Ever noticed that you’ve become a bottleneck for decision making, or that all team communication seems to need to come from you?
Do you feel like you’re the focal point of your team, ferrying messages from one person to the other?
It could be that your team is lacking connection.
Not necessarily connection with you – with each other.
Building stronger team connections can be the way to reduce reliance on you as the leader, and to help team members hold each other accountable.
What does having stronger team connections mean?
Stronger team connections mean that there are bonds between the people in the team.
They know things about each other, including how they like to work, their personality and even some of their personal stories, outside of work.
This includes strengths and weaknesses, what makes them angry or happy, and the best way to communicate with them.
Ultimately, what we want is for people in the team to care about each other.
Not in an over-the-top, “We’re a family!” kind of way.
But to feel connected enough to want to help, or at least care enough not to want to hurt the other people in the team.
Has connection decreased in society in general?
Years ago, I moved from Perth to Sydney in Australia. Sydney was much bigger, more densely populated and busier.
Something I immediately noticed was that people didn’t greet each other in the street, unless they already knew them.
In my home town (which wasn’t tiny by any means), people in my neighbourhood used to say hello when they walked past, even if they didn’t know who you were exactly.
I feel there is generally less consideration for other people in the street, or in traffic.
To some degree it feels like an “every person for themselves” mentality.
It’s every person for themselves, except when there is connection.
We are much more forgiving with people we are connected to. If someone cuts us off in traffic, it can make us angry.
“Stupid idiot!”, we might shout.
What if you found out that the person who cut you off in traffic was a family friend? You might be much more forgiving.
“They must be in a rush.”
When I’m playing basketball, sometimes players get in little confrontations due to a hard foul or some other indiscretion.
It’s easy to walk away from these games thinking the other party is a terrible person.
But sometimes, I end up meeting these nasty, horrible players outside of the game, and we strike up a conversation.
They end up seeming much less horrible than when we did battle on the court.
Why?
It’s because they’ve become people, not just strangers.
That’s what we want to build in your team.
Because your team members aren’t likely to do harm to people they feel connected with.
They might even help them.
How do stronger team connections help leaders?
What I notice when I’m working with some leaders is that they tend to be the centre point of the team.
Like a bicycle wheel – they are the hub in the middle, and the team members are the spokes.
Notice that the spokes are connected to each other through the hub, not directly to each other.
In a practical sense, this sometimes means that team members will expect you to communicate for them.
Recently one of my clients was speaking about a situation where someone in their team was unhappy with one of their team mates.
Instead of speaking to them directly, they wanted my client (the manager) to address it with their colleague.
It could be that this team member didn’t feel comfortable or safe speaking to their colleague about the issue, and often this is due to a lack of connection and trust.
In high-performing teams, team members hold each other accountable. It isn’t just the leader doing all that work.
But with a lack of connection between team members, this is likely to feel awkward and unsafe. Only when there is connection is there a chance that these conversations will occur in a constructive way.
To put it simply: Stronger team connections mean less involvement is needed from you.
Learn More: Is a Lack of Trust Ruining Your Team? Here’s 3 Ways to Fix It.
How to build stronger team connections
There are a few ways I recommend to build stronger team connections, and the basic premise is simple.
You want these people to get to know each other better.
But I’m not talking about shooting each other with paintballs or drinking at the pub.
While these things can help, they often don’t build real connection.
Connection means knowing each other, and you don’t get to know each other by shooting someone in the face with a paintball, no matter how much fun it might be.
And the problem with the pub is that it doesn’t really suit a lot of people. Many people don’t drink alcohol, and they don’t really like the busy pub environment either. That could mean that some people feel excluded from that type of event.
So by all means, keep up the social drinks, the morning teas and other social gatherings, but don’t expect them to build connection.
Often these types of events are filled with surface-level small talk, which never really goes deeper than that.
Here are some focused strategies to help build the connections to a little bit of a deeper level, without being super cringey.
Option 1: Simple connection activities
I love using these connection activities during training and workshops. They’re simple, and perfect for people who know each other a little, but not a lot.
You can use these at the start of meetings, especially if you want people to speak up during the meeting.
I’ve found that doing these activities at the start of workshops helps people to contribute more during the workshop itself, because they have already opened up beforehand.
Note that some of your team members might feel embarrassed or uncomfortable with these activities, even though they aren’t really that hard or scary.
That tells you something in itself – that maybe, they could benefit from feeling more connection with their peers.
Try these out, and use them in moderation – don’t do them in every meeting, because it’ll become stale pretty fast! Use them sparingly but be sure to throw them in every so often.
A) The photo reel
Everyone has a phone these days, and most people take photos on them. This one is simple.
Tell everyone to open their phone, and go to the most recent work-appropriate picture in their gallery. Then, everyone in the team tells a little story about that photo.
As the leader, you go first, to demonstrate what you mean and to show that you’re willing to be vulnerable too.
B) The name
This one is similar, but doesn’t require any tools or gadgets. The prompt is simple:
Everyone tells a story about their name.
That’s it.
When I do this one, I often tell the story that my name is the most boring name out of my brothers and sisters, because I think my parents ran out of steam when they had me (I’m the youngest).
The story can be funny, like when someone doesn’t pronounce a name properly – or it can be a little history of the name.
Don’t give the group any rules, just get them to think of something. Usually it works well, because everyone has a name, and they’ve been living with it for years!
C) The keys
Most people have a key ring where they have their house and car keys. Once again, the prompt is simple:
Tell a story about something on your key ring.
It might be a car key, or some sort of ornament someone picked up on holiday.
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What you might notice about all of these is that they encourage personal sharing. Everyone gives (and gets) a little insight into who they are as a person, without needing to divulge any deep, dark secrets.
Over time, people start to see the others in the team as people, not just random colleagues.
Option 2: Get different people to work together
Often in teams there are people who work together closely, and others who work more independently.
This is often because people have different roles, and some roles work more closely together than others.
So in this option, try to pair up some people to work together on a little project or assignment, that don’t usually need to work together.
This helps them to learn about each other’s working styles and how to collaborate better. And over the course of the project, they’ll get to know each other.
Option 3: Switch up the seating
Many teams have dedicated desks where they sit permanently when they’re physically in the same location.
This is nice, but it does create a stale dynamic, where the same people sit next to each other and therefore, build the most connection through conversation.
From time to time it can be good to shuffle things around, to get different people talking.
Over time, you’ll find that people will naturally talk to people they don’t normally associate with, because they are suddenly sitting closer to each other.
It’s simple, but it can change the dynamic.
Option 4: Use psychometric tools
Personality tools like DISC, PRINT or other psychometric assessments can be a great way to get people talking and find out how they operate.
These tools can be helpful for building connection and give an insight about their working style.
Of course, they are just a guide, and we need to be careful not to “pigeon-hole” people into a certain category. But they can help people to work and communicate better with each other.
Learn More: Self Assessment Tools: How to Get the Most Out of Them.
Build connection to build consideration
We want team members to consider the perspectives and feelings of others.
And a good way for this to happen is to start building connections between team members.
After all, we’re less likely to ignore or harm someone when we have a personal connection. We’re much more likely to show some consideration.
This helps your team to hold each other accountable, and puts less of the burden on you to control the flow all the time.
What will you do to build stronger connections in your team? Let me know in the comments below!
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