12 principles to put you on the path to team success

In this excerpt from his upcoming book, Smart Teams, Dermot Crowley outlines a strategy for law firms to empower their teams and deliver stronger productivity and higher morale.

I have had the pleasure of raising my son, Finn, during the past 16 years. As with any teenager, he can create challenges from time to time, but for the most part he is a pleasure to parent.

One of the realisations that I and his mum had early on was that we could not control what he did or how he acted at all times. As he got older he went from being with us most of the time, or in very controlled and supervised situations, to going out with his mates at the weekend, unsupervised and in situations that we could not control. As hard as this transition was for us, we knew we could not keep him wrapped in cotton wool. We let him go, but we trusted that we had raised him well, and he would for the most part make good decisions in every situation. We had given him a set of values and principles that guided his decision-making and actions. Fingers crossed!

In a work context, we also cannot control or micro-manage how our team works every moment of the day. We can set expectations about what we need, but we should leave people to get on with the job and trust that they will make good decisions and behave in an appropriate, productive way. When it comes to team productivity, though, it helps a lot if the team buys into and agrees to a set of productivity principles that members bring to every situation, when working alone and working with others. These principles, if championed from the front and embraced by the team, dictate the culture of the team. They are not meant to be the 10 Commandments, and should not just be another poster on the wall. But they should live and breathe in every meeting, every interaction, every delegation, every project and every email.

In his book, The Amazon Way, John Rossman outlines 14 principles that Jeff Bezos, the Amazon CEO, and his leadership team bring to life every day in the running of the company. Rossman suggests that their unwavering championing of these principles is one of the reasons that Amazon is such a raging success. When you set about creating a productive micro-culture in your team, a set of guiding principles will help to create consistent behaviours that get embedded for the long term. With a bit of work, your team will hold each other to account and raise their expectations of each other. Before long, these principles will just become ‘the way we work around here’.

I have grouped these principles into the four values groups that are critical to the productivity of any high-functioning team. Effectiveness principles ensure your team is always working on activities that have an impact and people do not get caught up in or simply create ‘busy work’. Attentiveness principles ensure every interaction or collaboration is focused and of the highest quality for all involved. Punctuality principles instil a proactive and ‘deliver on time’ mindset which ensures timely progress. Reliability principles build trust and ensure that you and others can depend on people doing what they say, when they say. This is what you and your team should be saying to each other.

Effectiveness principles

1. Focus on importance

We work with purpose. We prioritise with importance in mind, not just urgency. We ensure we are clear about what is important in our role, and we make time for this important work. We evaluate every demand on our time and are ruthless in filtering out the less important work that is not a good use of our time. We help those around us to understand the priorities and to focus their time on important work.

2. Be responsive, not reactive

We are responsive to incoming requests, not reactive. We only react in exceptional circumstances, when things are truly urgent and warrant an instant reaction. We have turned off unnecessary alerts to email and instant messaging, and we have set up a proactive routine around checking these communication tools. We have agreed response times with our team, our stakeholders and our clients. We respond in a timely way, and we allow others the space to do the same.

3. Encourage negotiation

Whatever our role, we must learn to negotiate our workload and be comfortable about it. We all have the same problem – too much to do and too little time. Negotiation in our team should be encouraged, not frowned upon. Saying ‘no’ sometimes should be accepted as reasonable, at every level, as long as the negotiation is based upon real and reasonable priority conflicts. I am not suggesting that people say ‘no’ because they do not want to do something, or they cannot do it because they have left something else until the last minute.

Attentiveness principles

4. Come prepared

We turn up ready and prepared. When we attend meetings, we are clear about the purpose, the agenda and what we need to contribute or achieve. We are prepared whether we are the meeting organiser or not, and whether the meeting is formal or informal. If we have to interrupt others, we are prepared and focused in our interruption. When we delegate, we delegate early and well by planning and preparing.

5. Focus your attention

We bring ourselves fully to every activity. When working alone, we focus on the task at hand and actively manage distractions and interruptions. When working with others we are present and engaged. We give them our full attention and manage potential distractions. We know when we need to focus and have strategies in place to maximise our focus.

6. Make it easy for others

We don’t make it hard, we make it easy, when working with others. This is game theory productivity at its best. We slow down a bit and always think about the people around us that we are working with, and we try to make their life easier. When we send an email, we write and structure it in a way that makes it easy for them to read and action it. When we call a meeting, we make it easy for the attendees to understand what the meeting is about and what will be discussed or covered.

Punctuality principles

7. Respect time

We respect our own time. And we respect the time of others. We understand that time is limited and precious, and we treat it carefully. We don’t waste our own time. We don’t waste other people’s time. We use our schedule to plan our work, and we respect our schedule. When things change, we re-prioritise and reschedule in a thoughtful way.

8. Work proactively

We manage our work proactively, not reactively. We are keenly aware of our deadlines, but we manage what we need to do and when we are going to do it in a proactive way. We anticipate what is coming down the track at us, and we plan the right actions at the right time. We break more complex work down into manageable next-step actions in our schedule.

9. Deliver on time

We deliver work to others by the agreed deadline. Of course, this means that we need to have agreed on a deadline in the first place. We always seek clarity on what is needed by when, negotiate if necessary, and then work hard to deliver on time. If this is not possible, we should put our hand up; a principle that sits under Reliability.

Reliability principles

10. Do what you say

We say what we will do, and we do what we say. We build trust with others by being consistently reliable. We are clear about the actions to take on, and we communicate when we are delayed or if our priorities change. We have systems in place to manage our actions in a timely way.

11. Don’t be a victim

This principle hurts a bit for some people. Don’t be a victim. Many people become victims of their schedule, of their inbox, and of their busy workload. You hear it in their language. When I hear people in the lift talking about how busy they are, I think ‘victim’. When I coach clients who spend 90 per cent of their day in meetings, I think ‘victim’. When I see someone getting 300 emails per day, and they have not done anything proactively to reduce this noise, I think ‘victim’. Don’t be the victim. Be the one who does something about the challenges that everyone faces in their workplace. Take responsibility for your productivity, and the productivity of those around you.

12. Be resourceful

We need to focus less on our resources, and more on our resourcefulness. Most of us are working in organisations that need to get more done with less, and are being squeezed for resources. This can be a real problem, but at the same time there is often a lot of fat in our systems. A lot of our time gets squandered through ineffective systems and reactive work-styles.

If we stop focusing on the resourcing issue, and instead look at ways that we can be more resourceful, we get more done.

Dermot Crowley is a productivity thought leader, author, speaker and trainer. He works with leaders, executives and professionals in many of Australia’s leading organisations, helping to boost the productivity of their people and teams. His new book, Smart Teams, will be published by Wiley in May 2018. For more information, visit www.dermotcrowley.com.au or email dermot.crowley@adapttraining.com.au.