Icebreakers don’t build teams.  That’s why you can’t get enough of them. 

Word Count: 657

Reading Time: 2.5 mins

 “You can’t get enough of what you really want.”

–Author Unknown

“We want to do some team-building over our 3-day meeting. We’ve allowed 20 minutes for that. How about an icebreaker?”

I hear this a lot, and although I’m sympathetic about time constraints, I’m not encouraging.  The truth?  Using icebreakers as a team-building Hail-Mary Play doesn’t work.

Because icebreakers don’t build teams. They don’t break down silos. Icebreakers do not, in fact, break ice.

Asking an icebreaker to do any of these things is folly.   Even worse:  Planning a moment of group enlightenment that will finally, finally, finally make the team function as though they are a single unit is…how can I say this?  It’s mental.  Madness.  Utter lunacy.  This extends to the longer team-building activity that is expected to create intimate and resilient bonds amongst co-workers who may not even like each other.

This takes me back to an outdoor team-building activity I was in:  The log walk.  I topple off balance beams, even when they are lying on the ground, as this one was.  (Just typing the word “balance beam” makes me feel unsteady, and I’m sitting down.) When I looked like I was about to fall off the “log”and screw up the team score, one of the Directors reached out her hand to me and I grabbed on.  But it was our eye contact that steadied me.  And it changed our relationship completely, just like these intense team-building activities are supposed to do:  I’d have trusted her with my life after that, and smiled warmly at her when I saw her at work, which felt good.

So far, so good.  The problem?  It was impossible to translate that good feeling into workplace effectiveness.  There was too much in our way:

1. No one else on the team had that experience with her, so they continued to distrust her and talk badly about her behind her back.

2.  This isolated me from my peers, because, when I defended her, they started mistrusting me.

3. Eventually, our connection backfired, because this director needed to be seen as interacting with everyone equally.  Our bond became politically dangerous and awkward.  We’d spent 3 days at an offsite creating that.

Another problem with this just-add-water, instant-intimacy approach to team-building is one of calibration.  It’s hard to know how much togetherness a team can handle.  Artificial, intense experiences do not build resilient, enduring relationships.  It only feels like they do.   Some of your team may find a big slug of togetherness too much to assimilate, while others thrive on it and are profoundly affected.   Can your group build deep bonds out of this difference or will it splinter them?  It’s enough to make you ignore team-building altogether.

Which would be sad.  It’s better to remember the two cardinal rules of workplace intimacy:

1. Intimacy you can trust is intimacy that matches the context.

Teams exist to get work done, not to heal your childhood wounds.  So, what use can we make of icebreakers?  They are great warm-up exercises to help people arrive in the here and now, and learn about each other in tiny, bite-sized pieces.  Tiny pieces they can digest without choking.

Peak emotional experiences are hard to sustain for the same reason a boa constrictor can’t move after swallowing a pig:  Digesting takes center-stage, rather than chugging along in the background.

2. Intimacy is like sweat:  It’s the by-product of hard work, not its focus.

And, like building muscle, strengthening your team is happens in tiny increments over time, not in a single event.

You can build your team by the way you do you work, without adding any time or heavy loads of indigestible intimacy.  This works better than a 10 minute, lively and participatory icebreaker followed by 50 minutes of presentations that promote passivity and the lopsided involvement of open discussions.

I’ll list tips for how to do this in next week’s Collaboration Genius.

Word Count: 727

Reading Time: About 3 minutes

Welcome to the leader’s dilemma:  Staying open to input without dying from all those tiny cuts.

+  +  +  +  +

Leader:   “It’s time to plan the annual Christmas party.  Where would you like to go?”

Staff 1:  “Can we really afford to do this?’

Staff 1:  “I want to have a Hawaiian theme this year.”

Staff 4:  “I don’t have any Hawaiian shirts.”

Staff 2:  “I don’t like Hawaiian food.”

Staff 3: “I love the music though.”

Staff 5: “If we’re going to do a Christmas party, I want to veto country-western music.”

Staff 6:  “Can we have a dunk tank?”

Staff 7:  “I want to bring my family this year.”

Staff 2 to leader: “We’re discussing the Christmas party and you’re looking at your Blackberry.”

Leader: “Sorry about that.  Have you decided where you want to go?”

+ + + + +

Is it any wonder the leader reaches for her Blackberry as soon as she can?   She opens a conversation, knowing she needs input.  But the conversation like being stabbed with 1000 tiny knives:  an irrelevant comment, a complaint, a suggestion from left field, everybody has their agenda to advance.  It’s no surprise that an open discussion goes this badly:  Groups don’t do well with so little structure, and leaders are exhausted by the amount of complaining they are subjected to.

The surprising thing is that this despair-inducing volley continues to play out in meeting after meeting when there are much more effective choices.

Let’s replay this with a more skillful approach from both the whine-resistant leader and the complaining staff.

+  +  +  +  +

Leader:  “It’s time to plan the annual Christmas party.  Is everybody willing to spend the next 20 minutes agreeing on a venue an approach?

Staff 1:  “I can spend 20 mins on this, but no more.  Let’s go.”

Staff 2:  Me too.”

Staff 3-6:  <head nods>

Leader:  “Staff 1, can you watch the time for us?  Thanks.  Let’s start by looking at the plus-delta list from last year:

Pluses:

• The DJ was very popular
• The food was great
• The location was convenient

Deltas:

• Can we bring spouses?
• The music was too loud
• Can it be shorter?
• Can we skip the speeches?

Leader:  “Can someone summarize the themes for us?”

Staff 3: “A speech-free dinner with our spouses and some eclectic, quiet music.  Good food in an easy-to-get-to location.”

Staff 2:  “I also hear we shouldn’t structure it and we should keep it short.”

Leader: “What else?”

<silence>

Leader: “Do you want to add anything to the list for this year?”

Staff 5: “Can we go back to the same place?  The food was fantastic!”

Leader: “Here’s the trade-off:  If we include spouses, we’ll need to go someplace less expensive.  How shall we decide which is most important?”

Staff 1:  “That’s a tough one.”

Staff 6: “Can we ask employees to pay for their spouses dinner, or drinks, or something to defray the expense of bringing a spouse?  I’d hate to penalize single employees by going to a lesser restaurant.”

Staff 1: “We’re at 15 minutes.”

Staff 4:  “How about we ask for some hard numbers so we can make an informed decision?  How many spouses would be coming, what is the cost per person, what was the alcohol tab from last year.”

Staff 3: “How much would we save at a less expensive restaurant.”

Staff 5:  “I like that approach.”

<pause>

Leader:  “Excellent.  I’ll ask Admin 1 to get this for to us for next week’s meeting.  Thanks everyone.”

Staff 1:  “18 minutes.”

Leader:  “Thanks, Staff 1.  Well done, team.”

+ + + + +

Staff:  You don’t have to fawn over your leader.  Just help them get their decisions made. Help them help you.

Leaders:  You don’t have to let every discussion go free.   You don’t have to let any of them go free.  Using a meeting process like plus-delta, starting a conversation with brief, relevant data, asking for help, and keeping your group tightly focused on achieving a result are all welcome.

And here’s a tip for both staff and leaders:

When every option is met with an objection or criticism, it sucks the energy from the room.  Instead, ask each objector for a suggestion.

Even better, make “If you oppose, you must propose” a standing ground rule, and watch your leader put away that Blackberry.

Screen-sharing is to productivity like kryptonite is to Superman.  Here’s how to beat it.

Word Count:  693

Reading Time:  1.6 minutes

It’s my first meeting with screen-sharing and I don’t know what to expect.

I’m watching someone mouse around a powerpoint deck as a colleague talks me through the day-long training we will soon be leading.  My colleague interrupts himself frequently to redirect the person handling the mouse.  My attention switches from watching the torturous progress of the cursor across the screen, listening to my colleague talk, and my own internal dialog, which sounds like this:  “There must be very few slides if he’s going into this much detail now.  This is just a prelude to the meeting, right?  Just some tiny adjustments before we get into what we said we’d do.”

Nope.  By the time I see there are 96 slides, the meeting is almost over and we haven’t accomplished any of our stated outcomes.

Meanwhile, the meeting slows to the speed of one person editing while another types.  I am being driven mad by the movements of mouse and cursor. I can feel my brain begin to stutter; hear my sentences becoming fragmented.   My interest in the meeting has turned into a fierce need to do something, anything else.  My mind runs for cover.

“What do you think, Liz, are there any slides we should eliminate?”

I try to answer, but my brain cannot come up with a sentence.  My mouth opens and no sound comes out.  Part of me thinks this is funny.  Part of me is worried about disappointing my colleague.  Another part of me wonders if this is what it’s like to have a stroke.   Which snaps me out of my torpor.

“My brain just locked up and I can’t answer that question.

“Oh.  Er…”  Silence.

“Jimbob, I can’t form an opinion about goes or stays without seeing an agenda with times.  And I’ll need to be able to page through the deck myself so I can match it to the times in the agenda.  Then I can answer your question.”

There is an ocean of silence on the phone.  When it ends, I’ve been promised both documents.  We schedule another screen-sharing session which scares me, because screen-sharing seems to affect my brain the way kryptonite affects Superman.

The screen-sharing meeting minus the kryptonite effect

This next meeting starts like the last one.  The horrible melting sensation in my brain kicks in the minute the mouse begins to meander across the screen, but this time I’m ready.  I announce that I’ll be using my own copy of the deck; could everyone please call out page numbers so we can stay in synch?

Which brings me to the first law of screen-sharing:  Get all documents ahead of time.

There is silence, which I interrupt by confirming our meeting outcomes and starting to drive through the agenda, eliciting feedback and getting agreement as we go.  I am going at the speed of thought, which is light-years faster than the speed of watching someone type.  With only 3 days before I am to deliver this material, I do not have time for the speed of typing.

The second law of screen-sharing is this:  Move at the speed of agreement, not the speed of typing.

That’s when Jimbo says to his assistant: “Maybe you should take notes and correct the slides later.”

Well, yes.

The third law of screen-sharing is:  Do not write in groups.   Ever. 

Group writing is not improved by technology.  It will always be a travesty to waste        expensive, high-leverage group time that way.   Instead, capture group feedback and assign someone to wordsmith the document later.

Back at the screen-sharing meeting, we accomplish our meeting outcomes and I close the meeting early.

The fourth rule of screen-sharing undergirds all the others:  Commit to meeting outcomes rather than meeting activities. 

When you’ve gotten the result you were after, stop.  Most meetings drag on because groups get bogged down in finishing an activity long after the flavor has gone out of the gum.   I’ve been in meetings where everyone was so focused on finishing the activity, they didn’t notice they’d already achieved their outcome!  Define the end point and drive to it.

Have a different experience of screen-sharing?  Tell me about it in the comments.

Think doing great work isn’t enough?  You’re right.

 Word Count: 695

Reading time:  1.5 minutes

When chemists at Proctor and Gamble created Febreze, they were thrilled.  Their invention eliminated even the most noxious odors which they’d proved by testing it on a Park Service Ranger.  Before Febreze, the ranger’s skin, clothes and car all reeked of skunk and her entire social life had to be conducted over the phone.  After Febreze, her friends came over in droves.  To the Ranger, Febreze was a miracle. Febreze was expected to be a runaway success.  But Febreze did not sell.

Focus groups confirmed that the product worked perfectly:  Before Febreze, maximum stinkiness; after Febreze, nothing.  Everyone agreed it worked as advertised.

And that was the problem.  One participant said, “After I’ve done all that work to clean the house, I want to know that I’ve done something.  I want the house to smell clean.”

It wasn’t enough to have a clean house. It wasn’t enough to make the stale, bad smells go away.  It never is.

It’s never enough to complete the task, even when you knock it out of the park.

It’s not really finished until it’s celebrated, acknowledged, noticed.  And that means noticing people and what they contributed.

The scientists went back to the lab and added scent to Febreze, and the product sold briskly.  The scent didn’t make the product work any better.  The scent let people know that they’d made a difference.

How important is acknowledgement?

In Mexican culture, there are 3 levels of death:   When your body quits is the first death.  When your body is buried or cremated is the second death.  The third death is when people stop remembering and telling stories about you.

Death isn’t final until your contribution goes unacknowledged.

In meetings, at work, all day, long we kill people’s spirits by refusing to offer simple, gracious acknowledgement of what they contribute.  We injure our own natural kindness by not looking for those stories to tell, by being driven by the clock, the calendar, by urgency that is nothing more than an invention, by the terror that comes with trying and failing and trying again.

Let’s stop that.

In Mexican culture, they set aside a day a year to remember the dead and tell their stories.  All I’m asking of you is 3-5 minutes at the end of every meeting.

What this isn’t

This is not 3-5 minutes of “Kum-ba-yah.”  It’s not a speed bump on the road to accomplishing a task.  And it is most certainly not a way to make a public, uneasy peace with people who are not performing in their jobs, nor is it a consensus activity where we all agree.  It’s an acknowledgement activity disguised as a list.

How the “Plus-Delta” evaluation works

1. Make two lists on a flipchart or whiteboard.  On the first list write what worked well about the meeting or interaction.  This is the “plus” list.  Ask the group for suggestions before adding your own.  List fast using partial sentences or single words, clarify only, don’t argue and let the accomplishments register in your body.

2. The “Delta” list  is a list of what your group wants to change for next time. (A delta is the mathematical symbol for change) Asking for changes rather than complaints (or “minuses”) is how you get away from listening to people complain about something in the past that you can’t change, which is as exhausting as it is pointless.  You want to know what to change so you can all change it, not get saddled with someone’s orphaned discontent.

3.  Review each list, then promise to make the changes you can and acknowledge those you can’t.  Bring the list to the next meeting and review it when you open the meeting.

In my experience, when people can see how they’ve contributed, many icky behaviors simply disappear. It’s not necessary to gamify the workplace, to up the stakes continually, to bribe people to bring their best to a task.

We all want to be part of a story that never ends.  Acknowledgement does that.