Teamership: Building your personal team
We all need to have a network to help us bring our best more often. Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
At its core, the need for Teamership is driven by the fact that more of us find ourselves across multiple teams. As is often the case, that means that there are both challenges and opportunities. There are plenty of benefits of being across multiple teams. One challenge is the systems that surround us. 75% of teams don’t exist on org charts, so we can’t rely entirely on traditional support networks.
While managers have a significant impact on our experience, it’s no longer sufficient (or reasonable) for any of us to rely on our manager to be 100% across our workload, the technical areas that we need to develop and our wellbeing. Likewise, we can’t wait for the Learning department to come to us with the exact program that will support our growth and development. Don’t get me started on annual performance reviews! There’s no way that anyone wanting to get better at performing in their role can expect an annual process to be the only way that they get feedback, identify opportunities to leverage strengths and develop areas of weakness.
Organisations are looking at better ways to address all of these issues and there is also an opprtunity for each of us to design the network that we need. Below, I have suggested ways to consider a network that will help you bringing your best more often.
The first way to consider your network is to think about having people both inside and outside of your organisation.
Inside your organisation
There are distinct advantages to having people within your organisation that you can turn to - there is a shared context that doesn’t need explanation, you will be able to use the same language and acronyms, there are a lot of things that they will just “get” by virtue of the fact that you work within the same organisation.
Outside your organisation
Of course, there are advantages of connecting with people outside of your organisation. Firstly, there are conversations that could be damaging or risky to have inside an organisation. If you’re really struggling with the CEO, your manager or the Head of HR, it might not be the wisest thing to share that internally! More than that, sometimes we lose sight of the context when we are in the middle of it. Our views are subjective and from within the organisation. An objective view from outside of the organisation can help you to get clarity and confidence on your situation.
The second dimension to consider your network through is the mix of professional and personal topics.
Professional
Professional conversations are important. What are the emerging, expiring and evolving trends in your industry? What are the skills that you are looking to develop? What are the unique skills and perspectives that you can bring to your role?
Personal
One of the byproducts of the COVID pandemic is that we have become increasingly aware of the impact that factors outside of work have on our performance at work. That means that it is important to have connections that have a positive impact on your health and wellbeing in every sense – physical, social, emotional and so on.
That means that your network needs four segments:
Inside & professional - for tangible support relevant to your current role
Outside & professional - for a broader view of industry and professional trends
Inside your organisation and personal - enjoying the company of colleagues increases our engagement
Outside & personal - having interests and connections outside of work is essential and improves our overall performance.
All of them are valuable - as is getting the right balance. Next week, I’ll share three different types of assistance that you can build into your network.
A few questions for you to consider this week:
Is it sufficient for you to rely on traditional support processes to maintain high performance in your role?
How well balanced is your network?
Which segment of your network is strongest?
Which segment of your network needs the most attention?