Design the Team you Need to Succeed

Christina Wodtke Author of Radical Focus and more

Associate Professor at California College of the Arts and Stanford Continuing Education

Never take the package dealIn our field

If you are making something more complicated than a chair, you need a team

Every success needs a GREAT teamAnd great teams are diverse

If you don’t design, you default.

Unspoken ExpectationsClash

If you don’t design, you default.

Workgroup

Not all efforts need teams

Characteristics of a Work Group:

• Strong, clearly focused leader

• Individual accountability

• Individual work-products

• Measures its effectiveness indirectly

by its influence on others (e.g financial performance of the business)

• Discusses, decides, and delegates

The Wisdom of TeamsJon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith

Who goes in a workgroup?

Position Profile

• Define the role• Define the skills• Create the

profile• Use the profile

in reviews and1:1s

If you don’t design, you default.

What is a team?

• Common PURPOSE• Performance GOALS• Complimentary SKILLS• Mutual ACCOUNTABILITY

The Wisdom of TeamsJon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith

Common Purpose, Performance Goals

Set OKRS

OKRs

O: Qualitative goal (common purpose)KR: Success criteria (performance goals)

O: Book is available and generating buzz

• Kr: Review copies out to beta customers and 100 influencers resulting in 5 reviews of 4< stars

• Kr: Sales of 1K• Kr: 5 cold leads for talks/workshops

from book

Complimentary skills

Mutual Accountability

Collectivei.e. Non-dysfunctional team

Bruce Tucker ‘Developmental sequence in small groups’

Characteristics of a Collective:

• Shared leadership roles• Individual and mutual

accountabilitySpecific team purpose that the team itself delivers

• Collective work-products• Encourages open-ended

discussion and active problem-solving meetings

• Measures performance directly by assessing collective work-products

• Discusses, decides, and does real work together

The Wisdom of TeamsJon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith

Learning TeamOr Lean Team

Experiential LearningFrom Ed Batista http://www.edbatista.com/2007/10/experiential.html

teIam

Stages of Team building

Set Expertise Roles

Set Informal Roles

• Facilitator• Tie-Breaker• Spokesperson• Schedule Keeper• Office Housework

If you don’t design, you default.

Design NormsIf you don’t design, you default

Norms Exercise• Think of a great team.

Write down three things that made it great.

• Think of a dreadful team.Write down three things that made is horrid.

• Get in groups, and share.

• Make rules for how you wish to work together

Two kinds of feedback

Fast FeedbackBut not too fast

Short Cycles

Reduce quantity of information

Reduce gap between action and evaluation

Reduce stakes

Actionable

Memorable

Iterative

Feedback Loop

Feedback Loop

When you behavior I reaction and it consequences.

What can we do about this?

Team FeedbackFeedback fast and slow

retrospectiveFast and frequent

Team Check InEvery 1-3 months

Epathy Warm upSometimes I pretend

Sometimes I’m afraid

Sometimes I wonder

Sometimes I try

Carbon Five Dartboard

• http://blog.carbonfive.com/2015/07/29/the-product-dartboard/

Jherin Miller

ThankYou

@cwodtke | me@cwodtke.com www.cwodtke.com

CHRISTINA WODTKE