The changing habits of our teammates and ourselves
The last cold shrimp stands amid cocktail sauce in the center of the table, solitary for minutes now. One person, our protagonist, wants to eat it, but etiquette tells him to offer it to his colleagues around the table. It’s been a genial, productive dinner meeting, so he obliges his sense of etiquette.
At a professional team dinner like this one, sharing is a U.S. cultural convention, a norm. He simply knows to do it, and he’s happy to. But the next day, with all the same teammates, his attention to professional propriety wanes.
He’s in the office conference room, and the meeting is providing little value for his time. He’s disappointed and frustrated. He feels powerless to influence the conversation, so he sets his body language to impassive: He leans back in his chair, slackens his abdominal muscles, and waits. It doesn’t feel right to him, but it also feels like his only option to prevent more frustration.
Do you recognize either of these behaviors, sharing or disengaging, in yourself or your work teammates?
Why is there such difference between the two gatherings? What happened to make one meeting congenial and the other disappointing? Why do we just know to share shrimp cocktail with our teammates, but we’re equally likely to guard our thoughts from them? Assuming we have no influence on a team conversation we’re part of—where or when was that assumption born? And why do conscientious employees (like our protagonist above) sometimes behave outside their character on teams? We’re dependable coworkers, faithful to our integrity. So why is cooperation among professional teammates so unwieldy?
One unusual, simple answer may be: habits, influenced by our past and present experiences. We habitually follow certain social proprieties, like offering the last shrimp to the table, but ignore those decencies that are harder to maintain, like staying engaged despite feeling dissatisfied. And unhelpful habits are picked up over the course of years working with teams. They’re born out of disappointments, disagreements that went unresolved, or personal insecurities. Misled by our human nature to recall the bad before the good, we abandon our best behavior to shield ourselves from such frustrations in the future.
(Instead of habit, some colleagues might attribute the behaviors of teammates to bad attitudes or negative mindsets, implying an immutable nature. I disagree. By seeing their behaviors as learned habits, we can see our teammates as the competent coworkers they are; they merely need to change a few actions. And when seen as habits to be managed, we tolerate recognizing ourselves in these actions.)
Before going on, let’s focus on some of our most helpful team habits, like respectfully engaging reticent teammates, doing our share of the work, probing for treasures during brainstorming, or bringing daylight to dim meetings. You might occasionally show your discontent, but you’re more often the workaday hero who finds compromise and moves the meeting along.
But this article is about replacing unfavorable habits with new, beneficial ones. Before we can replace, we must become aware. Awareness of the actions and conduct of a team is the first step in improving teamwork skills.
Let’s consider a few unhelpful team-related habits I see. Do you perhaps preach more than listen, for example, or ignore the expressions on your teammates’ faces because you don’t like what they may mean? Do you ever roll your eyes at a suggestion? Could you be physically closing off your body in a mistaken attempt to reveal nothing? (In reality, you’re revealing a lot.)
Thinking of our behaviors as detrimental to the team can be tough to swallow. When a meeting goes poorly, we initially blame the others and vent frustration as we leave. As flawed humans, though, we all span the spectrum as teammates; sometimes we’re stellar, other times selfish. It’s a disconcerting, discomfiting thought, but do you believe no one silently criticizes your meeting behaviors, ever?
Here’s where it pays to seek professional assistance. An objective outsider, such as a speech coach like me or a business mentor, will help you recognize your conflicting team behaviors and pick specific skills to improve.
The next step in improving teamwork skills is identifying the habits that interfere with success. How could your actions influence your team’s productivity and ability to complete projects?When do you resort to these habits? What could your triggers be?
Finally, we reduce the frequency of these habits by replacing them with new ones, and we get thriving teams.
iSpeak Clearly guides you through foundational skills, including volume of voice, body language, and tone, and how they impact communication on teams. Building awareness of these components in yourself and others is a necessary step in changing team outcomes. I don’t consider my clients’ habits to be bad or good; what matters is that they perceive a problem, and they decide to try something different.
In a future article, we’ll delve into new teamwork habits to adopt and why being a good teammate is so important to work satisfaction and team success.
