The Singular Brilliance in Teamwork: The “Me” in Team

teamwork

“There‘s no ‘I’ in team.”

A phrase that sets my teeth on edge. Often trumpeted to emphasize the importance of working together as a cohesive unit and to stress the essence of functioning as a consolidated group.

There are speakers the world over who have built entire careers by trotting out this concept to both the folks at HR conferences and to managers held prisoner at annual company leadership gatherings. It’s over-used, cliched and, let’s be frank, somewhat patronizing and annoying.  

Because there is, most assuredly, an “I” in team.

A team is not just a band of anonymous, characterless automatons laboring towards a common objective. A team is comprised of living, breathing, individuals. Sentient, complicated, multi-faceted and occasionally messy human beings.

Much like a dispersive prism, a team draws in light, breaks it up into its spectral colors, and reflects it back out. A team is that reflected color spectrum – connected individuals (each one a “me”!!) with singular blends of skills, strengths, and idiosyncrasies. The combined effect of this explosion of color is what provides a team with its core strength … as well as its distinctive identity.

Teams can become turbo-charged – leading to iteration, innovation and even disruption – when a group of divergent individuals can truly come together to challenge each other with distinct and, perhaps, contrarian thoughts. The resulting creative friction (a good thing!) can spur a team forward; pushing them to evolve and break boundaries.

Yet, it’s not just about the sum of individual parts – another cliché. Rather it’s how these parts work together, in balance, to create a powerful whole. And teams – whether self-governed or with a formal leader – are best served when acknowledging and celebrating these individual contributions while still remaining committed to their shared vision. It’s a delicate, and magical, equilibrium because a team is not simply a homogeneous unit of cloned members working tirelessly in unison.

It’s well past time to embrace a new slogan – “There is a ME on this team” – even if it won’t fit on a t-shirt.  

Friction and Flow: Workplace Dynamics

friction and flow

In the fields of engineering, physics and physical chemistry, the flow of fluids (liquids and gases) is referred to as fluid dynamics. It’s a systemic structure that allows those working in these fields to run calculations and solve problems by taking into account the properties of the fluids such as velocity, pressure, temperature, and density. It’s the science behind things such as why and how water flows through pipes and into your kitchen sink and how motor oil gets to your car’s engine.

There are turbulent and transient (unsteady) flows which may change over time and there are steady flows where the fluid properties don’t change over time. There are also, as one can imagine, multiple sub-disciplines, for the study of things like how flows can be chemically reactive and things of that nature.

There is also a field of study that calculates the friction factor – situations when energy can be lost because of things like the roughness of a pipe wall or the viscous effects of the fluid working its way through a pipe, container, etc.

Now neither I – nor, I venture to guess – many of my readers, are physicists. The last time I worried about water flow was this past winter when we hit several consecutive nights of sustained hard freeze here in south Louisiana and had to cover our pipes.

But I do, quite often, think about both friction AND flow in the workplace.

Flow

Flow implies smooth and uninterrupted movement or progress. There’s an element of continuity with a bit of a “rhythm” to the pace. We can achieve flow in the workplace when we:

  • Incorporate well-defined and streamlined processes so that work can continue with unnecessary interruptions or delays.
  • Have open, clear, and regular communication that ensures employees understand both their own job and the current state of company projects or initiatives.
  • Clearly define roles and responsibilities so people not only know “who does what” but also “when they do it.”
  • Trust employees and provide them with the autonomy and freedom to manage their own work, make decisions, and embrace their creativity.
  • Provide balanced and reasonable workloads that prevent burnout.

Friction

Friction in the workplace usually refers to obstacles or issues that prevent work from proceeding smoothly. These are the common irritants and dis-satisfiers that are far too often present in far too many workplaces. To promote flow – and remove the friction! – we should work to eliminate:

  • Communication breakdowns (including misunderstandings, assumptions, or misinterpretations) which cause confusion and conflict while also impacting efficiency and morale.
  • Lack of adequate resources – necessary tools, technologies, or personnel – which can create delays in work processes.
  • Excessive bureaucracy – red tape or approval processes for example – which can slow down decision-making and impede progress, innovation and growth.
  • Conflicting priorities, such as the misalignment of goals or deadlines between teams or departments, which not only destroys personal relationships but slows down progress.
  • A negative or toxic work environment (gossip! favoritism! harassment! ugh!) makes it difficult for anyone to focus on the work at hand, and…
  • Leaders who are autocratic, indecisive, or lacking in empathy.

I know. Easier said than done.

But when faced with a large-scale organizational shift and the rethinking of “how we work,” one of the first organizational culture questions to ponder is “are we enhancing the flow and reducing the friction?”

After all…when you reduce the friction you’ll immediately enhance the flow.

The Worst HR Job I Ever Had

Once upon a time I held a job that has long since disappeared from my resume.  You won’t find it on my LinkedIn profile, I never mention the name of the company aloud, and I’m fairly successful (except in times of extreme duress) at forgetting I ever even had a key to the building.

At the time I accepted the job offer I thought it was the greatest career move of my life.  I agreed to join this small company with 80 employees and great revenue that was poised on the brink of explosive growth in a particularly niche market segment.  A woman-owned, family-run business for 15 years, the company had just signed the papers (ink still wet on the deal) to become a subsidiary of a large corporation.  So although there was now a corporate “parent,” the company was maintaining its own identity, continuing onward with its strategies, and maintaining the wife-husband “owners” as CEO and SVP, respectively.  As the company’s first-ever HR Manager I had my work cut out for me; primary focus needed to be on ramping up staffing and planning the HR agenda.

I lasted 4 months.

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In those 4 months, I lived through the following:

  • Being told to “just keep it quiet” when I discovered a staff member with an expired H1-B visa who not only had no work authorization but should have returned to his country of origin many months previously.
  • Witnessing the SVP (the husband) get on the company-wide intercom every hour to verbally degrade, chide and denigrate the inbound sales team for their piss-poor numbers during the previous hour.
  • Being informed by the CEO that she had NO intention of making any employee non-exempt and for 15 years she hadn’t needed to pay one dime in “overtime” and she didn’t intend to start now just because I was telling her she needed to comply with a little something called the FLSA.
  • Receiving daily, frantic phone calls from employees too afraid to be seen talking to me, who begged me to deliver them from the hell-in-which-they-were-trapped.  Also known as their jobs.
  • Watching the envious stares of staff as one of their co-workers gave a head-held-high, fiery middle-finger salute as she proudly marched out the door after ripping off her headset and quitting right in the middle of the work day.
  • Having to go to the CEO’s office every day to pick up my mail which, by the way, she had already opened.  Let me repeat – the CEO of this company opened every piece of mail delivered to the company. Hundreds and hundreds of pieces of mail.  Every single day.
  • Consoling an entire sales team of 8 employees when they received an email from the SVP that said something to the effect of “your monthly numbers are shit and at the end of this week I will be firing whoever is the lowest producer for this week.  And I will do that every week for the rest of this month.  And if in 3 weeks these numbers aren’t acceptable you’re g-d f’cking manager is getting shit-canned too!!”

By month 2 I started searching for a new job.  By month 4, hallelujah, I got an offer.  Being a considerate and conscientious person, I gave my news to the “owners” and provided them with a 2 week notice. They yelled at me and ranted and screamed about how I had “let them down” and after “all they had done for me” and they let me know in no uncertain times that I had “screwed them.”

I walked out of their office and as word spread throughout the building I got hugs and smiles. “Lucky you” and “Please take me with you” were the phrases du jour.

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Now I didn’t give a rip about those two owners or the corporate parent.  I cared about leaving some sort of support and systems in place for those who were remaining.  Plus, my sense of professional pride wouldn’t let me leave without wrapping up the job so you can bet that in those last 2 weeks I worked my butt off. 

My last day was a Friday and I was there until 7 PM finalizing some notes and records.  I left my keys and one final note on the CEO’s desk and let myself out the front door.  Parked right there in the driveway was a big-old pickup truck with the tail down and one of our employees sitting on it with an ice-chest next to him and a beer in his hand.  He reached into the ice chest, came out with a cold one, and held it out to me.

“I ran home, picked these up and came back hoping I would catch you one last time,” he said.  “I don’t blame you one bit for leaving cuz this places is f’ed up.  But I just wanted to say Thank You and see if you wanted to celebrate over a beer.”

So I popped the top.

Best office farewell party ever.

*****

This post originally ran in 2012 at the now defunct HRSchoolhouse. I decided to re-run it because some pieces are timeless and some jobs remain triggering.

The Blame Game : Hiring Edition

hiring game

I’ve been gathering a fair number of timely anecdotes from job seekers who have recently found themselves summoned to multiple interviews for a single job. Candidates have been finding themselves running the gauntlet of 3 to 5 to 8 (EIGHT!) interviews. (note: that’s not 8 separate people such as one might encounter during a group interview; that’s EIGHT separate and distinct “appointments.”)

Let’s imagine how this would play out for a candidate — we’ll call her Janet — who has submitted a job application for the position of Accounts Payable Manager with a mid-sized regional bank:

1.Recruiter/HR staffer conducts phone screen

2.Interview with HR Director

3.Interview with Director of Accounting

4.Interview with peer (s) – A/R Manager, Purchasing Manager and Payroll Manager

5.Interview with Team Members – A/P Supervisor and 3 A/P Clerks

6.Interview with Controller

7.Interview with CFO

8.Interview with CEO

Janet spends hours upon hours of time interviewing with additional time devoted to prepping, driving, parking, and completing an assessment or two. She’s required to take what amounts to nearly 2 full days of PTO from her current job. By the time it’s all done, weeks have passed and the seasons have changed. And chances are it’s not been quality time. The interviewers, undoubtedly, have asked the same (useless and often inappropriate) questions repeatedly.

Then, at the end of this process, someone needs to make the selection decisions. But who will it be? Are all 12 people going to sync up, have a robust discussion and evaluate the candidate(s) in alignment with a decision matrix that reduces bias? Are they going to acquiesce to the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion? Or are they planning to spin a roulette wheel to see where it lands?

I’ll tell you what they’re going to do: the Director of Accounting, who will be managing this A/P Manager, will make the final hiring decision…as they should have been prepared to do all along.

So why this charade? This inescapable and endless PROCESS (with a capital “P”)?

Blame avoidance. It’s that simple. It’s the human desire to avoid corporate shaming and finger-pointing (like that Spider-Man meme) if things go sideways with Janet as an employee.

  • “Janet is just not performing up to my expectations, but we all interviewed her, so I guess we all share the blame,” says the Controller.
  • “She’s really hard to work for,” Bob, the A/P Clerk, says to Margo, the A/P Clerk, “but I guess we just didn’t see that when we met with her.”
  • “I just can’t get Janet to focus on meeting deadlines,” her boss, the Director of Accounting, explains to the CFO. “But we all agreed she was the top candidate so none of us picked up on it.”

Hey! Maybe if we divvy up the responsibility and allow managers to abdicate their responsibilities to, you know, “act like managers” and make decisions…then we ALL share the blame when we have a less-than-stellar outcome!

*****

this post was also inspired by a recent post on the HIPPO effect from Dorothy Dalton

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