[Leadership comic] 9 tips to get your team out of the anxiety and comfort zones

Hey ALTers ??

I'm slowly getting back into working mode (looking like the picture below), although my gang officially starts working next Monday.

During the holidays I shared that I don't do New Year's Resolutions, but at the same time, I follow a simple alternative that has worked for me in the past 5 years. I've chosen the word Persist to guide me in my work & personal efforts throughout 2024 and one of the things is that I want to develop this newsletter into something big. And who knows, I might achieve my dream of A Leader's Tale.

What are the 4 team zones and how to get your team into the Learning Zone?

I remember nodding my head with agreement when reading Amy Edmondson 's book The Fearless Organization. She was saying that most managers think that they should balance having a great team climate (with high psychological safety) and great results (with high performance standards). Turns out these were not on a balancing scale. I was amazed!

Of course, this is not something static and depends on various aspects.

We tend to show this illustration during one of our team coaching sessions with dev teams and then ask people to point out where they feel the whole team usually is. What you get is a heatmap.

And although people want to, teams are rarely in the Learning Zone.

They either focus on creating a great environment over results.

Or delivering great results over having a great environment.

Do you want to know how strong your dev team is?

Get notified for the TReE Team Scan tool we release this February.
?? SoftSkillsPills.com/scan        

Tips for making your team great

Before the holidays I shared 9 tips for engineering managers to get their teams better. It's based on the TReE Team Model we developed for creating great dev teams. Here's the infographic if you've missed it:

If this 19-years-of-experience-packed-in-1 image is not enough for you - head over to the library with practical tips on the Soft Skills Pills platform.

- Hari

P.S. In Bulgaria, we have a tradition of getting lucky charms at NYE. My lucky charm was "Baby" ???? If you're a Bulgarian - write back what you got ??

P.P.S. Feel invited to write back with a question - I'll be happy to go deeper on any of these in a future edition of A Leader's Tale ??

?? Say 'hi'

Hit comment on LinkedIn or write to me via email at [email protected]. I love it when people get back to me. I read everything and reply back ??

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A Leader's Tale is a collection of short tales that explore our everyday struggles when leading and working with other people. Get these in your inbox by subscribing here or check all stories at SoftSkillsPills.com.