Hi Mathias! 

I’m responsible for all the teams and their leaders in my country. One team, currently without a lead, is struggling, so I’m managing them temporarily.

In a recent retrospective, we identified that members weren’t really working as a team. As you might expect, the team’s motivation is pretty low, and so is their performance.

Discussing these issues openly is a good first step – at least everyone understands the current situation. However, I’d like to ensure that they’re set up for the long term. Do you have any suggestions on what I can do to improve the situation?

— Kamon

Hi Kamon,

That team sounds like it’s in a really tough spot. It’ll take time and a joint effort to heal and get back on a more productive track.

What this team needs the most right now is to rebuild trust.

Trust is characterized by an open flow of communication. Everyone’s providing, accepting, and incorporating feedback freely. Everyone has a chance to speak up in discussion. Whenever there’s a problem, folks feel comfortable bringing it up while others feel equally comfortable jumping in to help. Decisions are being made, not in isolation, but with different perspectives being heard. Information, like status updates, what’s being worked on, and what has been shipped, is flowing openly and without anyone having to ask. People feel comfortable discussing anything and everything.

Studies have shown that a key differentiator of high-performing teams is psychological safety, which requires trust in each other and leadership. While you can hope that each individual will change their behaviors following your first retrospective, without a clear shared direction of what the ideal behaviors look like, everyone may either continue what they’ve been doing so far or only change their behavior when they see others do that too.

Build a set of shared expectations

Start a discussion with the team about what behaviors and practices should look like. Your first retrospective has already kickstarted this process and can help highlight which areas need a healthier approach. The outcome of this conversation can manifest as a set of values, tenets, or guiding principles that the team creates and commits to.

In these discussions, make sure that everyone speaks up. Have the group take turns and say what they would like to see from everyone else and what they are willing to commit to. It may be uncomfortable at first, but you want to avoid people just nodding along, not knowing whether they will adopt or resent the changes.

When you reach an agreement on what your new agreements will look like, write them down. Then everyone can adhere to these behaviors. If you find someone not wanting to do this, ask them why. If they’re not comfortable speaking up in the group, you can check in with them in your 1:1s. If they are pessimistic about the changes, ask them what they would be willing to try instead. This may be a process of working with several folks individually to understand their still-looming concerns and to gauge commitment.

In the end, these expectations won’t yield any results without the whole team saying yes and signing their name on them.

Turn expectations into everyday habits

Putting the written behaviors into practice requires overcoming the challenge of group inertia. 

Habits are hard to break out of. A list of expectations, values, or guiding principles can be a great starting point, but it can be difficult for folks to understand how they translate into their work.

To get the ball rolling, discuss specific changes in behavior you all want to try over a period of time – whether that be one to three weeks. As you choose how long you want to try these changes, keep in mind that the longer they run, the likelier it is for people to fall back on old behaviors. With shorter and smaller experiments, it’s easier to find out if an experiment worked out as expected and adjust the course if it didn’t.

Team habits can be any agreed-upon experiment. You might pair up for an hour daily with different partners, hold show-and-tell meetings to present ongoing work, or merge and ship code more frequently. The smaller these experiments are, the easier it’ll be to convince people to try them out. Every single change keeps nudging the group’s inertia out of the picture.

Create more touchpoints

From your message, it seems that your first retrospective was a success. It may very well have been the first in a long time that the team could talk openly. Keep these going. They can serve as regular touchpoints to review how the team has been doing on its path to recovery. Focus on what’s working as well as what isn’t yet. 

It’s helpful for the team (and you!) to understand when things are actually improving. Your list of shared expectations can serve as a guide as to whether the expectations are being met or improved. Praise and appreciation can be incredible motivators, use them to spur the team forward. 

Consider additional touchpoints to foster team bonding and celebrate achievements, such as weekly show-and-tell, learning sessions, or donut meetings. Don’t overwhelm them with too many of these at once, but encourage regular communication to break down walls and build appreciation for individual and team contributions.

Continuous improvement

As you go through these motions, focus on small wins and continuous improvement rather than big changes. Trust takes a long time to rebuild. The more you involve your team in the changes you make, the higher the likelihood you’ll succeed in the long run. 

As such, your efforts are more likely to succeed when you ensure that actions follow words. Whatever changes the team decides to make, ensure those actually happen. If the team comes out of each retrospective with a list of improvements that never come to pass, they’ll retreat behind their walls again.