When I’m watching kids play, it’s striking that they create whole worlds out of their imagination, using whatever is there to work as props and tools. And what they don’t have, they simply make up. I’ve been “served coffee” (imaginary fluid pouring out of a sand mold and into a fist), I’ve been given gifts (basically a verbal description plus a gesture suggesting something is being handed to me), they assign new identities (by simply declaring that now you are a unicorn, a princess, a clown, a friend, a lion, etc…), invent characters they make up in the moment (and which they are quite happy for you to co-create with them), and they are just as quick to build something out of their lego blocks as they are about destroying it again. They’re simply not worried about limitations, outcomes or appearances and go with their creative flow in the moment. Yet not always. This is true when they feel safe, when they’re not hungry, when they’re not overly tired and when they’re generally healthy. In short, when they have a context allowing them to play and thrive free of worries.
I also recently inherited a house plant from somebody who wanted to throw it away because it kept losing one leaf after the other and started to look like it was close to dying. I wish I had taken a picture of its original sad state (yellow leaves, dusty and with really worn down soil). By simply changing the pot, giving it a spot with good light, but little direct sunshine and regularly watering it without it sitting in a puddle of water, it is now thriving again. It’s having multiple new sprigs with leaves and is starting to look lush and thriving again. All it took was changing the context from one it did not like (pot too small, too little light, too much water) to one that is good for growth again.
So this got me thinking about what contexts are seeing humans thrive? And specifically:
- What is it that I need to thrive? How can I find a context for me to thrive in?
- What is it that a team needs to thrive?
- What specifically is it that a hybrid or remote team needs to thrive?
- What specifically is it that a team tasked with innovation needs to thrive?
- What does that ask of me as a leader?
- How might I contribute to and co-create that kind of context with my team?
How to discover what YOU need to thrive?
Answering these questions for myself was something I unpacked with the help of a number of books, in some leadership workshops (the Omega Women’s Leadership Intensive was a great way to explore this for me) and in individual coaching sessions. Focusing on discovering my unique life values held a major key to understanding what context I need to thrive in (and I have some great exercises to help you uncover this for you as well, let’s chat if this is something you want to explore). Once I actually know what it looks like for me to live and work in a joyful happy fashion, this allows me to intentionally make steps to create that context for myself. This may mean making changes to my physical environment, increasing the space in my day that has me engaged in activities I enjoy, or go about some other parts of my life with a different attitude towards them. There is a lot we can do, to make first steps in the direction of the life we ultimately want to live.
What does a team need to thrive?
Being able to create purpose, context and direction allows me to follow a similar co-creation recipe with the teams I am working with. Luckily one does not need to start from scratch with exploring what contexts help teams thrive. We can look at what biology and nature teaches us: conditions for life in general to thrive share design patterns of collaboration, diversity, generosity and decentralized, resilient, sustainable and locally adapted setups. It’s easy to see that those can also be seen as organizing principles for resilient, successful organizations and teams. Another place to look is the research Google has done on successful teams. They identified 1) psychological safety, 2) dependability, 3) structure and clarity on goals, roles and execution plans, 4) meaning of work and 5) impact of work as the elements each team that truly excelled at what they were doing had in common. Things we as leaders can and must consider, if we want to build resilient, successful teams. These concepts are a great way to start thinking about the kind of values, behaviors and habits we want to foster and see exhibited in our teams. A collaborative workshop for leaders and their teams is a great way to get conversations about thriving work contexts started, and to help teams transform and measure how they improve psychological safety, dependability and goal making while having an aligned view on the meaning and impact of their work.
Are there specific things remote or hybrid teams need to thrive?
These general design principles for teams mentioned in the paragraph above help any team, regardless whether they are co-located, hybrid or remote. However: there are more conscious needs in hybrid or remote teams to foster and nurture trust (a lot of trust building which happens automatically in co-located setups needs more intention and space to develop in hybrid or remote teams). Building trust, creating a culture of belonging, fostering inclusive behaviors, intentionally building diverse teams, getting teams to build good inter-personal relationships, random acts of generosity, the cross-pollination of ideas (which happens at a coffee machine in the office) and other aspects of a psychologically safe culture for teams need more intentional attention for hybrid or remote teams to empower them to thrive. It also makes sense to think about and define with your team the kind of interactions that benefit from real life collaboration vs. benefit from undisturbed focused execution time (and therefore are more likely getting good results in remote work contexts). Finding a good balanced blend (e.g. bringing the team together 2-3 times a year in person) while otherwise working hybrid or remote is needed. And a space for explicit conversations and definitions where teams co-design how to work together enables them to find a sustainable style for their success in contributing towards your organizations purpose. Let’s talk if you’d like to design a workshop around this with your team.
What context do innovation teams need to thrive?
It also makes sense to take a deeper look at what culture design and team context is making new ideas more likely to be successfully discovered and systematically built into solutions. Again in addition to the general team design principles, you’ll need some very specific additional (or amplified) elements to your team culture in order to successfully build innovation into the DNA of your team. Psychological safety in this context gets stretched because you intentionally want to build creative abrasion, diverse viewpoints and backgrounds, an ability to creatively destroy and re-construct, elements of playfulness, and a degree of disregard for existing power structures, solutions or systems into your teams. The context you aim for is alike to that childlike play I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post. Innovation teams require even more robust levels of trust and mutual respect, a trained ability to thrive, create and play in uncertainty, a genuine appreciation of diversity as an asset as well as excellent discovery and product skills around defining value, feasibility, usability and viability. In short you need to think specifically about who and what skills you need on the team and how that team needs to behave and collaborate in order to succeed with their innovation mandate. Your innovation team needs specific empowerments built into their context, an innovation leadership topic I am happy to explore with you and your team.
What does this ask of leaders? What kind of mindsets and skills do we need to thrive?
All of this requires leaders to be fluent with, conscious and intentional about and capable to co-create the contexts and behaviors empowering their teams and organizations to succeed. Being a leader in a hybrid, remote, product or innovation team takes awareness and intention to create the habits, behaviors, ways of working and general team context conducive to see one’s teams thrive. Especially when high degrees of uncertainty are part of a team’s context (like in innovation or product discovery work). Working with a shared purpose, a true willingness to empower everyone on the team, a core believe that team members are capable and willing to show up generous and collaborative, and that teams who are given the right context are able to co-create the best ways to work and find solutions together. It takes trust, letting go of control, letting go of positional power, conscious work to deconstruct bias, emotional agility, and an interconnected mindset and vision to understand how a culture of belonging and inclusivity is the breeding ground for amazing new solutions.
The good news is: this is not work resting on the shoulders of one single manager. By design, truly inclusive culture building is something entire teams co-create together – it asks of you as a leader to trust and empower team members to design their successful ways of working together towards a shared purpose. Leadership in that kind of context is acting like a coach to your team. Somebody who helps grow and foster what is already strong with individuals on the team and who co-creates with their teams how to excel together and go far beyond what one single member of the team would be capable to do. As a leader it asks of you to trust yourself to navigate life and work joyfully and successfully, even if the path to your desired outcomes is unclear and it might feel like leading in a fog. Let’s talk if you are a leader who would like some support learning to get there, it’s way more fun to have help to empower your teams to thrive with you! Remember that plant and the creative child? What it takes for them to grow and thrive is getting the context right.
Story cover photo by krakenimages on Unsplash
___________________________
If you would like to explore this more: reach out for a free discovery session with me.
I coach, speak, do workshops and blog about #leadership, #product leadership, #innovation, the #importance of creating a culture of belonging and how to succeed with your #hybrid or #remote teams.
Get my latest blog posts delivered directly to your inbox.
Your email address will only be used for receiving emails with my latest blog posts in them. You can unsubscribe at any point in time.
Inclusive Leaders 
One thought on “Creating a context to thrive in”