Building & Leading Teams for Impact

1. Building & Leading Teams for Impact December 20, 2011

2. There’s no “1” in the One Million Campaign. There’s no “I” in team.

3. We all have a piece of the puzzle.

4. Building Your Team

5. You’ve got to organize & mobilize!

6. Mobilizing to Action: PSA Solution: Hope What specifically & meaningful can be done about? Problem: Anger Action: Opportunity What are they angry about Make the specific & or threatened by?doable ask

7. Organizing Conversations Intentional conversations that go deeply into a person’s: • Issues: What we act on • Values: Principles, what motivates us • Interests: What’s our stake in it Assessment from the conversation: • Capacity: What resources can be offered • Commitment: What resources are offered Goal: Learn a person’s story and what matters to them. Build a relationship, assess them, and figure out potential common concerns.

8. Mobilizing Conversations Prompted conversations that make the ask. Solution Problem Action Goal: Find common concern. Find what is a problem or point of agitation for a person to make link between person’s problem and the solution that leads them to take some action.

9. Coming Together As A Team

10. Team Phases

11. Team Phases • Forming: Team meets & learns about challenges & opportunities; agrees on goals; begins to tackle tasks • Storming: Team addresses issues, such as what problems they are really supposed to solve, how they will function independently & together, & what leadership model they will accept • Norming: Team manages to have one goal &come to mutual plan for team • Performing: Able to function as unit as team find ways to get job done smoothly &effectively without inappropriate conflict or need for external supervision

12. Working Together: The Team Charter

13. Team Charter: Purpose • What kind of team? • What “work” does the team do? • What topics belong “in” this team and what’s “out”? • What is the team responsible for accomplishing?

14. Team Charter: Context • Who are we accountable to? • What other groups / teams do we connect? • What do they want / need from us?

15. Team Charter: Goals • What specific results do we expect from our efforts? • What outcomes? • How can we measure that?

16. Team Charter: Roles • Who is on the team? • What perspective does each member bring? • Are there special roles or subgroups within this team? • What do subgroups require of us?

17. Team Charter: Procedures • Work Processes: • What processes will we use to do the team’s work? • How often will we meet? • Who determines & manages our agenda? • How will we connect with our stakeholders & other sponsors of our work? • Decision Making: • What decisions are made within this team? • What is out of bounds? • What level of decision making responsibility do we have? • What decision process will we use? • Communication: • How will we communicate & connect to others within the organization?

18. Team Charter: Norms • What do we expect of each other? • How do we agree to handle conflict? • What are our team norms and/or operating principles?

19. Team Norms Exercise • Think of the worst team you have been on • Spend 2 minutes writing down what made that experience so terrible • Think of the best team you have been on • Spend 2 minutes writing down what made that experience so good • Write down suggestions for behaviors that would make being on this team a positive experience

20. Working Together: Team Needs

21. Team Needs: Planning Phase • Team Charter: Overall objectives, resources, & constraints are defined by or for team • Goals: ID of measurable team output & related milestones • Team Norms: Agreed upon standards of behavior that regulate team member performance during & between interactions • Task Performance Strategy: Development of overall approach to task & key actions to achieve goals • Shared Understanding: ID of key assumptions & beliefs that will affect performance to create a common perspective • Team Memory: Inventory of relevant knowledge, information, & skills available to team (& gaps)

22. Team Needs: Action Phase • Monitoring Output: Tracking & communicating progress toward task completion & goal accomplishment • Monitoring Systems: Tracking resources available to team & tracking external environment • Coordination: Prioritizing & orchestrating sequence & timing of key activities & events • Communication: Ensuring high quality communication within group • Monitoring Team Behavior: Providing feedback & coaching to help members perform tasks or ensure others complete those tasks • Managing Boundaries: Ensuring high quality information flow with other groups or units, including acquisition of resources, coordinating activities, & advocating team interests

23. Team Needs: Interpersonal • Motivation Building: Generating sense of personal accountability for individual & team performance, team cohesion, & motivation toward task accomplishment • Psychological Safety: Developing shared sense of trust so team members can openly speak their minds without fear of rebuke or retaliation • Emotion Management: Ensuring set-backs & frustration (& even over-confidence) don’t undermine team performance • Conflict Management: Proactively ensuring differences of opinion don’t prevent task accomplishment; helping team have healthy debate without personal acrimony

24. Working Together: Virtual Teams

25. Virtual Teams It is harder to follow a meeting from a distance. So… • Make meeting plan very explicit & more detailed • List all planned activities, timelines, processes, etc. • Engage vested interested of participants in advance • Correspond personally with each to confirm participation & interest • Enunciate interim process goals & make smaller & chronologically shorter

26. Virtual Teams People don’t get feedback when working over a distance. So… • Proactively seek out & provide feedback from all participants • Engage in process check-ins frequently • Enable private virtual dialogue

27. Virtual Teams It’s harder to build a team over a distance. So… • Achieve very clear, unambiguous goals • Arrange for distributed “breaks” to allow informal dialogue

28. Virtual Teams There is an art to using audio & video in a distributed meeting. So… • Engage in a dialogue rather than giving a briefing • Stay close to the microphone • Explicitly ask for comments and feedback

29. Teams in Review • Have organizing & mobilizing conversations to add team members • Teams go through phases – it’s perfectly normal • Create a team charter • Spend time developing team norms • Teams require trust • Manage team conflict before there is conflict • Virtual teams require a little extra TLC

30. Sample Team Meeting Agenda • Round of introductions / personal stories • Team norms exercise • Set team norms • Determine how team will meet • Determine how team will communicate • Create team charter • Assign team roles & general responsibilities • Lay out plan

31. Questions?