You can hire A-players and create the best possible teams.
You even can give these teams the best possible environments, along with all the resources they need.
But, if you don't intentionally invest in, and make explicit, the interdependence that exists between the work different teams in your organization are doing, your organization will suffer from interface failures at the point when their work, inevitably, touches.
And as General Stanley McChrystal wrote about in Team of Teams 📕, when this happens...
At worst, it is catastrophic (NASA, General Motors - loss of life).
At best, your organization will experience silos.
Meaning:
a lack of information sharing
duplication of efforts
missed deadlines
ineffective working relationships.
And this costs precious time, money and untold wasted opportunities.
But that's not all...
Think for a moment 🤔
How is it that you can have all the correct rules and legislation properly established.
As well all the systems installed and optimized.
And all the people adequately trained...
And yet, the basic things these policies and procedures, systems and training cover, still go wrong?
Key balls are dropped
Legislation is ignored
Systems are not followed
Communication doesn't happen
Repetitive, costly mistakes are made
The answer is, you.
And me.
And every other human being...
In every instance above, a human being, has to enact this.
And we are deeply fallible. Bound within our own limited perceptions of the world around us.
So, as Vernon Bradley writing in the context of organizational safety discovered, the solution is other people. Or rather, Interdependence 👇
We need our team mates to plug our blindspots and make us aware when we're behaving (unconsciously) in ways which are not in our own, our team's, or our organization's best interest.
When we're reacting, rather than responding to events.
Whether that's safety, technical, people related, or otherwise.
It is through interdependence, that we succeed as individuals and organisations.
And in truth, we're always interdependent, in any organisation or team, because our work is interconnected and we're striving to accomplish shared goals.
The trick is to consciously leverage that.
So how do you leverage interdependence?
⛑️ Create a culture of psychological safety where it's safe to admit and learn from mistakes
'Team psychological safety is a shared belief held by members of a team that it’s OK to take risks, to express their ideas and concerns, to speak up with questions, and to admit mistakes — all without fear of negative consequences. As Edmondson puts it, “it’s felt permission for candor.”' 📚
👉 👈 Facilitate explicit opportunities to get to know each other as human beings, such as:
time protected at the beginning of meetings to connect
time outside 'of the office', dedicated to shared endeavours (work-related or otherwise)
opportunities to share individual passions and endeavours from outside of work
👀 Use profile and team pages to showcase who people/teams are and how they're contributing to the shared goals:
For more on building a great profile page to fuel interconnection, head here 👈
📆 Access the meeting brief to see:
who you are meeting
who they are as a person and what they care about
what they are focused on that day and week
what progress they are making towards their goals
what teams they are a part of
and ultimately, why you are both in the meeting
Want support in leveraging interdependence in your team?
Reach out! 🤙