How to Manage Lots of Teamwork

At ID, we work in a lot of teams. Some say too many. But we get used to it, and we get better at it.

Things become difficult when you have four or five teams facing similar deadlines, working on unrelated projects that change rapidly. Here are some things that have made my life easier and my work better:

1. Become a thought leader on your topic early in the project.
- Read everything about it (my first searches are with Business Source Premier, which scans major business publications like the Journal, the Economist, etc.).
- Interview people in the field (read an article that helped you understand the insurance industry but need more info? Call the author.).
- Understand trends and the big picture. Constantly ask "What are we really talking about?"
- Build a binder with everything printed, highlighted, and tagged. Sort by topic. Use blue sheets to divide topics.
The main idea is to put yourself in a position of knowledge so you can make good decisions throughout the project. This may sound obvious, but when you're working on six projects exhaustive research can be rare.

2. After you divide up tasks among your team, finish your task as early as possible. This prepares you to cope with the unseen issues that your project will without doubt face. Rather than catching up on your work, doing it early positions you to be able to dedicate time to solving these new problems.

3. Come to every meeting with a perspective and an argument for where the project should go. Meetings are times to solve problems and make decisions (see earlier post). If everyone has done their homework and has formed a defensible perspective, meetings can be great places for healthy debates that can lead to better results.

4. "You have to care," says Tom Peters. He's right.

How to Hold a Creative Meeting

The following is based on Prince's "The Practice of Creativity," pages 37-41.

The point of a meeting is to solve problems. Inform and read on your own! Solve problems together! The most valuable resource at a meeting are the minds of the people in attendance. Therefore to run an effective meeting you must position the minds in attendance to solve problems in the best possible way.

Positioning minds requires you to keep aggressiveness directed toward solving problems and away from personalities. People are emotional and attached to their opinions and ideas. The smallest slight or put-down damages a person's ability to contribute to the group.

Here's an example:

John: What if we made seat belts that fasten themselves?
Tom: That doesn't solve our problem. We're talking about overall safety, and seat belts are only part of the solution.
You: Tom, I think that John's idea actually does solve a big piece of the safety issue (this is your chance to protect John and his way of thinking). And you're right that we're talking about safety in the big picture (don't devalue Tom). Maybe you could think more about defining total safety while we look at John's idea?

This approach allows people to understand problems in their own way and keeps people valued and engaged.

Summary of effective meeting model:
1. Meetings are for understanding and solving problems. Inform people through email, don't bore them with lectures.
2. Protect each person's sensitivity and give direction for aggressiveness.
3. Recognize that a meeting is (to some extent) a personal competition that makes each person vulnerable.

For another source on meetings, see Seth Godin's post here.