Good Fights Within your Teams & How We Do This at Ibbaka Talent
I recently revisited HBR’s 10 Must Reads On Teams. The final article, “How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight” by Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Jean L. Kahwajy and L.J. Bourgeois III caught my attention. I have always believed that conflict, passionate conversation and exploration are necessary to stimulate new thinking, open up perspectives and get to a better shared result. Teams who can keep an open mind, are tough enough to be challenged, but really tough to be able to listen to each other can benefit greatly from heated and productive exchange.
“The challenge is to keep constructive conflict over issues from degenerating into dysfunctional interpersonal conflict, to encourage managers to argue without destroying their ability to work as a team.”
HBR’s research team listed six tactics that top firms have used to manage interpersonal conflict and avoid discord include:
1) Focus on information and facts
2) Multiply the alternatives
3) Create common goals
4) Use Humour
5) Balanced power structure
6) Seek consensus with qualification
HBR’s research was based on companies competing in fast changing, competitive global markets, “teams had to make high-stakes decisions in the face of considerable uncertainty and under the pressure to move quickly.”
Welcome to Ibbaka Talent, early stage start-up consisting of a team, making high-stakes decisions in the face of definite uncertainty and under constant pressure to move fast. As we approach the launch the open beta for IbbakaTalent, there are a lot of these brutal conversations within our team. And not surprising, the firms we are talking to about our solution are always under pressure to deliver great services quickly.
Focus on the Facts
Businesses and decision makers are leveraging data to make informed decisions as evidence by the growth in need for big data skills. Read our blog highlighting Ibbaka Talent’s commitment to using analytics to predict how well a person will fit a team need. As we develop our platform, and our team makes decisions on interaction, we of course try to put ourselves in position of our audience, but we know we have to collect information and revise our decisions based on substantiated evidence.
Multiply the Alternatives
As we speak to leading services companies, we learn that one of their key challenges in optimizing their teams is the ability to generate choices and then weigh their options.
What happens if a team member has to suddenly leave a project?
Is there an easy way to get insight into how we could re-balance the team base?
Our goal is to enable teams to provide options for the reconfiguration of their teams. I had one leading SharePoint consultancy firm share with me that they were evolving their T-Shaped Stars into Comb-Shaped consultants so that they can multiply their options for providing extra value to their customers while providing opportunity for their consultants to gain deeper knowledge across disciplines.
Create Common Goals
Everyday at 4:30PM sharp, you will find our team reviewing the status of product development. We are all driven to get our product launched and to create a solution that benefits us as individuals as well our entire team. There is a constant recognition that we can only achieve this when we put front and center the value and benefit we offer to our community.
I vividly remember one of our sessions where Amar, our Chairman, asked each of us to come up with three words to describe our brand. Our team had a lot of fun with this as we each got the chance to share our point of view and question our colleagues. The result was a better understanding of what mattered to each of us and to the team as a whole. We also committed that each of us would make a concerted effort to reflect our brand.
Use Humour
As I write this sentence, Steven, our President shared two jokes. After which there was some delayed laughter and Amar quipped, “Steven, it took you awhile to get to the punch line.” This got an immediate reaction as the team all started laughing.
Humour is a good way to foster positive energy. Laughter is common here at TeamFit. Within writing this section, Amar asked, “Does anyone have any sweet treats?” This had N-Q and I exchange thoughtful glances as the day before we all agreed it would be great to have fruits as snacks instead of our regular chocolates and baked goods. I a a bit of a smirk as I meekly offered Amar some sweet lemon flavoured fibre 1 bars, which he declined. Hey, they are sweet and kinda healthy! We all chuckled as we acknowledged that the fruit wasn’t going to be enough for our hunger pangs.
In the HBR article it was noted that some companies and CEO’s admit to contriving – even forcing humour. I hope that as we continue to grow Ibbaka Talent that we are able to keep our culture genuinely fun. When we are in a good mood, we tend to be more open to listening and feel safe to contribute our thoughts.
Balanced Power Structure
At Ibbaka Talent, we recognize and respect each other’s expertise, skill, and aspirations.
For key strategic decisions, we engage our entire team. At Ibbaka Talent, we also encourage ownership and we try to support each other as much as possible. For example, our newest team member Violetta Yan has joined our team to help bring consultants and freelancers onboard. Violetta has taken ownership of the open conversations that we are having with various groups of consultants. For Violetta to truly grow she has to feel safe and be able to take on roles beyond the obvious.
Balanced power structures are those where the “CEO is more powerful than the other members of the top-management team, but the members do wield substantial power, especially in their own well-defined areas of expertise.”
Consensus with Qualification
HBR mentions a two-step process called consensus with qualification. “Executives talk over an issue and try to reach consensus. If they can, the decision is made, if they can’t, the most relevant senior manager makes the decision, guided by input from the rest of the group.”
Consensus is not always possible. In fact, when Nugg Solutions was deciding to make the pivot from collaboration to focus on team building there was a lot of debate and disagreement on. Members of its board of advisors questioned whether this would be a good move and some stakeholders still do not agree with the company’s change in strategic direction.
Recognizing that consensus was not achievable, Steven and Amar, the two key people responsible and accountable for the driving value of the company made the decision to transition to Ibbaka Talent. And, everyone was comfortable with supporting this because everyone had a voice in the process.
We Want to Hear your Voice
I am very interested in hearing your thoughts on what we are trying to build at Ibbaka Talent. Our website has been updated, and our platform is going to open beta soon. Let me know what you think. The image used in this blog is the photograph of the words shared by our team on how we see our brand.
