Self awareness - not you - your team.

During a recent team meeting, I noticed a couple of my staff were not necessarily engaged in the discussion.  Normally loud, outspoken, and energetic, they sulked in their seats.  Interesting, I thought, what exactly is going on.

Two weeks prior, I had taken off for a 10-day vacation, returning to this sudden dreary meeting.  I had sent out an email to the department identifying who the key contacts for coverage for various areas of my responsibility should someone need assistance.  The two I had mentioned were also the two individuals withdrawn in the meeting. Later that morning, I grabbed one of them and asked what was up by having them go out for coffee with me.  He initially refused, but I insisted that I wanted to catch up on several important items.  During the walk to the coffee shop, I prodded and probed as gentle as I could... how are you, project going well? Did you get in touch with the vendor for updates?  And finally "what is going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"Something is wrong, and I know it. When you're ready to discuss, drop by my office for a talk."

We walked back to the office mostly in silence, and 10 minutes after we got back, he came into my office with a huge team-dynamics problem to resolve.  I pulled in the other individual and found out the issue - listened to their concerns, and tried to help them rationalize a solution.   Both had also felt the email I had sent out was identifying new roles for them on the team - not my intention - coupled with this team-issue, it was icing on the cake - they felt isolated, stepped on, and shut out.  All from an email.

After much clarification and listening on my end both felt they had their leaders help resolve the issue - and I had a better understanding of the inner-team dynamics that were going on. It's easy to see how an email - innocent as an out-of-office notice, can cause a snowball effect that steamrolls into an avalanche of negative emotions and misunderstanding.

What's important as leaders is that we need to be watching behaviours and patterns as close as possible.  Do they always go out for coffee?  Who do they have coffee with normally?  Do they have lunch with particular people?  When they decide to be talkative and social, do they hang out at any particular location?

Once we understand the habits of our staff, it helps imprint on us, as their leader, a great self-awareness of our team. Changes can then be easily picked out to identify problems before they become serious issues.  Its not that we want to figure out how much time they waste in a day (unless it's a performance issue), but what are my team member's habits to help understand their routines.  Changes could indicate stress at work or at home that could negatively impact performance.

We're not supposed to be psychologists (some days I do wonder), but we can be mindful of how our team members interact with one another.  Knowing these traits, in the long run, goes a long way to increase team performance and keep them on track.  Good team dynamics = happy team = high performing team.