Supervisory Development: Leading Teams Webinar

Key Takeaways

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the Leading Teams webinar. I'm Amanda Wolford, a consultant from Leadership and Talent Development in the Office of Human Resources and I'm joined by Brandon Sullivan, the Senior Director of Leadership and Talent Development. While we have a lot of information to share with you during this webinar, the slides will not be shared because the real content is online in the Supervisory Development course. Please note that this webinar is being recorded and you will receive a separate email with a link to the recording as well as a link to evaluate this presentation by the end of the week. Since the series of webinars launched in February of this year, we've had at least 600 people sign up and we actually had 850 people register for this webinar. So we want to thank you for tuning in today and we are so happy to see that Supervisory Development has such a strong interest out in the supervisor community. At the end of the presentation, you'll have access to the Leading Teams module in the Supervisory Development online course at supervising.umn.edu. There you can spend more time with the material or find just-in-time resources. The course is self-paced and available 24/7 so you can access it whenever it works for you. I also want to remind you how we develop the material in the course. The content is based on what research and leading practices say about what works in leading teams. I'm sure you've seen trainings or resources on teams many times before so this information should be familiar. However, it's what you do with it and the impact it makes that matters. If you have a question at any time during the presentation, please add them to the Q&A section so don't use the chat of the screen now through the remainder of our time today. Your questions will be monitored and we'll answer what we can during and at the end of the webinar as time permits. We also want you to have time to explore the new course module, which will be launched launched at the conclusion of our time today. So if you have any technical difficulties, you can chat or send a question privately to Olga, the host, or Christina Maguire. So to just get us started here today, we have a quick poll or quiz, however you want to look at it. And you should see the pop-up on the right-hand side of your screen. And if you don't see it, just try expanding the poll section on the right side of your screen. So the question is, when people work together to build a house, will the job probably A, get done faster, B, take longer to finish, C, not get done. So go ahead and make your choice. Okay. So the majority of you said get done faster. And so that is the obvious choice. A couple of you said take longer to finish, which could also happen and um a couple people chose not get done and probably chuckled to themselves as they chose that. So that's really the point of this quiz and it actually comes from organizational psychologist J. Richard Hackman's book, Leading Teams. And it's this question is actually from a standardized fourth-grade test in Ohio. So as you all mostly chose, the obvious answer is A, it'll get done faster. But really any of these could happen with a team. So the point is to show you that at a young age, we're told that teamwork is the way to go. But there's always this possibility that work will get done faster, but research is showing us that more often than not, teams underperform because of coordination, motivation, and dynamics that get in the way of progress. So, during this webinar, Brandon and I will talk about when to use teams. And if you're going to use a team, how to launch and build one. And then strategies for improving a team's performance, decision-making, and conflict resolution skills. And the Leading Teams online module has three parts as you see on your screen. So, keep in mind that Leading Teams is a dynamic and fluid process, and there's a lot of times not just one right style for leading a team. So, first up, I'm going to talk about considerations for putting a team together and key elements to building an effective team. So, to team or not to team, that really is the question today. Have you ever wondered why teams don't work? At their best, they can solve complex problems, achieve challenging goals, and generate innovative ideas. But, believe it or not, that teams aren't always the answer. At their worst, they can be slow, inefficient, make poor decisions, and underperform individuals doing the same work. The key is to be intentional about whether a team is the best option and the right tool for the task. So, there are four questions you can use to determine whether a team is likely to be successful. So, the first question is, is the work so complex it requires a variety of skills and perspectives? If so, then you will likely need people to work together as a team. However, if the work requires one set of skills, then it might be more effective to divide it up and have people work independently. For example, the best approach to administering 12 separate research surveys might be to divide the surveys up among four people and have each person handle three. Each person has the skills needed to administer surveys, whereas teamwork might just slow things down. However, if the work requires a combination of skills, say you're implementing a new software tool to support teaching in your college, the best approach might be to bring people together with the range of skills needed and have them work together as a team. So, secondly, second question is, is there a common purpose or goal that everyone is working toward? If not, it's If it's just a collection of separate individual goals, then a team is not needed. If the team exists primarily to share information and make a few occasional decisions, but most of the work is done independently, then a team is not needed. So, I just described a work group, and it's important to understand the difference. So, work group members on the left-hand side are not interdependent in that they don't need each other to get the work done. Instead, they may meet periodically to hear and share information. Whereas teams on the right-hand side are highly interdependent. They plan work, they solve problems, make decisions, and review progress of tasks and projects collectively, and they need one another to get the work done. So, the key takeaway is that it comes down to interdependence. All the things we're going to talk about during the webinar are about teams. And here at the university, many work groups are shifting to teams because of scarce resources, an increasing focus on collaborative research and teaching, as well as operational excellence. This requires us to work together towards these common priorities. So, our work groups are becoming teams, which means more interdependence and the need for supervisors to be able to lead teams effectively. And on that note, that's the third question to ask yourself if you're determining if you need a team or not. So, when thinking about interdependence, does the success of each person depend on the success of others? Or to put it another way, does the team succeed or fail together? If so, then a team is needed. However, if one person can succeed even if someone else fails, then you really don't need a team. So, an example of this would be someone doing patient intake. They can do the work alone, but as soon as a grant is awarded and the volume of patients increases, more people need to be pulled in. However, each person is still responsible for their part of the work, and success or failure doesn't depend on the entire team. So, this is still an example of a work group. However, if the patient intake process changes, but everyone has to understand what the new process is and must coordinate with each other for annual grant reports, then that's an example of interdependence and thus a team. And then finally, the fourth question is that what support and resources are needed? Because teams require more resources and support than a work group. This is because teams and their leaders need to invest time and energy in ongoing communication and coordination of their efforts. This often requires access to tools and space for collaboration, staffing, and access to information. If adequate resources for teaming do not exist, then a team is unlikely to be successful. Another caveat is virtual teams. They need adequate technology and process support, plus the opportunity to have virtual and in-person face-to-face meetings. So, those are the four questions to consider when you're thinking about putting together a team. And you may determine that you don't need a team after all, which will save you time. I want to acknowledge that sometimes you may not have the choice to team or not to team. But you can still apply these questions to help you determine what might be missing if a team is having trouble or in need of support or coaching. And so, it's time for another poll. What we'd like to know is what is the most common issue you've experienced with the teams you have led? So, we're looking for the most common. So, just choose one. So, your choices are A, their inability to make a timely decision. B, confusion about who is responsible for what. Slow progress on tasks. And D, team members that are irritated or frustrated with one another. Okay, so the results are in. And the majority of you chose slow progress on tasks. And then in a close second, it's team members that are irritated or frustrated with one another. So, it's kind of across the board. So, these are actually all of them are pain points that come from not having a clear purpose or clarified roles and responsibilities. So, I'm Next I'm going to talk about the key elements to launch and build an effective team. So, once you've decided you need a team, then how do you launch and build an effective one? And then we'll talk about some of these pain points that you run into in the past, so hopefully you can alleviate those. So, as mentioned before, the root cause of some of those issues could come down to the simple fact that a team doesn't understand their purpose of why they exist. So, whether it's at the beginning of forming a team or midstream, reminding them of their purpose should turn things around and get everyone back on the same page. And without direction, people will pursue different agendas. So, that could contribute to some of that slow progress that you've been seeing. Teams are successful when they are clear on and agree about the purpose of a team and know what success looks like. And what it that means for them individually and for the people that they serve. So, students, faculty, patients, et cetera. And teams also want to feel that what they do matters and know that their work is connected to the unit's priorities. So, a lot of what I'm saying here is tied back to the importance of setting clear goals, which was covered in module two, managing and evaluating performance, and the fact that people want to and need purpose and meaning in their work. Giving team members ownership in what the organization is trying to achieve will also help with motivation. So, let's take Keesh for example. You might remember him from module two. He's responsible for process improvement and technical documentation within your lab. You asked him to lead a team of four people to make the lab's data collection process more efficient and reduce the time it takes to compile the lab's data for analysis. You also tell Keesh that this project fits within the college's broader priorities and the team has an opportunity to use their knowledge and experience to help others and feel comfortable with the changes. We will be able to then with Keesh create more efficiency in storing and analyzing data. So, why is it important to connect Keesh's team's work to the college's priorities? Consider how motivated you would be if someone asked you to put an effort into something that didn't seem to have a purpose. When people understand the broader purpose of their work, it increases their motivation and persistence. So, then you'd want to describe what success looks like. What will be better or different if the team succeeds? How will the team know if it is successful? In the case of Keesh and his team, the new data collection tool, success could be defined by having access to more accurate data or the fact that everyone was trained to use the new tool. Do you have measures or metrics that demonstrate the team is achieving success? This could be things like meeting deadlines or quality standards or an increase in grant awards, etc. As a supervisor or team leader, it's very important to coach your team, which means you should hold regular check-in meetings to assess their progress, especially at the launch, middle, and end of the project. Focus on improving teamwork in addition to individual performance. You can find some suggested coaching questions in the quick guides within the online course. And the online course will be available after the presentation. So, you can go ahead and look for those quick guides then. So, we're going to pause here and see if you have any questions about the content so far. And I will look to Brandon. Do we have anything that has come in so far? Uh not yet. I'm looking at the Q&A, so please uh shoot us questions as we go here. We'll do this a few more times throughout the the webinar, give you the chance to ask questions. One of the things that I I just want to you know that that you may have questions about or that comes up a lot um when we do and and I've worked in many organizations, but around sort of team building and working with teams, um the part about the purpose of the team, why does the team exist? Why are people working together? What's the point? Um is often a gap and a lot of times people will say, "Well, we have a strategic plan or we have these goals that we worked on together in a retreat. Um but the key is really do people understand what those goals are? Do they understand how they fit in? And are they engaged in those goals? Are those goals really um real and live and driving team uh in you know, the team as they work? Um often that's a gap and and then you what that what happens is people end up starting to work at cross purposes or have different ideas of what the priorities should be. So, it's easy to skip over this part of it, but if you do um or if you have gaps there, that's where you're going to end up having some things like team dynamics issues or uh a a slower team, a less efficient team later. So, I'd encourage you to kind of reflect on what is the purpose of your team and what are you trying to accomplish? And does everybody on the team know what that is and and agree with that and buy into that? Okay, we'll keep moving here, but definitely submit your questions because we'll have a few other stopping points and then of course at the end. So, Brenda just gave a great key point takeaway of the clear purpose. So, once that's been established, the next step would be to help people understand the role they have on the team. So, it's best to design the roles and assign the responsibilities in a way that aligns a team's individual skills, knowledge, and abilities with the work. And having this clarity will help alleviate conflict and improve teamwork and decision-making. Everyone will know what is expected from each team member and therefore people should know who's doing what. So, back to one of those points in the poll. So, we're going to talk a little bit more about the roles and responsibilities piece. So, when roles aren't clear, you'll start to see things like work not getting done because of skill gaps on the team or slow progress and less than desirable work. Team members will struggle to understand how to prioritize issues. And so again, you'll want to make sure everyone is clear about everyone's role, not just their own individual role. And if you don't do that, then you'll see conflict over how the work gets done or the work may not get done at all because everyone assumes someone else is responsible for it. So, back to the fourth grade standardized quiz question. The work may not get done if people don't know what their role is. And clarifying a team's roles and responsibilities always come back to the purpose. So, if there's room for improvement, re-examine who's on the team, who's not on the team and why. And do you have any skill gaps? Are there redundancies? What about the team size? Generally, the most effective teams are the smallest teams that have the diverse skills, knowledge, and abilities required to get the work done. So, I want to talk a little bit more about team size, which can vary widely and for many important reasons, but five members often results in the greatest productivity. And you might have heard of Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon. And he says that teams shouldn't be larger than what two pizzas can feed. So, if you haven't had lunch yet, you might be getting hungry now. When teams have more than nine members, it becomes difficult to get the work done efficiently, and the effort required from the leader to coordinate the work increases dramatically. And just the other night, my husband and I had my parents over for pizza, and I couldn't help but sit there and think, so this large pizza fed the four of us, so two pizzas would feed eight people, and then we'd still be be within that threshold of the recommended team size. So, it just this information follows you around no matter where you where you go. So, another look at team size is the concept of process losses, which is illustrated here. And process losses usually exceed process gains with teams of more than 10 people. So, think about it. When you've coordinated with large groups, it's hard to integrate all everyone's contribution, or often times there are premature decisions, because when there's a strong pressure for consensus, people may not raise any questions or concerns of their own. And larger teams also experience a lot more process conflict, such as dominant team members overtaking discussions and disagreement about how to make decisions, or which topics to spend time on, et cetera. And another example of a process loss is social loafing or free riding, which is when people put in less effort if they think others are not carrying their fair share or if individual performance is not evaluated or known. In that way, people can then hide behind the curtain, so to speak. The best way to address social loafing is to be sure that each person's individual contributions are assessed in addition to the team's collective performance. And when leading teams, remember to define a clear purpose and clarify roles and responsibilities. We've talked about that a lot so far, and then do your best to coach teams to stay on track and prioritize. And but even if you do your due diligence in forming a team, you will want to find out if team members are getting too caught up in details or derailing. Or are they becoming too complacent? Is there a lack of fresh ideas? So, you may not know the answers to those questions until the team is already formed and started working together. But when building a team, one thing you can do is appoint a devil's advocate or a person whose role is to challenge the status quo and ask tough questions. And that can help the team avoid complacency and stay focused on a larger goal and be more innovative. So, once a team is formed, you'll want to continue to lead them to make sure they're experiencing a safe environment, are able to make decisions, and guide them through any conflict that may arise. So, Brandon's going to talk about those steps next, but we're going to pause once more for Q&A. See if anything has come through. Not yet. And that's okay. But we have a poll for you then if there's no Q&A time for us to do here. One thing just to jump in real quick that a key concept to keep in mind here is around social loafing. When we talked about in an earlier module performance management and setting goals and how do you help give feedback and coach people in terms of performance. And social loafing or free riding or whatever you want to call it is something that happens all the time. It's human nature to do that sometimes. If you don't feel like your own efforts are going to be, you know, sort of recognized or you're not held accountable for that, then sometimes it's easy in a group to say, "Okay, I'll let other people kind of carry the weight there." So, as a supervisor, it's really important to watch out for that and and to kind of nip that in the bud before it becomes a real performance problem. Because what will happen is then you'll get workarounds and you so you'll know, "Okay, this person, they're not going to carry their weight. So, then we maybe need to add another person to the team to do the work that they're not doing." And then pretty soon you have a large team and you have process losses that are just completely slowing everything down. So, there's a real connection here with performance management. Thanks, Brandon. Okay. Well, so we'll move on from Q&A. We'll have more opportunities, so no worries there. We do have another poll for you. So, which of the following have you experienced in a team discussion? And with this one you'll want to select all that apply. So, is it A, you know someone has questions or concerns about what the team is discussing, but they don't speak up? B, someone frequently dominates team discussions making it difficult for others to fully share their thoughts? C, when something goes wrong, instead of owning the mistake, team members get defensive and blame others? Or D, two or three team members don't raise concerns during a full team discussion, but complain to each other after the meeting? So, go ahead and make your selections. So, the majority of folks chose B, someone frequently dominates team discussions. So, you're seeing domination in a conversation. And then also, two or three team members don't raise concerns during a full team discussion. So, they're having a meeting after a meeting, and that can be very common. And actually, a lot of these are are pretty straightforward. They're all about the same amount, except for when something goes wrong, instead of owning the mistake, team members get defensive and blame others. That one hasn't been as experienced, which is actually a good thing. So, this is going to set up the section that Brandon is going to talk about, which is these are all symptoms of low psychological safety. And that can sound a little bit touchy-feely, but it's not. It's the foundation for effective team performance and decision-making. So, thanks for participating in the poll, and that's it for me. I'm turning it over to Brandon, who will talk more about psychological safety. All right, thanks, Amanda. Establishing a team culture in which all members feel safe taking interpersonal risks is the price of admission for effective teams. In other words, the most productive teams have one thing in common. Members feel they can express their views, raise questions or concerns, and be open and honest with each other without fearing ridicule or disrespect. This is called psychological safety, and as Amanda mentioned, this may sound like a touchy-feely issue, but it really is at the core of team productivity and effectiveness. The importance of psychological safety is one of the most consistent findings in decades of research on teams. You may have read about Google's recent study, Project Aristotle, which got a lot of media attention a couple of years ago. As an organization built on technical expertise, they were trying to figure out which combinations of technical skills and personality traits were the key differentiators of their most effective teams. To the surprise of many people, none of those things mattered. Instead, it was psychological safety that made the difference in team effectiveness. Many other studies over the past several decades have found the exact same thing. Creating psychological safety is the key to effective teams at Google, across industries, and yes, even at the University of Minnesota. In our labs, in our classrooms, in our offices, and everywhere teams are at work. As a supervisor, this means that to be an effective team leader, you need to know how to establish norms and expectations that foster a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. If you are leading a team that needs to increase performance, productivity, and make better decisions, our starting point is ensuring a culture of psychological safety. Anyone who has supervised others for very long at all is probably familiar with the symptoms of low psychological safety or when you don't have that. You see things like team members not participating in discussions. One or two team members may dominate team meetings. People are reluctant to admit their mistakes or to admit when they don't know something. And minor issues and disagreements are brought to you as the supervisor to solve instead of team members talking and working it out themselves. To illustrate what this looks like, take Brian and Allison. They are in a team meeting regarding a new process. Brian sees that the team is not clear on the problem they are trying to solve and he wants to raise that issue with the others. However, the last time he did that, another team member glared at him, sighed heavily, and then kept talking ignoring Brian's question. Allison is also sitting in the meeting with the same questions and concerns, but has felt criticized and ignored when she has raised them in the past. So, she doesn't speak up either. Jen, who is leading the team, is wondering why Brian and Allison aren't saying much and why they spend so much time staring at their laptops. She has the feeling it's not because they're taking notes. This is a common picture of a team with low psychological safety. A classic symptom of low psychological safety, which many of you probably participated in and would recognize. Um, I would include myself in that. Is the dreaded meeting after the meeting. This is where two or more team members get together after the full team meeting. It might be in person, it might be email, text, chat. And they share their concerns about something that was discussed in the meeting. They didn't speak up during the meeting, so others aren't aware of their concerns. In the example with Brian and Allison, although they did not speak up during the meeting, they complained to each other over lunch and exchanged emails about their frustration. They have a number of important and valid concerns. However, the team will not benefit from their input. And down the road, Brian and Allison are likely to have serious doubts about the team's plans and decisions, which may turn into resistance or half-hearted efforts to support the team. A quick word here about trust. I've heard many leaders talk about wanting to build trust on their teams. Trust is really an indicator of team health. If trust is low, then something specific is going on that needs to be identified and addressed. Maybe it's a lack of agreement on the team's purpose. Maybe it's unclear roles or confusion about how the team is making decisions. Maybe it's the result of conflict that has not been managed. The truth is that there's no quick fix if trust is low on a team. Team building activities and personality assessments that are not part of the team's actual work and priorities will not fix low trust. Trust is built through doing meaningful and challenging work together. It is built through productively working through conflict and differences. Ultimately, trust is built through demonstrating that when push comes to shove, your team members will support you and have your back as your team works toward its goals. So feel free to engage in team building activities and have your team take popular assessment tools like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or StrengthsFinder. Just know that if the problem you are trying to solve is building trust, increasing engagement, or improving team performance, these aren't the tools for the job. In the situation with Brian and Allison, the only way to build trust is to change the team dynamic to make it safer for them to express their thoughts and concerns about the work. If Brian and Allison express their views and find that others take them seriously, then trust will be built as the team works together to address their concerns and to get the work done together. So, if trust is something you are trying to build, start by improving psychological safety. So, how can you as a supervisor establish or improve psychological safety? Well, it starts with setting expectations for how team members work together. First, make it clear that everyone's input matters and it's expected that they speak up and listen to each other. You may recall from our managing conflict module the importance of reflective listening. This needs to be an expectation of all team members. Reflective listening has two parts. First, give your undivided attention when someone is speaking. And second, show that you are listening and seeking to understand what the person is saying. This is a simple skill that everyone can do. The trick is actually doing it. If your team needs to get better at reflective listening, there are tools in the managing conflict module on the supervisory development course, which will help you. For example, download the quick guide on building trust from the website. This includes reflective listening skills. You can share this with your team and then coach them to use this skill. Another key to establishing psychological safety is to model your own curiosity by asking open-ended questions. If you notice someone not participating in the discussion, you could ask, "What concerns do you have? What could we be doing differently? Or how could this be better?" This fosters learning and invites helpful feedback. Be sure to listen to what team members have to say and let them know that you appreciate their input. The quickest way to shut down input on a team is to ask an open-ended question and then criticize or ignore what others say. So, don't do that. It's also beneficial to acknowledge that as a supervisor, you make mistakes, too, and you don't have all the answers. Tell the team that you might miss something and they need to speak up and make you aware. This will put people at ease to talk about their mistakes more openly and to admit when they don't know something. It is also very important in establishing psychological safety that no one dominates the discussion, shuts other people down, or sidetracks the team with unimportant or irrelevant issues. When these things happen, be sure to address them right away. Tolerating this type of behavior means it will continue and it will actually create a culture in which many people will choose not to speak up. Also, set the expectation that team members regularly consult with each other and with others outside of the team. And then bring all of these ideas back to the team. Side conversations actually aren't a bad thing as long as the ideas come back to the full team. So, back to Brian and Allison. It's okay if they share their concerns with each other over lunch, as long as they then bring those concerns back to the full team for discussion. In this case, their lunch conversation might help the team, assuming other team members don't shut them down. Something Jen, as the supervisor, will need to manage. Another important way to create psychological safety is to foster what's called a web pattern of communication within the team and avoid a hub and spokes pattern. In a web pattern, team members talk directly to each other. For example, if Brian and Allison's team are doing this, they would voice their concerns directly to other team members during the meeting. In a hub pattern, members of a team communicate with the leader rather than each other. If you find team members coming to you to complain about other team members, to tell you things they don't feel comfortable saying in the team meeting, or to try to persuade you to side with them in a disagreement, you are experiencing a hub communication pattern. This, for those of you who've experienced it, and we all probably have, is exhausting for supervisors and leaders. It's frustrating for team members, and it's ultimately ineffective. As a supervisor, the way out of this is to set the expectation that team members will talk with each other directly, and then provide feedback and coaching to reinforce this type of communication. So, now we're going to take a pause, and see if uh there are questions coming in. Um So, please make use of the question function. We see lots of people answering the polls, and lots of people, hundreds of people logged in. Um we're not getting a ton of questions, so I guess that means we're crystal clear here, but um please send us your questions. Uh you know, this stuff in practice is complicated and difficult and messy. Um and in PowerPoint slides, sometimes it's easy to make it look uh neat and clean. Um so, please uh shoot us some questions um as we're going. Oh, here we go. We got a question. Uh thank you. Uh so, I'll elaborate a little bit on the web communication and how to to build that. So, you know, this this is a classic thing, and actually there are a lot of leaders uh that I know who are specifically working on this because it creates all sorts of challenges uh when you have everybody in the team kind of coming to you and trying to lobby you rather than working with each other. Um and I think a a big piece of it is uh if you when when a team member comes to you and they're trying to get you to make a decision, or they're complaining to you about someone else on the team, um if you respond by sort of making the decision, or if you respond by kind of taking their charge, and sort of then you own that issue and bring it back to the team, then people will you're basically training people to do that, and you're training people to come to you. So, it can be really hard to change that, but it's really saying, you know, I I appreciate what you're saying, but I'm not going to make this decision here with you. This needs to be a team discussion. Um, and you know, different different people are going to push that and and may maybe try to do that because they're uncomfortable dealing with conflict with other people. Um, so sometimes the other piece of it is helping uh your team with conflict management skills uh there. But, I would encourage you to really be mindful of that. Um, and and it can really trap you as a supervisor in a very frustrating place where you're trying to fix everybody's problem um when you really want to be having them communicate with each other. Okay, we got another question here. Um, provide an example of how to address disrespectful communication during a meeting. Um, so some of this how you would address it might depend on uh kind of who it is and how it comes out, but you would want to address it uh right away. Um, so for example, let's say, you know, someone in a meeting is providing an opinion on something and someone else jumps in and says, "No, that's a bad idea. Um, you know, we tried that 10 years ago. It didn't work." And and they're being very dismissive. Um, you know, what you might do is really jump in and say, "Well, you know, let's not just discount this right away. Could you, you know, tell the person who raised it what say more about that. What are you thinking?" Um, and try to create more of a dialogue around the issue and don't the key would be don't let that one person shut the other person down um you know, even if maybe they end up being more persuasive. Um, if it's more um sort of over the top behavior, someone's being particularly rude or aggressive, um you know, that's where you might say something like, you know, let's say they, you know, call someone a name in a meeting and it's clear you're not going to have a productive conversation, you could end the meeting. You could say, "You know, this is uh this isn't productive. Um, we need to end the meeting." And then you would have an individual conversation with the person uh who made the inappropriate comment and and that would potentially be a performance issue, but you would certainly talk to them about that's not acceptable behavior. So, um those would be some examples. Okay. Thank you for those questions, and keep them coming. We have time at the end to answer, but we want to make sure that we get through all the content. So, Brandon is going to set up another poll for you. Okay. Yeah, here we go. So, um this poll uh asks about, you know, which is which of the following um is the greatest challenge on your current team? So, think about the team that you're on now. If you're on multiple teams, you know, pick one of them. Um A, getting all team members to agree on the best way for us to make decisions. B, making sure that we don't waste time discussing unimportant issues. C, getting a team member who thinks they are a decision-maker to realize their role is to provide input, not make the decision. D, stop making our decisions by consensus, which means everybody has to agree, and anyone can veto, um and to find a more effective process. Or E, maybe you're lucky, and none of these are challenges on your current team. So, you select all of those that apply. We'll give you a little bit of time here to do that. I think we're waiting for the data to come in. Here we go. Great. Um so, we have the most common answer, about 40% of you was making sure we don't waste time discussing unimportant issues. That never happens, does it? That's a common a common issue. Uh then we had about a fifth of you uh getting a team member who thinks they're a decision-maker to realize their role is really to provide input, and about a fifth uh stop making decisions by consensus. Uh so, those are all very common, um and they get at a team's decision-making process. So, we'll dive into that now. That's a really critical piece of effective teams. Uh so, another key to leading effective teams is to establish a clear decision-making process. So, keep in mind that psychological safety affects team decision making. Without it, even a crystal clear decision making process is going to break down because people won't feel safe raising important questions or concerns, even if it's their role to do that. You know what team has problems with decision making if you see frequent disagreement among team members about how to make decisions. Or if you see team members arguing about who owns what or who has the authority to make which decisions. Another red flag is when team members' expertise is treated as equal when decisions involve a specific area of expertise. I'll give you an example. So, say Brian, who's a business analyst, has expertise in the technical aspects of a project. Another team member without this expertise may dominate the discussion and criticize Brian's suggestions. This dynamic will result in the team weighing ideas that are not informed by expertise more than Brian's ideas, even though he knows what he's talking about. This can happen when differences in status do not correspond to differences in expertise. If one person has more status, say a more prestigious job title, but less expertise than someone else, there is a risk that status will trump expertise, and this could result in a bad decision. So, as a supervisor, be sure you're aware of the expertise of each member of the team and be mindful that status or personality traits aren't given too much weight. Establishing a clear decision making process starts by identifying each each person's role in team decision making. For each team member, identify and clarify what their role is. Are they expected to make recommendations? Provide input. Exercise veto power if they object. In other words, their agreement is required in order to proceed. Do they make the final decision? Or do they carry out the decision? In other words, do they actually perform the work? For example, if Brian and Allison complain to their supervisor, Jen, that they have concerns about a decision the team is making, she can clarify that their role is to provide input. If the specific project falls into Brian's area of expertise, Jen may also expect him to make specific recommendations based on his past experience. Once their roles are clear, Jen can focus her efforts on helping them to address the barriers they face in fulfilling their roles, such as coaching another team member who behaves in a rude and dominating way, making it difficult for Brian to share his recommendations with the team. In addition to clarifying each team member's role, it is important to clarify how the team will make a particular decision. Consider, does the decision require consensus? A common mistake is to spend a lot of time and energy trying to get everyone to agree to something when a consensus is not required. Perhaps you only need a majority to support a decision. Does everyone get a veto? This is essentially the same thing as looking for a consensus. Be thoughtful about who should get a veto on any decisions. Those people will single-handedly be able to prevent a decision from being made, so be sure that makes sense. Next, consider how much external buy-in do you need? Ask yourself who could derail the decision and whose support will be critical in implementing the decision. Gaining buy-in from these people will be very important. On the other hand, you may not need extensive buy-in for a particular decision. Being clear as a team about whose buy-in is required before a decision is made will make your process more efficient and effective. Also consider how much risk is there in a decision. What would be the likely consequences of a wrong decision? Decisions that carry more risk often require more input. They may also require input from people with deep expertise in understanding the risks. For example, you may need financial, legal, or IT expertise. Maybe you also need input from someone who really understands the departments or colleges that would stand to lose the most if things go wrong. A common mistake is to spend too much time on decisions that carry little risk. Another is to spend too little time on decisions that will have serious consequences if things go wrong. So, be clear within the team about the risks and possible consequences of a decision. And based on that, consider who needs to provide input, make recommendations, and make the final decision. Also, who should get a veto and be able to stop the decision if they aren't comfortable with it. Finally, a big red flag for team decision-making is when there is strong pressure for consensus. When team members feel they need to agree with the dominant view. When this happens, team members may not raise critical questions, concerns, or objections. This can result in poor or even disastrous team decisions that could have been avoided had dissenting views been voiced earlier. In fact, entire books and case studies have been written about this problem, which is called groupthink. In addition to pressure for consensus, danger signs for groupthink include a team that appears to have absolute confidence in their course of action, and a focus only on performance at the expense of learning and continuous improvement. Fortunately, there are strategies that you as a supervisor can use to avoid this. Be sure to actively seek input from all members of the team. Have someone on the team play the role of contrarian or devil's advocate, a person whose role it is to challenge the status quo and ask tough questions. It helps to avoid expressing your opinion as the leader until other views have been voiced. Another technique that works well is to have team members consider an issue individually, write down their thoughts before having a group discussion. Then, have each team member share their views before opening up a full group conversation. These strategies are proven ways to help your team make good decisions and to avoid some of the common pitfalls of working in teams. Our final topic for today is managing conflict. Conflict is a fact of life when working with others, and it can actually be productive if you manage it well. What we know from the research and practice is that teams that take a proactive approach to resolving conflict are much more productive and effective than teams that address conflict only when they are forced to. In other words, when conflict arises, the worst thing you can do is ignore it, hope it will go away, or wait until things get bad. This will accomplish nothing other than harming the team's performance. Speaking as a consultant who is often called in to help fix a team that has been suffering from unaddressed conflict, I can tell you from experience in many organizations that by the time an external consultant is involved, the conflict is usually so bad and so entrenched in a team's culture, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to repair. So, don't delay in addressing conflict. Many times conflict arises when team members don't understand or don't agree on the team's purpose. What is the team trying to accomplish? Other times conflict stems from unclear roles or confusion about how the team is making decisions. So, when your team is experiencing conflict, take a step back and consider whether everyone is on the same page in terms of the team's purpose, each team member's role, and how decisions are made. Addressing gaps in any of these areas may be the best way to reduce conflict on the team. As a supervisor, as soon as you're aware of conflict, start by identifying the source of the conflict. Discuss it as a team and use your feedback and coaching skills to help the team resolve it. This way your team can focus on the task at hand. The good news is that working through conflict is how you build trust and improve decision-making. So, this isn't extra work, but rather is a core part of getting work done in teams. So, think about conflict as an important opportunity. The Supervisory Development Course module on managing conflict, which launched in May, goes in depth into the tools and skills you'll need to address team conflict. I encourage you to explore that module on the Supervisory Development Course website, where you'll also find a recording of our webinar from May. You may also want to check out the module on feedback and coaching. So, you'll need uh those skills to help members of the team change their own behaviors and become more effective at managing conflict themselves. As a supervisor, it's not your job to fix every conflict. Rather, it's often your job to coach others so they can fix things themselves. So, spend some time exploring these two modules in the course site for help with the skills and tools you'll need for this. So, now I'm going to turn it over to Amanda to summarize some of the key takeaways. Thank you, Brandon. So, over the last 50 minutes, you've learned to first take a step back and determine if a team is the best route to take with a task or project by considering the following questions. So, how complex is the work? Is there a common purpose? What does success depend on? And then what resources are needed? So, that wrapped up our to team or not to team section. And so, if you decide you do need a team, then you want to lead effectively by making sure you have that clear purpose and describing what success looks like, making sure everybody knows their role and responsibility, establishing those norms and expectations for the psychological safety, and then also the clear decision-making processes, and then manage team conflict. So, those are your key takeaways for today. We have some additional information that I'd like to share with you to supplement what you've already heard. So, when you get into the Leading Teams Course module, and you can do that in just a few moments, there is a team dynamics self-assessment available under step three. And this assessment will allow you to explore research-supported components of an effective team. When you take the assessment, it'll help pinpoint which areas to focus on and which tools will be most helpful as you lead teams. So, in addition to the assessment, we also have quick guides. I mentioned a few of them have some coaching questions. And you can download those quick guides for your reference. We also have videos that introduce the concepts. We have quizzes to help you learn more about leading teams. So, that is now available if you go to supervising.umn.edu. So, you're welcome to go check that out now. Or otherwise, we're going to do our final Q&A section in just a moment. So, you can stay tuned if you'd like to participate. And just a reminder that this webinar was recorded. So, it will be the link will be available by the end of the week. And everyone who signed up will get the link. So, even if folks were not able to make it today, they'll get an email. And then as another reminder, you can access the course, supervisory development course, in MyU. So, if you go under the manager info tab, under training, you'll find a link to the course. So, you can access it there as well. And with regard to the Q&A, if you've attended our past webinars or watched the recordings, we try to answer questions on the spot. And then for the ones that we don't get to, we have a Q&A section available within each module in the course. So, any Q&A that we don't get to today, just allow a few weeks for those to be posted. And so, it is time for our final Q&A. And we had this one other question that came through. Oh, here we have some more. So, keep them coming. So, how can staff pass along and encourage this behavior among leadership? So, I'm not sure exactly what behavior we were discussing, but if it's anything in these these webinars or the course. So, we have 6,000 supervisors across all five campuses, and every single supervisor receives an invitation to participate in these webinars. And so, we hope that uh obviously the interest is is getting higher as well with 850 people registering. But, it's a good idea to talk amongst your other supervisor peers, and also talk amongst your leaders, and just say, "Are you taking these webinars?" These are really good things I think we can put into practice in our unit, and just start the conversation around that. And another uh thought on that, and I this may be this question uh might have come from someone who isn't a supervisor, or they are and you're thinking of your supervisor. Um it it one of the things that's helpful um in sort of giving coaching, you know, kind of coaching to your your boss or or someone above you in the organization, um is thinking about what is their pain point. You know, what are things that they are frustrated with, things that they wish were going better. Um and then think about which of the kind of the the skills that we've been talking about um would help them ad- address some of those pain points. Um because a lot of times, if you, you know, try to give essentially feedback to someone who's above you in the organization, you may expect someone to get defensive or dismissive. Um but, often times the way to influence is really what is it what's keeping them up at night? What is their pain point? And then, often times if you start there, um there's more receptivity to sort of, "Okay, what's the solution to this? How might you address this?" Um and introducing the information uh in that way. Uh we got another question here uh about how do you designate best designate someone in an advisory group as a key decision-maker above voices that see themselves as a decision-maker. Um and so, if I'm if I'm reading that right, I think that's about you have some people who maybe think that that they get to make the decision, um and you're trying to say, well, actually it's this this particular group here that gets to make the decision and maybe others are providing input or making recommendations. And that is where it's important up front to the extent that you can to set those expectations because a lot of times what happens is a project gets going or teams get going on on work and people make different assumptions about their role and it's only later that conflict arises and you realize, oh, they thought they were the ones making the decision or they thought they got a veto, but that's not what I intended when we kicked this project off or when we started this. So, one part of it is really being clear on the front end about who the different people are and what their roles are in decision-making. You know, if if someone isn't going to be a decision-maker, then making sure that they understand that and that they understand why that's the case and understand what their role is and try to focus them on what you do want them doing, which is probably providing input, raising questions, that kind of thing. Once you're underway, as it comes up, it gets a little trickier sometimes to do that, but it's it's really the same thing is really having that conversation about here are the people making the final decision and here are the people providing input or making recommendations and here's why it is this way. So, those would be, you know, having that discussion would be important. Okay, so we're going to wrap up and we want to thank you for those questions that you submitted. We will be taking those questions and grabbing the answers from this webinar. We'll post the answers to these questions so you can find them at a later time, too. And if you think of anything else between now and whenever, you can actually we have a feature in the course, it's called have a question. And so you can submit your question there and it will come to us and we'll answer it and we'll post it within the course. So, thank you for submitting those. I just have one final announcement. So, we're going to keep continuing on with the supervisory development course and these webinars and modules. They've had such a great impact out in the university. So the next one is on employee engagement and it's September 26th from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. And it'll be just in time for the fall engagement survey. So we'll send out registration information in the coming weeks and you can also find information on the course website at supervising.umn.edu. And then in November we'll have a course module on onboarding new employees. So to learn about any of the upcoming programs in leadership and talent development, you can go to z.umn.edu/ltdprograms. And that's all the time that we have today. So please use your extra time to explore the leading teams module. Thank you so much for attending.