307: Flat Team Structure and Trust

High-performing teams hold each other accountable to high-performance standards

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Current Work: Flat Team Structure and Trust

Trust is the foundation of a successful team. It involves believing in the good intentions of your colleagues and their lack of desire to harm you. Instead of avoiding conflict, teams should embrace it as an opportunity for healthy disagreement. We must establish trust within our teams and explore new working methods to move forward. However, many of us resist change, which poses a challenge.

Additionally, members can manage their bandwidth, meaning they can hold many roles. There is no formal process here; it's a search for a two-way fit. Managers may hesitate to try this approach because structure is often a proxy for power. Instead of living in a fixed place in the org chart, team members can live in many roles where their influence is direct rather than indirect. Positional power is traded for reputation. They can find joy in the work again by getting closer to the job. We often want speed and innovation, but we run from risk and inhibit our best people. We claim to work in teams but don't trust one another. We know how we work isn't working, but we can't imagine an alternative. We long for change but need to figure out how to get it. We are addicted, despite ourselves, to the siren song of bureaucracy. Yet, people can be trusted and trust one another to use judgment and do the right thing.

Creating a team charter helps answer critical questions about the team's purpose, values, and working style. It also helps coach team members, improve communication, and give and receive feedback. One of the simplest ways to strengthen relationships within the team or community is to show appreciation for one another.

Agile methodology prioritizes the people involved in software development and their user interactions. To achieve this, Agile teams should have minimal to no separation. Yet, this back-and-forth communication can lead to less team collaboration and cause delays. Teams that create the code should handle maintaining it, as they had the initial need for it. Understanding technology is essential, but it should come at a reasonable cost to the company. Pursuing projects that impact the business is the most critical aspect of software development.

High-performing teams hold each other accountable to high-performance standards. Teams should seek out sources of conflict instead of avoiding them. Great teams are focused on team results, not individual milestones. This is possible because individuals know their peers will call them out if their poor performance hurts the team.

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