Does your Team Operate as a Community?

by Dr. Marcia Reynolds

I lived in a shared household when I went to graduate school in San Francisco. Every Sunday night, we held a “house meeting” where all six of us met to dole out the week’s tasks for maintaining the household and to talk about how we were getting along. If necessary, we worked out conflicts so they wouldn’t carry over into the week. We did this to live together in peace. Shouldn’t work groups do this too?

Does your team operate as a healthy community? Here are the three things we had to do to stay sane under one roof:

 

#1: Trust Each Other

To build trust in a relationship, everyone should be able to say the following statements to their colleagues and leaders.

 

1.   I believe that you care about me as a person.

 

2.   I believe that you won’t judge me on second-hand information. If you hear someone saying negative things about me, you will vow to check this out for yourself.

 

3.   I believe that you won’t talk negatively about me to others. If we have a problem, you will come to me to talk about it. If you have to sort things out with someone else first, you will come to me shortly after.

 

4.   If I have a problem with you, I will ask to speak to you privately soon after the offense occurred. I will then:
~  Get clear about what I believe happened that made me feel the way I do.
~  Listen to your perspective and try to understand what you meant
~  Work toward an agreement with you about how we will handle these situations better in the future.

#2: Honor the changes we are all experiencing

Every time priorities, job responsibilities and the make-up of the team changes, so do we. Plus, our lives outside of work are constantly changing. Therefore, we should honor and support each other as we live through change. Periodically, we should renew our relationships by asking
~  How do we describe our relationships? Are they easy? Hard? Why?
~  What needs to be celebrated about how we have related so far?
~  What can we agree to leave behind?
~  What should we agree to continue/stop/start doing from this point going forward?

 

This is an especially useful exercise when one peer is promoted or given a great new assignment above his or her friends. Looking at the new relationship will help to relieve hard feelings.

#3: Commit to playing together

There is nothing more nourishing and renewing than play. To create healthy bonds at work, you need to laugh with your colleagues and share fun experiences.

 

 

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Good peer relationships are vital to your success. Bad relationships can be fatal. It’s not enough to make sure everyone is talking. You have to continually talk about how you can get along better to reach your peak of effectiveness. Create a healthy community to ensure your team’s success.

 

© Marcia Reynolds