Is Your Team Passionate Enough?
I used to urge my teams to yell more at work. Seriously.
Not yelling AT each other. Nobody likes that. (I’ve worked with a few people who screamed at others when they got angry. Not only was it unpleasant, but it projected personal weakness and lack of control, rather than any sense of strength.)
So not yelling AT each other. But debating, arguing, yelling about the business, the customer, the product, the strategy, the budget choices, the new initiatives. Jumping up, out of turn, to rush to the whiteboard to sketch out a new insight. Refusing to let the subject be changed until a point is fully thrashed out. Even banging a fist on the table to make a point. Respectfully challenging the thought process of a colleague and pushing on the validity of the research. Caring enough about the business to yell about it.
This type of electric back-and-forth stems from a deep-seated belief that the work the team does matters enough that it is worth arguing about. And in my old business – working to improve the financial lives of our clients – I certainly believed that to be the case.
In order to achieve this type of back-and-forth – and coming out to the “best” answer afterwards – the team leader needs to provide the right conditions for an open, honest and passionate debate. A precondition is that he / she needs to have put the right team in place to drive it: for example, if everyone in the room has the same background and perspective, they may see things the same way, leading to a pretty inert discussion.
The leader must work to create a “safe zone,” in which everyone feels that they are respected. He / she must work to pull out the views of everyone around the table, so that all are heard. And the team leader must require that the debate stays away from the personal and remains fully focused on the business.
Very importantly, the leader must enforce the pact that the entire team “owns” all of the decisions that come out of the debate, regardless of whether one’s view wins the day. On leaving the room, the team must present a unified front: it should never be, “Well, they decided to invest in the store growth initiative rather than…” but instead “As a leadership team, we decided...”
That is, until the team goes back behind that closed door, where the debate is encouraged and respected and ongoing, and new information leads to new discussions and productive clashes.
I recently sat with Daniel Roth, Executive Editor at LinkedIn, to discuss this and more. Watch our conversation in the video below.
Sallie Krawcheck is the Chair of Ellevate Network and Ellevate Asset Management. Ellevate Network (formerly 85 Broads) is a professional woman’s network, operating across industries and around the world.
Photo: Chip Cutter, LinkedIn
Cybersecurity Quality Manager at Becton Dickinson
9 年My team is about to start yelling and you will be one of the people that will hear it.
Senior Director @ Accion Opportunity Fund | Master's in Software Engineering
9 年Kudos
Bill Gosling Outsourcing
9 年Be passionate , nothing wrong with that
Accounting | Tax | AML | CPA Exam Candidate
10 年It seems to me that the underlying theme here is passion, not building your organization on anger. She even demonstrates that by one of the very first lines, stating, "Not yelling AT each other. Nobody likes that." Until you've experienced a full-on team debate like what the author describes though, the advice she's giving is very hard to truly understand. This "yelling" strategy is the product of having a team made up of different, but not completely different people, who respect each other and value each other, but when push comes to shove, will voice their opinion without fear because they all share the same company goals. Each team member would also have little problem accepting a comrades idea if they believe it is better. At the end of the heated discussion, they kiss and makeup and are united in their decision. It reminds me of my family and some teams I've been on in the past. If done right, it is exhilarating and is often a fond memory. If done wrong, everyone will be an emotional mess. This is why it's important to structure it well and be passionate and humorous and willing to listen as well as contribute, rather than emotional to the point of tears. The only other drawback I see to this strategy is timeliness and actually building a team with all these qualities. It's not that they are few and far between, but it's a worthy challenge for any memorable leader. If you have the guts to try this out, let me know how it goes and what you learned from it!!
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