their current skills and experience. And also it goes a bit deeper than that when you really understand somebody and the journey that they've been on and the challenges that they have. When you give feedback or you give praise. People really feel seen. If you get them, they'll feel acknowledged for their personal contribution. And the relationship then moves from superficial to that based on trust and respect. And let's face it, businesses, teams relationships really need some trust. And we've seen so much fragmentation where people have all common opinion on how others should live their life and what's right and what's wrong. And we need to take it below that to understand really what's driving you what's really going on under the surface. So then the second question is, do we understand our current reality? Now what I tend to see is you've got people who are just stuck in firefighting mode, so they really just concentrating on today, and then they get up and they just repeat it the next day. And they don't really stop to take pause and say what's really going on. around here. And then you get the other ones who are the dreamers are always looking ahead, looking at the next goal looking at the the end goal, and they don't really look at well, but what's my current landscape now?

10:12

In my work,

10:13

I call it my present. And there's a whole module on this for you to really get to understand, where am I? Where is my team? Where is the organization right now? It's all about understanding the environment that you're in the behaviors, the problems, the issues, the relationships, the grudges, all of that stuff, as well as looking at you know, what are the supplier issues, the customer issues? What are people really telling us that we're not hearing? And then looking beyond the, the superficial, I guess, and started understand the reasons why. Why are these blocks and barriers really here, it's hearing about each other's experiences about working on that project, you might think it's going absolutely brilliantly, but they're having real issues. So their reality is very, very different to yours. So you could do just a simple SWOT analysis. And you know, it's a full grid model. But each one of those are some really pretty powerful questions that you need to work through together, you could do it individually, first, and then bring it together collectively. Or you could do it as a brainstorming exercise. But it helps people to really share their current reality and see whether everyone really is on the same page, or whether they're completely disjointed. And once you've got that out of the way, then you can understand. And the third question, what are we really trying to achieve here? And why? So I kind of see is, you've got a roadmap, you know, that you want to get to that, let's say Scotland, and, and you kind of know where you are now. And now you can start saying, right? How do we get from here to there? What, how much fuel? Are we going to need? Who's going to be the driver? Who's going to go in what car or what train? How are we going to get from here to there? How do we communicate our journey? And what are the risks and benefits that we might come across along the way? So the road map can only really be achieved when you've got that absolute, you know, grid reference in Scotland, of where you're going. And you know how long it's supposed to take you what the budget is, who's coming along with you. So what are we really trying to achieve? And why it helps everyone to understand the real goals of the team, the real purpose? Why does this team exist? And how will you know when you've succeeded? Again, it's important to hear everyone's experiences and thoughts. Because you as the leader, you might have absolute clarity, does everybody else because all you've got to do is go one degree off course. And you end up in a completely different direction. So now you're ready to plan the strategy from getting from your current reality to your future state together. So the fourth question is a kind of interesting one, because it's more of an unusual one. What are the team's non negotiable expectations on working together? Now I call these boundaries or the rules of engagement. And David tries to come up with four to 10 of these non negotiables with his teams, which then kind of turn into a bit of a team charter. So we've written somewhere that everybody signs up to. So ask your people about what their non negotiables are for the team. You might be really surprised by what they say. One client said to me that they're non negotiable is that they never avoid difficult conversations. That was a huge, big non negotiable for them. But as a team, they weren't doing it. And it was causing a lot of tension. And but together they said, No, they didn't want mediocre. So if something was harming the team, or someone was, you know, getting in the way, they needed to be honest about it straight away. And then once they got this non negotiable, agreed, then they started looking at, well, how do we bring it to life? What does it look like? another client said, We respect each other. Now, that was such a vague statement, and everybody nodded, but it could easily become very generic and bland. So we really drill down into what does respect each other really mean to you? That and so they evolved it into we treat others as we wish to be treated. And we challenge back if something is not okay with us. So rather than, you know, being disrespected, and then going home and moaning about it, or actually talking to the person who they felt disrespected them. It was a powerful moment as all the team really explored what that really looks like to them in reality, and how They needed to personally step up, if they say signed up for this non negotiable. Now David shared his clients example of no surprises. If people tell me something's

15:11

going wrong, and they knew about it two weeks ago, we have a problem. And that is really powerful, isn't it? And again, it alludes to that clear conversations, the proactive communication with one another. So you'll only find out what your team's non negotiables are when you actually sit down and ask them, and then make a plan of how do we bring this to life? Now, in Wales, I was doing the five Behaviors of a cohesive team program. And in those two days, all of those questions were answered and more, we take the time to really explore and commit around what are the desired behaviors? How are we going to work together, and everybody really leans in and commits. It's obviously really powerful stuff. And it kind of creates like this playbook for your team work. It will look different team to Team business to business coach to culture, and that's absolutely fine. That's why you, as a group of people have to do it together. And then decide what happens when you onboard a new member of the team? Do you need to be visited? Or do you onboard them into your playbook your your team charter? But without answering these kinds of questions, you're likely to be creating a culture naturally, and not intentionally. Now, I do love the natural cycle of things. But with nature, you're allowing the good and the bad to creep in. So yes, by accident, you might get these great behaviors, but you're also allowed the dysfunctional ones to embed. And over time, you just get stuck in this norming, allowing almost mediocracy to settle in. But high performing teams never settle. They keep going back and holding themselves accountable and asking these powerful questions, because they want to reach high performance. So if you're looking to reignite and realign your team, try these four questions, and bring their responses to life. And I think your teamwork should feel very differently after that moment. So I've signposted you to some great resources. You can go and follow David Wheatley and see what he's up to here. Also go and get the book as you listen to these podcasts. And so don't forget to hit that subscribe button and go back and listen to past episodes. But you can also access the courses that we've got online by going to www dot three w h.uk.com. I even got my own website there. I do apologize. That's www dot three w h.uk.com. forward slash courses. Have a look what's on there. And so yeah, Until then, t