TSR #5: Building and maintaining team dynamics (part one)
3-minute read
What’s in this newsletter:
Why team dynamics are so important
Who is responsible for team dynamics
One actionable exercise for you and your team
Why team dynamics are so important
Earlier in my career, I worked on a creative team in the music industry. My teammates were great, but leadership was really difficult to work for.
I constantly felt small, talked down to, and underappreciated. It was so frustrating to be in this environment and I felt like I had no control over it.
Over the years I moved on to different jobs and teams, and found myself pushing the prioritization of being more human-centered as a team. It actually felt better when I had some ownership in creating my team’s dynamics, and played a role in building a human-centered culture.
My biggest takeaway from this experience: you may get lucky with some good teams and managers in your career, but if you don’t take ownership over your role in contributing to your team dynamics and prioritize a human-centered culture, you’re basically betting on being lucky.
Who is responsible for team dynamics
The short answer: everyone.
The slightly longer answer: everyone, but it’s more effective if it comes from the bottom up.
I’m a big believer that leadership within the team is more important than leadership at the company level.
Why: your first team, those people you spend most of your time with, are your work family. You can have a great relationship with your leaders, but at the end of the day it’s a different type of relationship than the one you have with your team.
It’s much easier to build trust, find growth opportunities, and give and receive feedback with those who know you best.
One actionable exercise for you and your team
Have a discussion with your team, and ask the following questions.
How do we feel about our current team dynamics?
What is working well?
What could be improved?
What does growth look like for these areas of improvement?
How can we ensure we make this growth happen in the coming days, weeks, months?
Take notes on your answers, and come up with 3 actionable next steps.
Assign an owner for each who is NOT a team lead or manager. The assigned owner can seek the support of a manager when needed, but this is a great opportunity for growth and ownership from within the team.
Try it out, and let me know what you think.
