Managing people
More on belonging
Last time, I introduced being part of a team and owning a sense of belonging to a team. Today, I would like to share some concrete examples from my experience, some good, some bad, and all, I hope, worth discussing.
This article doesn't pretend to give the keys to building psychological profiles and ready-made responses to them: canned thinking never works. The goal is to develop the network of understanding between yourself, the team member, the team as a whole and each one of its members. This is done over time, and can only be achieved by welcoming the differences in character of each person as an opportunity to explore these dynamics, and to redefine them. Below, when I talk about a path to a solution, this is what I mean.
Speaking out
In any given social context, there will be an unbalance where some people will feel free and eager to speak their mind whilst some others will remain silent. In a work setting, this means some people might occupy more space than others, which in turn might make it more difficult to satisfy to the goal of securing the same space for everyone to blossom in. As I have explained in the previous article, being able to grow professionally and personally in a team contributes greatly to a sense of belonging. It is only in this perspective that understanding whether people are leaning more towards one behaviour or the other should be pursued. Not only is there nothing inherently wrong with either, these two characters make a person's character fertile soil, and should be watered abundantly with care and attention.
There can be a number of reason making a person reluctant to speak in public. He or she might feel underqualified when the expectations have not been made clear, and have not been acknowledged by the team members. In this scenatio, indicating what level of expertise you expect as a manager is generally not sufficient, it's the general feeling that matters. This is also not a way to challenge your authority as a team leader, it merely is an expression of a desire to strive for perfection. One key aspect here is the reason why you've hired this person specifically, out of possibly dozens of other candidates. Hiring meaningfully means that you didn't fall for the trap of hiring the same person twice. This person has specific strenghts that you want to encourage and this is the ideal opportunity to not only say so, but encourage him or her to own it. Start on this path by taking the opportunity of your team meetings to praise the work in question, simply as updates on what has happened during the period. Be careful to praise the work and not the person, and collect feedback and reactions from the team. The feedback will be directed at you, but will carry the weight of a meaningful discussion with the team. Repeat over time, and gradually, you will move towards the second situation, where it's time to address the unease in speaking in public.
Two moments constitute the act of speaking in public: the preparation and the delivery itself. In my experience, the preparation is the most logical path for people to start shining. This is also the next step on the path we started exploring in the paragraph above. Find a good speaker and pair the two together so they can spend some time putting together a presentation to the team. Read the dynamics of your team well when choosing this sparring partner: it can be you, or it can be someone fairly different to this team member. Be careful not to pick someone who can be perceived directly has a challenger: the goal is not to seek the approval of a peer with a well established reputation, but to carve out space for the him or her to express what he or she does differently. This also nullifies the unwelcome and toxic question of who is the better engineer. Now, this is your turn to realise what this is truly about. Most of the time, there is no need to push your team member to speak in public directly: the point is not to have people all do the same, but to offer them an equal space to be themselves. I have very often stopped here very happily in the past, and I believe that should this person take up the challenge of speaking in public, it should come from them. I believe a manager should ambition to craft possibilities for team members to seize, not intructing specific ways in which one should grow.
Finding synergies
It can also be that the person is a genuine introvert. If you are lucky enough to have some people leaning towards extroversion in the team as well, there are then excellent synergies to be found here. Some introverts place great value in fully understanding a topic first, before sharing their views. They litterally take it in, observe it under any possible angle, compare points of view and seek profound understanding. This is very precious: extroverts tend to give pace to debates, poking at a problem by voicing out streams of ideas and experimenting with the feedback received, whereas introverts give a body to the discussion. If it looks like these at odds with each other, in my experience, they actually work beautifully together. Perhaps one of the best ways to make it a fulfilling experience for everyone is to organise feedback forums, where past work is presented and past choices are re-evaluated. As people can pick any project, they don't need to select one of their own and feel a need to defend it. They can simply choose one they find interesting. I usually then try to spark two moments: one where extroverts can freely explore the topic, and share a flourish of ideas and one where the introverts get to lift the veil on what they have been making of all these ideas. The former works with the latter in feeding in many possible angles, points of view for the introvert to consider and analyse, and as they are not asked to follow the same speed and participate to the same dance, they can process this information on their own terms. The second moment is when the introvert shares his or her understanding of all these exchanges. Depending on how you format these feedback forums, this can open to the next instance, or provide a new starting point in the same meeting for extroverts to rebound from, and repeat the same exercise.
On their side, in addition to finding unexpected debate partners, extroverts learn to appreciate their counterparts and both get to develop mutual understanding and respect. From this blend of two characters emerges a common, mindful fertile soil you ought to eagerly water and cultivate, as it holds the seeds of your team's culture.
← All posts