Team Vision: A Guide for New and Renewed Teams

My favorite part of any story is when the cast of characters first encounters each other: the first day of school, the superhero’s origin, the meet-cute, and the founding myth. This sets the tone for the rest of the narrative, and often gives clues about key future strengths and foreboding tensions. However, unlike in epic books and movies, it’s possible to renew your working norms and relationships at any time, not just when you’re first forming.

Especially if you are the leader of the team, take time to reflect on your team vision. Get clear on any expectations you have that you have not expressed and identify areas to explore and co-create the plan forward with your team. Ask yourself questions such as:

• What am I alone responsible for and accountable to?
  The team’s goals are sometimes your goals as its leader, so this helps set the guard rails of your team’s work and informs the direction and structure you often need to provide.
• What, together, can only we accomplish?
  Take time to consider the most important goals of the team, both from the standpoint of individual responsibilities and collective results.
• How connected must we be?
  With this question, go beyond just the meetings you’ll need. How much of the team’s work is dependent on each other, and how much trust is required to be successful? Start to make a plan and explore with your team what commitments you all will need to make to each other. For more on this topic, read [Roger’s Connected Team blog post link here]
• How can the team work together under stress?
  Don’t wait for conflict or crisis to arrive to surface how team members can ask for help, resolve conflict, or give uncomfortable feedback. Identify strategies and resources available up front, and permit each other to give and receive feedback that will help move the team forward.
• What is my intention for the mood and mindset of this team?

Name 1-3 qualities this team needs to be successful. Commit to representing these qualities personally and appreciating even small examples of them in your next interactions with the team.

Next, host a conversation with members of the team to gather input and build on your initial team vision. Before diving into the questions above, give each person a chance to connect to their own experience as a part of team with questions such as:

• What role does each person play on the team, and what are we each accountable for (what makes every person here vital to the group’s success)?
• What have we done really well (or for a newly-formed team, what am I most proud of from previous teams)?
• What has been harder than it needed to be (for new teams: what have I struggled with as a team member in the past)?

After this discussion, listen for the echo of the group’s direction and vision—people will naturally play back what is most important to them in the course of their conversations, and this will begin to translate into new action.

Consider everything you hear (and don’t hear) as helpful information: what do you notice about what people find important, and what isn’t coming through as clearly? This isn’t a test of how well your team listens to your directions, it’s a measure of resonance between the team’s intentions and its day-to-day actions. Any significant gap between the two will take time and deliberate attention from the group to shift, and you might also discover commitments that need to be adjusted to fit the realities of your team.

Just like the characters of classic narratives, all teams change and grow over time. After an initial conversation, some groups pat themselves on the back, put their thoughtfully written team vision and norms on a shelf, and promptly forget about them. What makes high-performing and connected teams different is they treat their initial intentions as a rough draft, and an aspirational commitment they have to work to fulfill. Setting routine check-ins to reveal what has changed, what has gone well, what has been harder than expected, and who is there to appreciate can help make any team more connected.

About The Author:

Katie Mingo

Consultant

Katie is passionate about building agile structures that empower creative solutions and unlock collective potential. With a background in visual design and linguistics, she thrives at the intersection of diverse disciplines, connecting people, ideas, and cultures. Driven by a vision of more connected human interaction across media and boundaries, Katie is constantly exploring new interests—from knitting and swing dancing to therapy dogs and augmented reality.

https://www.conversant.com/team_member/katie-mingo/