In general, work can be divided into three domains: business, technology, and people. Business, centers on your customers’ industry, products, competitors, competitive advantage, and markets. Technology involves supporting the business domain via innovation, product delivery, efficient systems, trends, costs, and tools. The People domain focuses on the the individuals in your business and how they interact with each other to solve business problems, deliver products, and technology solutions. The People domain is my special interest as it is the most personally fulfilling.
Typically, the People domain receives the least amount of focus within companies. Why? In most organizations, career advancement requires being an expert in business or technology. The relevant knowledge and information required to make a decision, provide customer support, develop product marketing is what gets you recognized. It is our survival instinct within the corporate jungle.
Even though most corporate value statements incorporate people or employees as a key value, this value most often receives the least amount of executive attention and investment. It is difficult for ambitious, hard driving, and self-reliant people to rely more on building a team to deliver, than ensuring on getting the job done themselves. If you truly want to create, build, and sustain a company that is successful for the owners, the customers, and employees, the old adage, “If you take care of your people, they will take care of you” provides the needed guidance.
Interestingly, there has been a renewed focus on the human aspect in business literature. You can’t peruse the Barnes and Noble business section these days without seeing many books about psychology, intrinsic satisfaction, motivations, beliefs, strengths, dialog skills, fears, tendencies, and talents. Information in these areas is becoming more accessible, relevant, and understandable to the average business or technology professional.
An operational definition for Agile relates to the People domain: A way of bringing individuals together, forming and interacting within a team, for the purpose of building great product. The Agile manifesto provides the framework to help guide, but not dictate, how individuals come together. My favorite value is, “Individual and Interactions over Process and Tools”. This is important because it addresses the most critical aspect of any organization – healthy interactions and employee engagement. (You know you have drunk the Kool-aid when you have a favorite value.)
There is something magical when you are on a team and everything is clicking. People are talking openly. People are laughing, having fun and developing great products and services. People work together under pressure, but are not stressed. Below is a way to measure how healthy is your team or organization or identify where your problem areas exist.
The most common measurement of a company’s health is the annual employee engagement survey. The surveys identify major trends but rarely drill down to a level that pin-points problems and identifies corrective actions. These four categories can assist with energizing people, increasing engagement, and creating teams that are truly sustainable beyond the short term success of one product launch.
Environment – This is an individual’s direct physical environment and how it enables team interactions as well as the tools, processes and practices utilized to interact with other individuals. Are individuals physically working closely with other team members, or can connect to quickly? Does the environment support quick and seamless interactions and sharing of information? Or, is the sharing of knowledge and communication among team members a difficult and hinders productivity?
Mental – When people are working as part of a team are they performing tasks that they actually enjoy and look forward to doing? Will those activities make them better and more successful? Or, are they doing work that is not a good match and does not excite them? Do the individuals on a team truly know what they are good at, and why? Do the team members understand each other’s strengths and know how to fit them into the larger team structure?
Emotional - Having or not having healthy dialog with other team members can put a strain on an individual’s emotions. Do people complain about decisions and people after meetings and at lunch? Do people not say what is on their mind because they fear reprisal? Are people stepping up to having hard conversations? Do they have the skills to engage in truly emotional and difficult conversations?
Mission – Great team’s need missions to rally around; a core mission that everyone believe in and support. This is the bond that inspires and keeps the team together. It is something that is greater than the individuals themselves; they willing share the joy and sacrifice together. The mission’s idea needs to be simple and easily articulated and understood to truly take hold and energize a team.
These four categories taken together and combined create true engagement, increase productivity, and sustain success. When one category is in limited quantity, the immediate product may be delivered through force of a leader’s personality or extrinsic rewards like bonuses; however, the short-term success cannot be sustained nor will the team continue to gain momentum.
What can you as a director, front-line manager, project manager, or team lead do to ensure your team’s current and future health is well and sustainable? Branching into the People domain is a good first step. Most people have simply not been trained to fully understand the needs of an individual, to understand the individual’s strengths, and figure out how to help this person reach full potential. In reality, this knowledge is lifelong quest in various disciplines.
You can start now with small steps. You can look at people with whom you work the closest to and ask, “Am I doing everything that I can do to help these people be successful?” If the answer is “No”, then ask someone “How can I help you?”. Better yet, meet with your team and have them ask, “How we can help each other?” The human aspect of a team often gets lost in the rush to deliver product; taking the time to understand the team and the individuals is critical for long term success.
At Marcato Partners we are examining each of the four categories and will be discussing them in more detail in the coming weeks.
If you want to discuss the concepts or more information please contact Riley@MarcatoPartners.com.
One of my favorite quotes – “The needs of the team are best met, when we meet the needs of the individual” – Max DePree.
