Have you ever had an employee who was a pain in the neck? One who you just didn’t like interacting with, and who created more work for you than everyone else? If you’re honest, the answer is yes. Don’t feel bad, every manager has, and we won’t ask the person’s name. Your secret is safe with us. What have you learned from them? I recently heard that a former employee of mine … [Read more...]
Avoiding Cliques on Your Hybrid Team
When you have a hybrid team, some of your team works in the office, some work from home, and some work who-knows-where depending on the day. That can make it hard to create a cohesive team. It isn’t that the team intentionally doesn’t want to work with people who don’t share their workspace, or that managers mean to exclude certain people from team tasks. But whether or not … [Read more...]
Effective Brainstorming Across Distance
One of the most common complaints about working on a virtual or hybrid team is, “People can’t brainstorm and collaborate the way they do in the office.” For many teams, this is a critical issue because the whole point of being in teams is to create a sum that’s greater than all of the talented parts. Can you brainstorm, share ideas, and innovate even if you aren’t locked in … [Read more...]
How Do You Define Your Team?
by Kevin Eikenberry It seems like a pretty simple question – how do you define your team? Most leaders would immediately describe or list their direct reports. Most teammates would list their immediate co-workers. Then ask people to think about their working relationships and they will think about that same list of people – the people on “their team." That is … [Read more...]
Inventing Fire and Getting People to Use Teams
Humans have a love-hate relationship with technology. We curse the need to be tethered to email and Slack for work while not being able to avoid our personal screens for more than a few minutes at a time. Everyone complains about the tools they have at their disposal, but shudder at the thought of learning even one more software package or remembering another password. As we … [Read more...]