Communication inside my team
In a previous blog post I talked about some aspects that you should be aware of if you want to be a better team leader. One that I purposefully left out is the communication within a team, not because it wasn’t important, but because it warrants a whole discussion on its own.
When someone first joins my team I always spend around an hour briefing them on how I like the team to work. In that time, I’d estimate 70% of it is explaining my view on inner-team communication; communication is key for us to work well together.
Day to Day
There are three basic rules that I consistently use on a daily basis. These form the base for all our communication inside the team.
- So first things first. No bullshit allowed. We’re all grownups so we should be straight with each other. Everyone should call out if someone ( even me ) is not being clear or being misleading. And don’t bother pushing the blame onto others, I don’t care if it’s not your fault — We’re a team, we solve it together.
- There’s nothing to gain from going home mad about something. If there’s anything bothering you, we talk. Big or small, we talk. Smaller things tend to pile up and after a while they turn into a bigger and harder problem to solve. So there’s no need for someone to be taking up their much valued time at home with work related troubles and worries. We talk and we solve it the best way we can.
- No disrespect. No matter who you are, how many years of experience, or how vital you are on the project. I don’t care! I would rather solve the issue of the one person who knows that part of the project leaving, than having to deal with someone who is the source of a toxic work environment among the team.
One-on-One
Once a month I do a meeting on how things are going with each person. I’ve created a couple of questions that help with the agenda and starting up a conversation on the issue.
- How did the previous month go? How did you feel?
- How do you think the team is doing?
- Are you still motivated with what you’re doing?
- What are your goals in the company / life that we [the team] can help with?
This only serves as a backup. We don’t need to go through all of the questions. Sometimes we just spend the meeting talking about non work related stuff. For me it doesn’t really matter. The goal for me is to have a specific time where this person has my total focus on them.
This helps me catch potential issues before they morph into full-blown problems. Doing this, I’ve already caught a great number of the little issues that I’ve talked about before. This helps me prepare for what’s coming, such as people deciding that they need something different, or people trying to understand how they can achieve their goals, or any other number of things that can come up.
Also, I take this time to give some feedback on how they’re doing, and discuss how their evolution is going and my views on it.
Team Meeting
After the one-on-one’s I do a meeting with everyone gathered in the same room. We all take turns explaining what we think went well or not. Here we discuss, and solve the problems — as a team. This serves the same goals as the one-on-one but at a different level. This meeting is not the place to badmouth each other, it is about solving problems that affect everyone and doing it together. Basically, the goal is to move forward as a team and help one another fulfil our team and individual goals.
The door is always open
We work in an open space, so in a way there are no doors between us already. Aside from the moments that I’ve described previously, I’m always available to talk. No one should have to wait for these scheduled moments to speak if they feel it is important, and relevant, to address some subjects ahead of time.
Communication is a complex subject and one that cannot be reduced to just these few moments, but this is my take on it, and the ways in which I have tried to “force” some of our interactions, and improve communication and problem solving amongst the team.
Nowadays I’m working in my own company trying to bring some products ( like https://isdown.app ) to life. Besides product development, I love to build and scale engineering teams. If you have any questions, feel free to ping me on Twitter or LinkedIn or just leave a comment.
