Building a Successful Team - Insight from a Tech Perspective

In this article, you can read some advises and observations from a real experience, mine. I have spent plenty of hours and days in studying peoples behavior, body language, feedback techniques, anything I could find to improve performance of each individual in the team, including myself.

In previous team I was a Delivery Manager / CTO, now I am a CEO of an IT company, I believe that people leadership and management is a little bit different in companies that do / provide digital services than in the other branches, at least in IT.?

What is a team?

A team is a group of people that share some common interest. If there is no interest then there would be no team, each individual from the team would be part of some other team where he/she would find something that that particular individual is looking for. That's pretty rough, I agree, but it is true. When it comes to the company, team members (group of employees) also have their own interests of course, but those must align with the companies vision or growth path. Otherwise, it would be some group of volunteers who are wiling to do some useful work on their own.

Each member of the team must have its own "place" in the hierarchy and duties and obligations. Companies culture does the rest.

In an IT world, team is 100% company's value.

Team hierarchy

IT people (mainly pointing to developers) do not like (1) hierarchy, (2) monitoring, (3) boss, (4) time tracking, (5) delivery measuring, (6) even light bulbs. Do not like anything that will in any way disturb their mantra and way of delivering value.

But hierarchy is mandatory if we want a team to be 100% productive. Hierarchy will define who is responsible for what, it will tell all team members on who they can rely on to complete their part of the job (whatever that job could be). That does not mean that there must be some boss (team lead is unfortunately often seen as a boss) who will whip all people around and scream and push and mention bonuses, no, that just means that team members at any time know who is doing what and who is responsible for which part of the whole delivery.

When we have that, then we can start planning and delegating the load which must be delivered.

It is important to notice that when comes to forming a hierarchy, it depends on decision maker, but one team lead must not have more than 6 people in his/her team. That is the best practice from my experience. If we want the best performance and satisfaction from each team member, that would be the structure 1 lead - 6 subordinate max. And based on that rule we form organigram and company/team hierarchy.

Team Culture !? Who cares about the culture, let's make some money

Culture of the company is defined by someone from the top, it can be CEO, it can some other C-level person, manager of the section, leader of the group, or all mentioned. But there must be someone who will decide what is a company's culture. If nobody wants to take that responsibility, then it goes all the way to the top, to the CEO.

Culture of the company is defined by the worse behavior that has been tolerated.

I believe that the culture by which the team is growing and maturing is essential when it comes to team members (employees) job satisfaction and the desire to improve and make an additional contribution. Some would call that loyalty, I would say that it is just admiration for the culture, admiration for the other team members, admiration for the vision and mission, the desire to be part of something bigger.

Some would call it even family environment, we are all family, I personally do not like that approach. I would call that approach a manipulation. What is a family in the nutshell? Safety, understanding, shelter, warmth, love. Providing this thinks to the team members, the need to mention that we are a family is eliminated.

Culture defines behaviors that are allowed and vice versa, as I mentioned above. That can be no lateness, no cursing, making sure the dining room is clean, opening the door for female colleagues, buying gifts after finishing the project, whatever. This thinks are for sure making everyone life (8hrs every working day) nicer, cleaner, more pleasant and appropriate. That is the reason which will make a strong-bonded team, high-quality team, high-productive team, long-lasting team.

Culture, that is the answer.

Types of personalities

We are all different, that premise must be, 100000% accepted and every second in the back of your head when forming, maintaining and expending the team. What also means that we are all genius at some think, some craft, some direction. In my experience, there are generally three types of team members in the IT world: (1) that will tell you directly what they want and expect, (2) that will try to hide what they want but at the same time expect that you know that.?

As you may have seen it coming, chances that a member will be in the first group is really low. I do not know why is that, why is it so hard and scary just to say what do you want, what do you expect from the team or company. Anyway, that division must be expected and you as a team facilitator must be aware and somehow determine with who you are on the "clear ground" and with who you must play detective to discover hidden expectations.

That is all normal, I have seen it multiple times. In particular with younger staff, they are really scared to determine value that they are providing, to determine their future and by that direction of further development, and so on.?

The responsibility of the team leader is to discover needs and expectations of each team member and do his/her best to provide those. That is the only ways that the team members will be felt listened to and respected, and of course planing his/her future in the team.

I didn't make a mistake, no no. There is a third type of team members, self-managed, self-motivated, self-driven, self-anything. Let's call them sharks. Sharks are can be also in the group 1 and in the group 2, need no boss, collages "sure why not, but usually I swim alone". Sharks need a vision, a mission, a target and just let them be, step aside. Sharks do not need somebody to take care of them, they just do. Sharks are rare but if you have one keep it close, sharks are the best candidates for % (profit share, share of the company, any share). Provide them a way to work for themselves and watch the results coming.

Manager or a leader, which one are you?

In the nutshell, the manager makes sure that each team member is profitable, that team is sustainable. The leader on the other hand makes sure that team members are growing, that they all know what they are doing and how to do it.?

The manager is there to make hard decisions and execute those (hires, layoffs, etc.) and the leader is there to make the team as good as it can be.

It is not easy to be either of those two, at the same time we are both. Team members need to have a manager, a person who has all strings on sight and a leader, a mentor who is there for them all the time.?

Depends on the team structure and the lead position, whether it is a manager or a leader, both are merged in one. That person must be a good manager, to be objective and cold-blooded when makes decisions for the benefit of the team, and be a good leader, to be a warm and reasonable mentor for the growth of each individual.

Conclusion

I hope that I managed to approximate the challenges and hints when forming and developing a team, specifically in the IT world. We are all different, but on the other hand, we all want the same thing, which is to come to work in the morning and do our job to the best of our ability. With this premise, all problems and difficulties are solved more easily, as a team, in the same direction, together.

I would suggest research on the subject of body language, it will facilitate the understanding of team members in conveying their expectations. As well as research on feedback techniques, this will significantly improve communication at weekly catchup meetings (which I highly recommend). Udemy and other platforms are full of such courses, and there are plenty of books on the subject.

If you find this article useful, and you believe that I can help/assist in any way during your team forming and scaling, email me on [email protected] and I will do my best to transfer as much experience as I can. Cheers!