Seeing the teams for the trees
Learning to see teams in a variety of settings is a skill that supports performance. Photo from proclimb.co.nz
Last week, arborists worked outside my unit block. They were doing some safety work to remove dead branches and so on. My daughter and I watched on over breakfast as they went about their business. We were both very impressed with one person's job which included using some sort of industrial slingshot to cast a rope over a branch that he subsequently pulled himself up on to.
As I watched the small group working together, I noticed something further. They had complementary roles (some were keeping others on the ground out of dangerous areas, some were managing traffic as the school day approached (we live near the school), others were mulching the felled branches. They occasionally witched roles. Throughout, they were communicating clearly with each other, providing feedback and focused on getting the job done collectively. In my work, I define a team based on a 1993 article in Harvard Business Review by John Katzenbach and Douglas Smith. Based on that, a team is:
a small group of people
with complementary skills
who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.
There is no doubt in my mind, that the arborists were a team. As I paid more attention to not only what they were doing, but how they were doing, I noticed so many of the processes that would benefit many of the teams that I support. A clear purpose, psychological (and physical) safety that allowed for direct and timely feedback, a way of work that had principles but needed to be flexible given that each piece of work (tree) that they respond to is different and in a different setting.
I get that my work makes me highly sensitive to identifying teams. This team awareness is something that has huge benefits for all of us. It's also a capability that we can develop relatively simply. Once we are able to recognise teams that we are a part of, we are better able to contribute to each of them. Once we are able to recognise teams in other aspects of our lives beyond the workplace, we can apply lessons learned in each of our teams. As my experience watching the arborists shows, teams can and do pop up in all aspects of our life and not just on the org chart.
In fact, next week, I will explore just how many teams many people are on - and whether the org chart has it right. For this week, here are some questions for you to consider in your teams:
What teams (outside of work) have you observed in the past week?
What might you learn from teams in different settings that could improve your contribution to teams at work?