Leadership Challenge: Building Collaborative Team Culture
Think about all of the bad habits that unnoticed eat your company culture bit by bit.
What are they? Let’s see.
There’s gossip, territorialism, cynicism, defensiveness, hiding mistakes, resistance to change, fear of risk, passive-aggressive communication, avoiding feedback, withholding of information, false consensus, reluctance to change and more. Imagine how some of these habits can quickly escalate to conflict, lowering productivity, paralysing teams or the whole organisation.
So, when we look behind the curtain of a dysfunctional team what do we see there? Probably a lot but the root of it lies in a lack of trust.
Self-doubt as a Driver of Low Performance.
Insecurity comes from self-doubt. How many times you have asked yourself “What value do I bring to the table?” However, insecurity is the human condition, if you don’t have any insecurities rumbling around in your head, you probably have a different, much more serious condition.
Despite insecurity being absolutely natural in our personal lives, at work place we pretend that it is something connected with our teenage time, something that doesn’t belong to our office in a skyscraper to our meetings. When people mention self-doubt we regard them as week, that they are broken, not strong and not confident. Insecurity is often treated as an insult - a way to dismiss a person. Do you remember hearing “He acts like that because he is insecure.”
So out of the fear to be labelled as competitive, too creative, or emotional - employees choose to be quite and won’t speak up.
Very slowly, sometimes for a long time without notice this behaviour takes it’s tool on efficiency, communication, transparency, engagement, creativity, and objective decision-making.
For instance, when people don’t share information, ask for help or contribute in the meetings, decisions suffer and so the bottom line.
If people feel they are judged, marginalized, they have fear of speaking up, challenging colleagues or ideas, taking risk or demonstrate their creativity ultimately innovation suffers and so the bottom line.
A Matter of Trust in Collaborative Team Culture
Effectively it is up to the leaders to manage people’s insecurities, create a place of trust where employees are unafraid to speak up and contribute without the fear of being judged. Simply, it is to encourage trust.
Some of the most effective and lasting tools for building trust on a team are profiles of team members’ behavioural preferences and personality styles. These help break down barriers by allowing people to better understand and empathize with one another. Raising people self-awareness, better understanding of themselves and those around them is absolutely essential to collaborative, high performing team culture.
So let’s see what is this personality based approach to trust building?
Personality-Based Learning Experiences That Build Trust
To provide some context, here’s a quick primer on the Everything DiSC® model. It describes two very fundamental dimensions of human nature. First, some people are more fast-paced and outspoken, while other people are more cautious and reflective. Second, some people are naturally more sceptical and questioning, whereas other people are more accepting and warm.
After completing a 15 minute online assessment, a person receives a report that describes where they fall within the DiSC® model and what that means for their work and their relationships. Of course, the process can end here. The person reads their report and thinks, “This is creepy…have these people been cyber stalking me?” How do they know all this about me from a questionnaire?
They walk away with a deeper understanding of themselves and a crisp framework to organize interpersonal relationships. But from my experience I know that this person is probably only taking away a fraction of richness that such a tool has to offer. The value that exists in a profile like this fully comes to life when a person experiences their results in a facilitated learning session, either in-person or virtual. That’s where the magic happens, when people learn not only intellectually but also emotionally how to recognize, appreciate and embrace differences and that it is absolutely alright to be vulnerable and open around people they work with.
See It in Action.
For example, imagine a very closed, reserved financial manager. In the session, she gets a chance to share with her colleagues some of the ways that she fears that she’s misunderstood—that there’s a difference between being reserved and being cold, that she likes being asked to go out for lunch even if she doesn’t initiate it, that her matter-of-fact delivery doesn’t mean she assumes she knows best. Not only does she get a chance to express, but she also gets to see other people listening and processing what she’s saying, the kind of things we rarely have a non-awkward chance to say in our daily work.
And just as powerful is hearing other people describe what they appreciate so much about her contributions—she follows through, she can be counted on for an unbiased opinion, she projects calm when things are frantic. It’s by hearing other people talk about their appreciation of her style that she internalizes the message, “I am valued here.” It’s by witnessing other people talk about the struggles they also have with their style that she internalizes the message, “I’m not alone in my insecurity.”
Because different doesn’t equal bad.
The highest value in assessments such as Everything DiSC® is not getting a precise description of your personality, or even getting personalized tips on how you can grow (although these things are powerful), but the real magic is the insights and “aha” moments that happen in the sessions and get carried forward onto the job.
This learning experience creates a fundamental shift in how people view their colleagues. For some participants it could be for the first time in their working lives that they have space in which they can learn about themselves and others.
So by allowing people to appreciate their differences we create trust, ignite collaboration, and unlock amazing amount of positive energy and passion to work together.
This article was produced in collaboration with Wiley
DiSC assessments are a useful means of improving communication in the workplace, and recognising that feedback and constructive criticism are a gift; an essential element of getting accountability right, and an opportunity to learn and grow.