5 Mindful Practices to Navigate Team Development and Change in Covid-19’s Virtual World
by Neelu Kaur - 2020
Team management was challenging enough BC (Before Covid), when we were face-to-face, but now, in this 100% virtual world, leaders have to work much smarter to facilitate healthy team building and change.
Whether you are virtually onboarding new team members because of the influx of Covid-19 related work, decreasing the size of your team, or supporting them through an unrelated transition, adjustments are required to facilitate healthy team dynamics in this new virtual reality. Looking through the lens of our 2020 pandemic, mental agility, compassion, emotional intelligence, creativity and mindfulness are just a few facets that need to be added to the leader/manager toolkit.
in his 1965 article, Developmental Sequence in Small Groups, psychologist Bruce Tuckman coined the memorable phrase of “forming, storming, norming, performing” . He later added a fifth state, “adjourning,” which is also sometimes referred to as “mourning.”
Let’s examine each stage and find out how this simple 65 year old model can help you build and manage a virtual team in 2020.
Forming
In this stage, emotions range from happiness to fear to kindness. Team members are polite, some may have anxiety and others are looking forward to the task(s) ahead.
Because roles and responsibilities aren’t clear, the leader plays a dominant role in creating a safe space.
Team members rely heavily on the leader for guidance and direction. The leader must foster an environment where team members can feel safe and set the groundwork for trusting relationships to emerge. This is a challenging phase under ‘normal’ circumstances. How do we adapt in a 100% virtual environment?
Tip 1: Psychological Safety Virtual Pivot (suggestion: Assign Each Team Member a Talking Partner)
As a leader, if you are onboarding a new team virtually, deliberate measures are required to ensure psychological safety.
Psychologically safe teams allow individuals to feel included, safe to learn, safe to contribute and safe to challenge the status-quo without fear of being embarrassed, marginalized or punished in some way.
How do we do this virtually? Each individual team member is assigned a Talking Partner at the very beginning of team formation. Nextjump coined the TP framework: Meet, Vent, Work:
Meet: signals the need for the consistency of meeting every single morning, getting in a daily ritual of practice. (Meeting virtually via video as a morning practice)
Vent: involved “getting the toxins out”- anything from your home life or work life is fair game for discussion. TP is a place that honors your frustrations and anxiety as part of who you are. It also gives you a structure for reducing the hold of negative thinking on your attention.
Work: TPs are expected to push each other for greatness, set high expectations, and help each other talk out small and large decisions.
Storming
In this phase, team members may have developed roles and responsibilities and are working out boundaries and team missions.
At the beginning of the team building process, trust isn’t fully established, which can lead to interpersonal conflict.
Different working styles can cause unforeseen problems. Tension and frustration may be high and leaders need to communicate and start with the why, create a culture of feedback and define rules of engagement to establish a supportive and healthy work environment.
Tip 2: Mindful Virtual Pivot (suggestion: Provide Explicit Goals and Feedback)
The key here is to be explicit. Establish clear goals, process and procedures of engagement through frequent check-ins with team members via Video Conferencing. The archaic method of conference calls with no visual cues doesn’t translate well in a 100% virtual world where there is a deep desire and need for social interaction.
As you are scheduling these check-ins, be mindful of time zones if your team members are located globally. Create a regular standing meeting for the entire team to “storm” via video to air out any concerns that are coming up as arise verses waiting until a hurricane transpires.
To create a culture of feedback, the leader must be willing to receive feedback. Use these regularly scheduled check-ins to ask for feedback on what you could do as a leader to help your team navigate the choppy waters of this challenging phase.
In the Storming Phase, it’s advantageous to look at decisions from different points of view. The Six Thinking Hats tool is a powerful technique to empower team members to move away from habitual thinking and towards a more holistic view of a situation.
Norming
In this phase, team members start to resolve their differences and responsibilities are clear and accepted. There is a level of comfort amongst the team and they may begin socializing with each other. Because there is often a prolonged overlap between storming and norming, when new tasks are added or additional complexities evolve, the team may lapse back into behavior from the storming phase.
During norming, leaders shift from commanding the team, to facilitating team success by leveraging individual strengths and flexing their leadership style to meet the needs of the individuals.
Team members start to develop a stronger commitment to the team goal.
Tip 3: Compassionate Pivot (suggestion: Inspire Your Team to Believe in the Mission)
The Head, Heart, and Hands (3H) approach to motivate action suggests that we must understand our why (head), tap into the emotions needed (heart) to perform (hands). A team will not move into the performing phase until their heads and hearts are aligned with the mission or greater purpose. As a leader, how do you align the heads and heart of your team members to inspire action during such a stressful time?
Reach deep into the depths of your being, detach from your ego, and think of yourself as a vehicle to inspire. With Servant Leadership in mind, there is no space for the “I” because the “WE” is required. Leading with a compassionate heart will model the behavior you want to infuse throughout your team.
During this tumultuous time, there may be deliverables that fall to the side, because life (taking care of family obligations) or death (dealing with the loss of loved ones) has taken over. As a compassionate leader, rolling up your sleeves to help out with any pieces that need attending will surely elicit the same response among team members. The mantra becomes, “WE will do whatever it takes to get the job done and help each other in the process.”
Performing
At this stage, team members have a high degree of autonomy. Team members look out for and after each other.
Once the team is performing the leader’s role is to delegate and fend off distractions like organizational politics.
On virtual teams, it’s easy to slip out of this stage and revert back to earlier stages because people may struggle with communication.
Tip 4: Virtual Compassionate Pivot (suggestion: Loosen Your Definition of ‘Professionalism’)
We are working, sleeping, eating, and spending time with ourselves and our family all in one place 100% of the time. Because work and home life are intertwined in a way we have never experienced, it’s the right time for once separate arenas of ‘personal’ and ‘professional’ to merge and become part of the whole-self conversation. Offer virtual office hours for team members to regularly and frequently check-in with any professional or personal struggles.
If you do not feel comfortable listening to or dealing with your team members’ personal issues, find someone internally or externally that is equipped to coach on mental well-being, resilience, and stress management.
Adjourning / Mourning
This phase was later added in 1977 and can take many forms. A project can end, a new team member is introduced into the mix, project teams exist only for a fixed time, or teams are disbanded through organizational restructuring.
Whatever form the adjourning phase takes, it can be challenging for team members who have developed close working relationships with each other.
Individuals who struggle with change or uncertainty of the future can be particularly distressed in this phase.
Tip 5: Creative Virtual Pivot (suggestion: End Each Project with a Rite of Passage)
As we collectively mourn the loss of our world Pre-Pandemic, we are also in this stage of team development mourning the loss of what was. What was once comfort, routine, and even predictable is no longer available. As a leader, consider creative alternatives allowing for a safe space to mourn the loss of the past, provide closure, and celebrate the success of team accomplishments.
Consider ending the project with a virtual gathering where you share a meal, lessons learned, and acknowledge and praise individual successes and team contribution. If you are feeling exceptionally creative, you can even create take-away mementos.
Takeaway
This is no doubt one of the most collectively challenging times of our era. We have all gone through individual struggles and have pushed through. Now, we must come together and push through this collective struggle.
We have all been impacted by Covid-19 and my intention of this article was to provide a more mindful compassionate approach to managing your team. If you are interested in group facilitated training for your team or individual coaching in the areas of mental well-being, NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) or leadership development, please email neelu@neelukaur.com. Also, please leave any thoughts and ideas you have that could potentially assist other leaders that are struggling to manage their teams in this 100% virtual arena.