It was the second week of Q4, and Allie figured this was the sweet spot to try something new. She felt anxious. She knew Rob was holding the same meeting with his engineering team over in Bagboy. She wondered if it would be more successful, doing it only with engineering, or if it was going to work better with an entire studio. Or if it would work at all. It would be so easy just to have a normal OKR check-in instead, skip this touchy-feely stuff. But no, because if she was right, and she was pretty sure she was, this could make a huge difference in the studio’s ability to execute.
She looked around the table. Christie, Kendra, and Carlton represented design. Yosi was at the hospital with his wife, but he sent his lead engineers, Jheryn, Noam, and Nadav. And not to be forgotten, Lawrence and her new PM, Arash. She had a team, all right. Or rather, she had a bunch of resources. Time to make a team.
Allie was secretly shaking. She hoped it didn’t show. She was going from her preferred working approach of collecting data and then figuring it out alone to running a touchy-feely session to create team bonding. Argh. But time to test Rob and her theories real time.
“Okay, folks. We’re going to start off our team a little differently. You know how most of the time your boss just throws you in a room and says, ‘Go solve this impossible problem?’” She got smiles for this, and one of Yosi’s engineers chortled. “We’re going to take a moment to figure out what kind of team we want to be first. A great team has clear goals, roles, and norms. We’re going to set these together, starting with norms.”
Jheryn raised his hand. “Norms?” he asked.
“Norms are unspoken rules of behavior. But we . . . are going to speak them. For example, why did you raise your hand?”
Jheryn shrugged. “Dunno. Made sense to me.”
Allie made eye contact with the group, one by one. “Do we want to raise our hands, or do we want to just talk?”
Arash spoke up, “Raising our hand is sort of juvenile. It’s like being in school.”
Kendra spoke up next. “But you guys are always talking over each other. Mostly talking over us.” She nodded to Christie. “This way we know who has the floor.”
Allie took back the conversation before it became an argument. “See? Even with something as simple as talking to each other, we all have different expectations of how we should behave. Not talking about it can lead to misunderstandings and hurt. And that will slow us down as a team.”
Arash spoke up now. “So raise hands or not?”
Kendra chimed in, “See? One can’t even finish a thought around here!”
Allie raised a hand to stop them. “We’re going to decide this and more. For now, let’s try raising our hands, and see how that works. I want to make sure I hear from the extroverts and the introverts.”
Jheryn nodded and his long black bangs fell to obscure his eyes.
She continued, “We’re going to create a team charter. But first, I want you to think of the best team you’ve ever been in. Take a moment and figure out what made it so great. Then raise your hand to share what made it great.”
Arash rolled his eyes, but raised his hand. “My team at PayPal trusted each other’s good intent. Like, if someone said something stupid,” he stopped to point at his own chest, “instead of thinking they were stupid, you’d ask what they meant. And listen to understand what a person meant.”
There were a couple nods and Allie wrote on the white board, “Assume good intent.”
Jheryn raised his hand. “Everyone trusted that the other person knew what they were doing.” He brushed his bangs back from his hazel eyes. “I mean, you didn’t doubt the other person was the expert in his field.”
Allie nodded, and added, “Trust person to be good at their job.”
Another of Yosi’s engineers raised his hand and spoke. “Humble enough to ask for help.”
Kendra chimed in, “That’s a good one, Nadav!” Allie added it to the list on the board.
The team continued, and she wrote:
Clear common goal
Knew each other as people
Could give honest feedback
and several more. Then she turned to the team and asked, “Okay, now think of the worst team you were ever on. The one that made you not want to get out of bed in the morning. This time I want you to just say what you think. Don’t bother to raise your hand. We’ll try it . . .”
Noam spoke up, “No leadership.”
Allie blinked. “What do you mean by that?”
“No one to make sure we stick to our OKRs. No one takes responsibility. No vision.”
Allie wrote up the three definitions. Before she could turn around, she heard Kendra.
“No communication!”
Allie turned around.
“You know, when people are upset about something and they don’t say anything, they just pout and snip at you.”
Allie wrote on the board Conflict avoidance. “Is that okay?” she asked.
Kendra thought about it for a second. “Yes. But can you add, not giving feedback?”
Allie did, then added at the team’s urging:
Chronic lateness
Over-promising
Putting your ego before the project
Shifting goals
Arash then said, “Sabotage.”
“That’s not a thing here?” Nadav said, uncertainly.
“No, but I’ve seen it . . . elsewhere at SOS. The GM believed in competition to promote excellence.”
Allie nodded, and added Internal competition to the list.
“Is that always a bad thing?” Noam asked. “Rick seems to encourage it between GMs.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Allie answered. “If we think it is bad for us, we don’t want it.” She looked at the team. “Do we want internal competition between team members?”
The group was all shaking their heads. She didn’t see a sign of disagreement beyond Noam’s mild curiosity. She took a moment to revel. It was working!
“Okay, this might be a good moment for us to change to creating our rules of engagement. We’re going to take these feelings, and turn them into rules we agree to abide by. For example, the last one. How about, We compete with the competition, not with each other?”
She saw only smiles and nods to that. She wrote Rules on the board, and then: We compete with the competition, not with each other.
“So we’ve tried raising hands and just shouting out ideas. Is there a preference?
Kendra and Arash spoke at once, “Yes . . . raised hands,” “Just say it.” Then they laughed.
Arash jumped in. “I feel silly raising my hand.”
Kendra replied, “But look at the second list. It’s all you, me, and Noam. Jheryn actually talked when we raised our hands.”
Allie had to admit Jheryn had talked more in this meeting than a month of meetings before this.
“It’s true,” Kendra laughed. “No one can suppress me! But Jheryn, why didn’t you chime in on bad teams?”
Jheryn sighed. “I dunno, you guys all talk so fast, and on top of each other. It feels like a competition.”
There was a moment of silence, then Noam spoke up. “What if we . . . I dunno . . . try listening more? And ask each other what we think? Pay attention to who is saying what? Advocate for each other?”
Allie tried wordsmithing it. “How about Advocate for all voices? And we try that for a week and see how it works?”
The team looked to Jheryn who shrugged, and Noam who nodded. “Worth a try.”
Allie wrote on the whiteboard: Advocate for all voices. “We’re going to make some more rules now. But just like we experimented with hands and no hands, we’ll try another way to brainstorm our rules. Often introverts and marginalized groups feel uncomfortable just calling out ideas. We’re going to try a silent technique.
“You all have Post-It notes in front of you. Look at the list on the wall, and think of rules you’d like to propose to the group. Write them down on the Post-Its. We can wordsmith them after.”
Allie set a timer for eight minutes and stood silently while people wrote. She twitched with the desire to participate, but also knew she’d have plenty of chances to shape things as a facilitator. She had been a brainstorm facilitator dozens of times, but it felt strange to play this role for something . . . so important.
Allie noticed that people had slowed down a bit in their writing. She resisted the urge to cut time short, though. Her team looked thoughtful rather than bored.
Finally her timer went off.
Allie resumed, “Great, before we continue, I’d like you to consider these categories. They come from the Culture Map. We have to decide how we’ll handle each category.” She wrote each on the board, then explained each one.
Communicating
“This refers to low context and high context. Low context assumes everyone knows what you are talking about, high context states things explicitly.”
Evaluating
“This is about feedback, but it’s similar to the first. Do you like your negative feedback straight, no chaser, or do you prefer to have people break it to you gently?”
Persuading
“I know we all argue with facts here at SOS, but do we start with core principles, or lead with application and examples?”
Leading
“I know QuiltWorld has been hierarchical with George, but I don’t want to assume anything. Do you prefer hierarchical leadership? Where the leader sets direction and finds the ideas? Or shall we pivot to a style where ideas can come from anywhere, and we set direction together?”
Deciding
“You can decide two ways: The team comes to a consensus, or everyone puts in their two cents, and then the leader makes the final call.”
Trusting
“There are two ways to build trust. We can trust we have the right people in the room based on the fact they were hired, or we can build trust by spending time together and getting to know each other. I guess the real question is, do we want to make some time to get to know each other beyond our work roles?”
Disagreeing
“How confrontational do we want to be when we disagree?”
Scheduling
“When we say we’re meeting at 10 a.m., does that mean 10:00, or does it mean 10:15?”
Arash, who came in last at 10:10, suddenly decided to examine his shoes. Allie smiled. “Okay, let’s take another five minutes to add a few rules.”
There was some furious scribbling. Allie thought adding a frame really helped people think of more potential issues. She had just finished the Culture Map on the plane back from Vegas, trying to figure out her crazy family of Mexico meets Chicago, and thought it might work. So far so good. Now for some Think/Pair/Share.
“Okay, time!” People looked up. “Please turn to a partner and share your ideas. Then combine them into the most important ones.”
Another ten minutes passed, but the team was still talking animatedly. “Anyone need five more minutes?” Allie asked. Three-quarters of everyone’s hands shot up. “Okay, keep going.” She wasn’t sure how long the Think/Pair/Share would take, and the “Do you want more time?” trick always worked well. Finally, she had to call the conversation to a close.
“Let’s get some of the rules up on the board. Remember, we’re working to listen, not interrupt, and advocate for each other.”
There was silence for a second, and then Christie spoke. “Jheryn had a good idea, I think. He said he wanted to balance egalitarian and top-down decisions by having everyone discuss decisions, but if we can’t come to an agreement, we’d like you to decide so we can move forward.”
Jheryn then chimed in softly, blushing. “To save time so we don’t argue too long.”
Allie wrote it on the board. Discuss, debate, decide. GM tiebreaks. “Does anyone have a counterproposal?” she asked.
Kendra spoke up, “We wrote the same thing! Except we wrote, after thirty minutes of a stalemate, the discipline expert decides. That means I decide design stuff, Yosi decides engineering stuff, and you decide business stuff.” Nadav, Kendra’s discussion partner, nodded.
“I like that better, honestly,” Christie said.
“Me, too.” Noam chimed in.
Allie erased GM and replaced it with Lead. She added after thirty minutes to the end. It was awkwardly phrased, but made the point.
She paused. “I do need to hold the final decision. It’s my job to care for the business, and everything we do here is for the business. But I do promise to listen to you as experts.” The team digested that.
“What if we finish with, GM overrules only if dangerous for business?” Nadav floated the new idea. His team nodded.
“Works for me,” Noam added.
“Are we good?” asked Allie. There were nods all around. “Okay, more rules?”
They continued to offer up rules and modifications, from tactical to inspirational. Allie wrote on the board:
Trust good intent: Clarify before you criticize.
Meetings start within five minutes of the agreed-on time no matter what.
Make time to be people together—daily coffee klatch.
Be respectful in delivering what you promised and when holding others accountable.
Work is work: Disagreements and critique are not personal. Don’t make it or take it so.
Argue, decide, commit.
Then there was a knock on the conference room door.
Allie opened it, and was shocked to see Yosi holding a pile of pizza boxes. Seeing Allie’s face he shrugged. “I was closest to the door when they came.”
“You’re back!” Allie said, overjoyed.
“It’s okay. I’ll tell you more later.”
The team jumped up and had the boxes out of his hands before he could even put them on the table. Allie then walked Yosi though the recent decisions, leaving him reading the board as she joined her team chowing down. She thought that the team was talking more, laughing and joking more easily with each other. As she ate, Yosi sidled up to her.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” he said, after removing a bit of cheese from his scruffy beard with a paper napkin. “This has been really great. I don’t want to set and forget though.”
Allie gave him a puzzled look, her own mouth full of pizza.
“You know, with OKRs? You can’t just set them, you have to check them every week. I’m thinking we should add a norm check to our weekly retros.”
“Funny, I was thinking the same thing! We need a cadence of commitment to each other. And we can grade them, too, like we do OKRs, at the end of quarter.”
Yosi nodded thoughtfully. “That should work.”