Teaming on the Beach
I have just returned from a truly fabulous few days on the Costa Del Sol, not because I was on holiday with my feet in the sand and my nose in a book, but because I got to be part of a great exercise in team work and not just with any random team, but with my own team; and being part of a team working well, is one of the best feelings in the world, IMHO. So what did we do and what did I learn from this experience:
The Event
Friday and Saturday of last week, my team ran a brand new technical conference in a brand new location (J on the Beach); it was hard, the hours were long and all kinds of stuff went wrong, but then again we fixed it, all kinds of stuff went right and we got really great feedback from the attendees. I clearly say we ran a conference because being there and helping make the days run to plan is very different from organising a great conference, which has been a mammoth task undertaken by a subset of the team (shout out to @lsybarguen) in the last few months.
Sh*t happens, and that is OK.
Because when it happens the team rallies round you to help fix it, we are none of us perfect, none of us completely in control (power cut in one of the conference rooms for 10 minutes during the first break out session anyone?), but also none of us is alone. When you have a simple common goal (give the attendees the best experience we possibly can) it is easy for others to see what they can do to help and to accept that help.
You see the power of frequent, crisp, direct and open communications
I observed myself and others telling the team exactly what is happening good and bad, because they may be able to learn from your experience, make a change based on it or help in that very moment. You see people getting exactly the help they need because they have no time to dance around the issue and so they state quickly and clearly what the need and why. There was no impoliteness (because my team are both professional and respectful, and because please and thank you really do just take seconds more to type/say and they did!). But also on the odd occasion that perhaps something could have come across as terse, the assumption was always that the originator’s intention was good and more likely due to stress than some sort of power play. The constraint of time, somehow gave us the ability to assume the best of intent in every interaction, and that freed the team to just get on and work. If I could get that every day without the same levels of stress applied, I would.
BTW, how did anyone ever run coordinated conferences before WhatsApp?
You get to see who will truly roll up their sleeves and do whatever it takes.
OK, so my guys were not hired for their ability to run to the local supermarket at 5 minutes notice, buy all the bottled water they can get their hands on and then walk around the venue handing said bottles out to attendees, they are software professionals for goodness sake. But it is exactly that professionalism, team spirit and drive to do the right thing that means when we had a lot of conference attendees getting hot and dried out in a queue for food in the sun, a few of them just got on and did what was needed to make our visitors as comfortable as they could as quickly as they could. Was it ‘their job’? No. Were they over qualified for it? Probably. Did it need doing for team success? Yes, so they just damn well got on with it. That speaks volumes for them and creates a trust and spirit in the team that is very powerful.
You get to see who you can depend on
When you make a call for help, you know that seconds later someone is going to respond with “I’ve got that, leave it with me” and you know, just totally know, that it is going to get solved as soon as is humanly possible, and you can get back to focusing on the job you were doing whether that was introducing a speaker or ordering pizza for a couple of hundred hungry conference attendees. Whereas at other times a request for help may result in tumbleweed, you find out that actually, when the chips are down and your backside is on the line, members of your team will step forward and take ownership of the issue even when they have absolutely no idea in that moment how they are going to solve it.
You get to see true innovative problem solving.
When you only have a minute to decide what to do, suddenly people quickly come forward with ideas, succinctly expressed, you decide on one and you move with it. Nobody gets in a huff that you didn’t choose their idea or tries to do their own thing, there is no time if you need it sorted now. It does make you wonder how many times do we debate ways and means that actually don’t make a difference to the outcome, because of our desire to control, be right or be heard. There is a wonderful expression someone taught me many years ago that is key to success in your major relationships “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy”, sometimes it is important to be right, but many times actually it really doesn’t matter that much and if we pause to consider the trade off, we might just smile and let it go. Sometimes I think “Do you want to be right, or do you want to deliver sometime this week/month/year” is a similar question to ask at work ;o).
In Summary
Working as part of a well oiled machine ploughing its way speedily over uncertain ground gives you a sense of energy and fulfillment that few other things can in my opinion, and when that ‘machine’ is basically the members of your team it makes you so damn proud you could burst!
