It's a new day and you're in a new team. Maybe you started a new job and everything's unfamiliar, or you're at the same place but there's been a shuffle. Either way: you're now part of a group of other people and you share a name, but you're not really a team yet.
Today, we're going to talk about how you can work on becoming a team.
🤔 Why aren't you just a team because we called you one?
Really effective teams work because of the trust they've developed, and when you form a team for the first time there is no pre-existing trust. You don't know each other's strengths, weaknesses, goals, tendencies, abilities... so you don't know where you can rely on your teammates and where you need to step up to fill a gap. Just because you all have clear job titles doesn't fully encompass what you'll be like to work with.
To go from "group of people" to "team," you'll need to:
Start with vulnerability,
Get some runs on the board, and
Celebrate those wins!
💕 Starting with vulnerability
Trust isn't built in formal conversations, it's about being honest with each other. When I've joined new teams, one thing I've found really successful is having a really open conversation about what we're like and demonstrating my own vulnerability.
You might talk about:
Your experience: if you don't know your new team members, give them a bit of a career overview.
What you're good at: the areas you really excel at – bonus points if they're things you enjoy doing!
What you want to get better at: the areas you actively want to improve, and could use your teammates' support and feedback on the most.
What you don't like doing, or weak points.
These conversations usually encourage others to share as well, and you can find some great opportunities to shape how you work together. Your job titles don't have to dictate the exact split of roles.
Once I worked with a PM who said he loved talking to customers and wanted to practice more, and I was pretty over it but wanted to get more experience in data. We effectively decided to swap responsibilities and give the other feedback based on this conversation in our first week together, and it worked really well for us.
⚽️ Get some runs on the board
After sharing a bit more about yourselves, the next thing to do is to get some runs on the board to build momentum and solidify your teamwork. Having wins as a team is the most effective way to build trust.
What makes a great trust-building project at this stage:
Everyone gets to add their own, non-trivial touch to it. Every person on your team should be able to point to the end result and say, "hey, I helped to shape that!"
Keep the timeline tight to get more runs on the board faster and minimise the likelihood of early arguments. Something that lasts a sprint is perfect here.
Work on something that matters. You should be able to all see tangible impact on your users, even if it's just that you finally solved something that's been bugging them a bit for months.
If you're on a team because of a large project and you can't just invent mini-projects, try to chunk down some of the early parts to "ship." If you wait until the end of the project to finish anything, the trust will come a lot more slowly.
🎉 Celebrate those wins!
When you've actually shipped something as a team, make sure to celebrate it as a group to really drive home the idea that you did it together. Celebration is about acknowledging that you all did this together and the end result was positive. You might:
Post a celebratory message in the team Slack channel thanking everyone for their contributions
Share the release more broadly and tag your entire team
Announce it at a wider product meeting
The most important thing to remember here is make sure everyone is mentioned in the announcement!
Forming a team effectively can save you a lot of headache down the road, so give it the attention it deserves. You don't need to be the "leader" in the team to lead by example! 💖
