The Hidden, Inner Lives of Teams

If you are on a high-performing team, then your needs are being met.

Somehow, you’ve been able to express those needs.

And, crucially, you’ve been heard and understood by those around you.

Conversely, you are meeting the needs of each of your colleagues. Not just some, not just your favourite people, but everyone’s needs.

You are able to do this (meet their needs) because you’ve taken the time and care to learn what their needs actually are, and you’ve been able to incorporate meeting everyone’s needs into all that you do as a team.

Example: here are some needs as expressed by team members at a recent “needs surfacing” workshop I facilitated:

Work Type + “expression of need & rationale”

• PLANNING — “I struggle with change. Wherever possible, I need to be informed, or involved, early because it helps me process things and cope.”

• DOING — “I thrive working alone. I need to be given specific tasks and clear deadlines and so I can work fast and independently.”

• THINKING — “I think best when I do it aloud with others. I need to have ideas in a creative group setting, bouncing off one another.”

• LEARNING — “I learn best when I hear it verbally first, then need to have it in writing so I can read over it later so that it sinks in.”

• COMMUNICATING — “To accommodate my needs, I require closed captions turned on when in video meetings. Also, in person meeting summaries in writing, so that I am sure I know everything that was said.”

• COLLABORATING — “Culturally, I wasn’t raised to challenge the person in charge, so I need others to be patient with me. I’m not disinterested, I’m just trying to pluck up the courage to speak.”

• IMPROVING — “I crave feedback, but I need to have it be really concrete, so I know what to do with it or else I spiral.”

The moral?

Everyone on your team works, acts, and thinks differently.

How they might work best is too often kept a secret.

This is what I refer to as: “the hidden, inner life of teams.”

And, their best selves will stay hidden, with their needs un-met, unless… You ask, and you listen, and you adapt and accommodate to meet these needs. When these needs are then consolidated as collective needs, then you can seek out ways of meeting them all, together.

Expressing Your Needs; Listening to Other People’s Needs

Asking for what you need, and listening to what your colleague’s need is an essential component to healthy team development. You can either do it informally, or as a formal workshop with a facilitator.

When you know, and meet, the needs of everyone else, and they, in turn, are doing the same for you, it positively changes a team’s dynamics.

Now there can be healthy, ongoing negotiation around how you all design and do the work, how the team is with one another. It’s an ongoing effort—because people and contexts change. People switch in and out—so, great teams have a deep culture of adaptation and they accommodate change, folding new folks into how they work. Each person on the team is keen to learn about, and meet, the needs of their newest member. That person then attaches to the new culture quickly.

All teams go on inner journeys together: yes, they are focussed on performance and results, but they know they can’t have either without unequivocal trust and support. So, they prioritize meeting needs.

Great teams make progress, and suffer setbacks too, but they ultimately evolve in really positive ways because each person is seen and heard often, and each is reliably getting their needs met (and some wants too) by the others on the team.

In my experience, meet needs well, and the quantifiable results will follow.