LinkedIn Digital Success Series 2

Start with customer and team intimacy

Previously, I explored the five ingredients for digital success. In this post, I’d like to share more around the first ingredient of ‘customer/team intimacy’ and how we create this at Vidatec.

While that might sound a little ‘full on’ for some, intimacy can be the difference between a high-performing team successfully delivering digital projects ahead of the curve – and project failure. If you, your team, and your company can nail getting projects done – and done well – you’re automatically in the top percentage of companies consistently performing at their peak.

Different maps to the same destination?

I’ve worked in technology for over 25-years, managing teams of all shapes and sizes, at all levels. Invariably I’ve found that technology teams don't spend enough time on their own development, either personally or professionally.

This is usually because the pressure to deliver digital projects to a tight schedule is too great; so, teams jump straight into scoping and resourcing. The danger here is that although you’re all headed in the same direction, you’re carrying different maps of how to get there. This has the potential to lead to conflict, wasted resources, and project failure.

As a digital project manager, it’s not enough to communicate regularly – for example, one person’s ‘regular’ is another person’s cluttered inbox. What you need to do is ground the vision and assess what works for the different members of your project team, making it a ‘one size fits one customer’, not a ‘one size fits all’.

Because of this, creating a shared language from the outset of the project is crucial, so that all team members can freely engage in meaningful conversations about how to adapt their styles to better connect with each other.

Creating a high performing team, through colour?

At Vidatec – whether we’re delivering a full service or temporarily slotting into an existing team – we create ‘intimacy’, in part, through an Insights Discovery experience, to ensure the strongest possible relationships and effective collaboration from the outset.

The Insights Discovery model cuts through the complexity of why people behave the way they do by helping everyone understand that we all possess four colour energies in varying degrees of potency. Through using this model, team members can discover how their individual and team preferences affect their team dynamic and overall performance.

We find that at a start of a project, increasing self-awareness drives authenticity. When you understand yourself and are comfortable in your own skin, you can collaborate in an authentic way, which people will respond to. Being aware of yourself is vital for successful teams to engage and when seeking to find the?ways to inspire and motivate.?

A common language

Client feedback – including from those involved in large global change programmes – is that accessing this common language makes most other aspects of technical projects feel easy.

It enables teams to understand and collectively strive for an end goal, with a mutual understanding, using a non-judgmental language to discuss interpersonal preferences. How a team works together - and how this aligns with how each individual likes to work and their preferences - has a serious impact on how effective it can be as a collective.

Understanding the dynamics and colour energy preferences can help drive effective communication, motivation, and understanding of potential blockers. For example, as a digital project manager, when you need to dive into the detail – like when you tap into user stories – you can recognise the need of the team and what drives each member. It ensures everyone in the team knows exactly what you mean without creating conflict or upset.

For us at Vidatec, using Insights Discovery as part of our own everyday team communication has undoubtedly made a difference, way beyond other technical teams that I’ve led in the past. It has enhanced our ability to create personal connections more quickly, both internally and with our customers, as we endeavour to get it right first time, every time.

This investment in customer and team ‘intimacy’ is essential for building and maintaining positive relationships that lead to digital project and business success. It not only ensures you avoid unnecessary friction – but it creates mutual respect and understanding and allows you to perform at your collective best.