Getting Teams Back Together

This week’s reflection is based on a series of client events over the past month that all have a common theme: the nature of coming back together. Over this month, I have witnessed teams who have come back together after months of online, telephone, or one-on-one meetings. That physically coming back together has been transformative.

Human beings need interpersonal relationships. Covid put those relationships in jeopardy. Post-Covid, with many still working from home or working hybrid, has made it hard for people to come together. Geographic separation exacerbates the situation because we never see each other.?

I have seen teams, during the last two years, that have frayed to the point of breaking. In my experience, Zoom meetings have failed to instill people’s trust. They are a mechanism to get work done; in most cases, they are driven by a specific agenda that leaves out relationships. They have forced people to rely on only two senses, sight and sound. Even sight is limited to a small portrait screen, so you don’t get a full body language picture. This gets compounded by the fact that people turn cameras off, or, even more infuriatingly, are multi-tasking in meetings, reading emails and texts or dealing with whatever issue is at home or in the office. These distractions have contributed to a lack of understanding, empathy, and trust.??

What I have witnessed over the last month is the power of coming together. Meeting everyone face-to-face has been transformative for teams. It has brought humanity back into the work. Participants have been genuinely appreciative to be back together. While there have been clear agendas, there has also been the opportunity for sidebars and, in some cases, dinners where they get together, and it is those times that are the most illustrative.?

People value deconstructed time together to discuss the issues they face daily but never get the chance to discuss because of distance. They also need the opportunity to talk about the dynamics of the team and the things that bother them. This is the chance to resolve issues, to redress wrongs however they may have come about. These are the opportunities to regain trust and to relate to others.?

So my advice to you this week is to consider this for the teams that you lead:

• Get them away
• Give them a chance to talk about the things that bother them?
• Give them an opportunity to have deconstructed meetings

I believe doing this will enhance trust, will enhance engagement, and will aid in retention. If you don’t and assume your people will sort it out anyway, you will reap what you sow later. We spend enough of our lives at work and, as human beings, we need to have human relations during that time; otherwise, the “Tyranny of Do” will come back to haunt us.

So, ask yourself – have I given my people the opportunity to be human again??

Steadfast, Vigilant, Optimistic, and Adaptive.