7 formulas for team success.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

After you master engineering and an array of process improvement techniques, achieve some success, and receive promotions to management levels, the next challenge is coping with the people side of team leadership. For most team leaders, this means making a quick transition from the clarity of technology to the mystery of human behavior, emotions, and motivation. use the following seven formulas to reduce the mystery of interpersonal and group dynamics.

Halfway through the meeting with his project team leaders, Mike sighed quietly, leaned back, and folded his hands behind his head, dismayed by the ponderous pace of the meeting and at a loss for how to jumpstart the group and focus them on action. His well-trained facilitation skills were not working. In fact, he totally blanked on what to do.

Situations like this are part of the everyday life of team leaders. There are lots of reasons for blanking: fear of public speaking, the challenge of reading other people, thinking on your feet while trying to facilitate a multi-step process, and coping with team members who are very intelligent and therefore resistant or even arrogant.

In spite of the never-ending challenges of interpersonal and group dynamics, many team leaders and their teams achieve great results, making maximum use of individuals' talents and skills.

Team leaders can benefit from seven formulas that will allow them to maximize their natural talents and lead their team to success.

1. VALUE

How is a successful group dynamic achieved? To start, team leaders need to connect with team members. Team members won't say it, but what they really want to know is that the leader understands and values them. To reach out in this way, team leaders need to connect with people, demonstrating that they appreciate the team and are responsive to members' needs. Understandably, this can be difficult when team members come across as resistant, arrogant, or challenging.

Behavioral specialists have identified significant problems with defensiveness when teams are made up of very bright and highly educated people. Specifically, professor Chris Argyris from the Harvard Business School has said that bright professionals even seem to avoid learning, which can be a huge obstacle to the success of projects.

Although professionals can have genuine commitment to excellence and improvement, they may seem to have bad attitudes and be quite defensive. Argyris attributes these negative behaviors to a combination of lack of experience in failure (due to being bright and successful), lack of self-awareness, and poor articulate ability when facing difficulties. For example, when a project is not going well, bright professionals tend to blame the team leader instead of themselves. Team leaders can also make the same mistake.

What this means if you have to lead a team of bright professionals is that you must manage the feelings of this sensitive group. They are sensitive to being underestimated, not receiving appropriate acknowledgment for the strengths, talents, and expertise they bring to a project, and being viewed as inadequate in any way, especially in terms of project management.

The first formula is aptly named VALUE, and you can use it to show respect for team members:

V = Validate: Make people feel needed and correct. Say "You made a big difference here."

A = Appreciate: Show people you are glad to work with them. Say "I'm glad you're on this team."

L = Lessons learned: Reveal your vulnerable side by sharing what you have learned. Say "I learned something from you."

U = Understand them: Keep listening to what they are saying and not saying; you are responsible for understanding the changing development and needs of the team.

E = Empathize: If a member has a feeling or emotion, be open about it. Say "I can tell this is frustrating to you."

The VALUE formula should be used in fragments, meaning that team leaders can select a portion of it to use to connect with teams. For example, when the team is struggling with simplifying a process, you can empathize by verbalizing their concerns, saying, "When we try to simplify something this complex, it is hard, slow, and frustrating, but we will be glad with the result."

Use the VALUE formula when talking with teams before, during, and after a project meeting to build and maintain good connection with members. For selling project management to potential clients, the VALUE formula is a way to separate yourself from competitors, to acknowledge the clients when they are feeling vulnerable in expressing fears about expensive or inefficient projects and processes, and to alleviate the tension of working with external providers.

With teams, the VALUE formula can be used during the project meeting to connect and reconnect while the team wrestles with creativity, evaluation, and the concomitant nervousness and worries of the team process.

2. NFL

For people from the United States, NFL stands for the National Football League. But for our purposes, NFL is useful for analyzing and anticipating team behavior:

N = Needs: Understand what the team needs in terms of information, support, and success.

F = Feelings: Understand what the team feels, ranging from positive to negative feelings, about the process.

L = Limits: Understand the constraints that affect the team, including psychological, political, temporal, and financial limitations.

Use all parts of NFL in sequence. You can ask teams direct questions using NFL, such as "What can limit your ability to keep this project on schedule?" You will learn about potential obstacles early in a project and can plan accordingly.

In addition, team members will see that you are curious about them and that you want to customize your efforts to their needs, feelings, and limitations.

3. D = R x T

Do you recognize this basic formula? Many of us learned Distance = Rate x Time in primary school. To apply the D = R x T formula in a project meeting, team leaders can rewrite it:

Dialogue = Relationships x Tasks

Team leaders can apply this to a project meeting, using it to create open discussion. Dialogue is more than a function of tasks to be completed, such as outlining the scope of the project and determining participants. Dialogue also is a function of relationships. To achieve openness and collaboration, all parties in a dialogue need to plan and execute relationship definition and support as much as task definition and support.

You can also use this formula to remind you that you are dealing with both task- and relationship-oriented people at any given time. Relationship-oriented clients and team members connect with a team leader when the dialogue is exciting, enthusiastic, and positive; task-oriented people connect when the discussion is clear, concise, and to-the-point. You may have a matching or different orientation and will typically try to connect in your own style. The purpose of this formula is to remind you to consider potential differences in style from team members.

4. SAVE

Confidence is the belief in the rightness and worth of a person or idea. One of the mysteries of communication is the universal reliance on the image of complete confidence as a short cut to decision making. Despite team claims that they make decisions based on facts and data, many times decisions are made based on how confident a person appears to be. Consultants and team leaders who are confident are both persuasive and reassuring to decision makers, who often have very little on which to base decisions (perhaps just a resume and an introduction).

For these reasons, team leaders have to convey as much genuine confidence as possible. This is done through verbal and nonverbal channels of communication. In the verbal channel, confidence is conveyed through quick responses; a strong, well-projected, and clear voice; varied intonation; and clear, positive language. In the nonverbal channel, confidence is conveyed via upright posture, relaxed but energetic movement, and direct eye contact.

Since project managers are constantly charged with finding ways to save money, this formula should be easy to recall. For verbal confidence, SAVE:

S = Short, crisp sentences. Say "This is the point."

A = Alert listening and speaking. Rather than paying attention to personal tension, focus outwardly and respond quickly to what you perceive.

V = Voice is strong and warm. A voice that is a little louder and deeper than usual is perceived as more authoritative and often gives confidence to the speaker as well as the listeners.

E = Emphasize key words and ideas. Teams listen for days at a time during a project meeting. Aid attention and recall by increasing the loudness, length, and pitch of key words and phrases.

5. E = mc2

For nonverbal confidence:

E = Energy: We associate high energy with vigor, interest, enthusiasm, belief, courage, and youth, all of which benefit any group activity.

m = Movement: Movement is interesting to watch, releases tension for both you and the group, and even facilitates control over disruptive team members.

c2 = Caring and commitment: Don't fake the nonverbal aspects of confidence. If you care about the group's well-being and have a genuine commitment to a group's goals and success, then let yourself care. The group will likely imitate you.

To convey confidence successfully, both verbal and nonverbal communication need to match. If a team leader's verbal communication is confident but nonverbal communication conveys doubt, the group will pay attention mainly to the nonverbal message.

6. PXP

Experienced team leaders have probably explained the same things frequently enough to have gotten their messages clear and concise. Could they be clearer? Yes, if only by adding more verbal signposts to alert listeners to main points, changes of subject, and opportunities to interact. This is especially important for listeners for whom your language is not their native tongue. For example, a clear communicator might add before a main point, "If you remember only one thing about function analysis, it is...."

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