Teamwork (Solving Real Problems)

I recently saw another LinkedIn post on teamwork, and although it was a great start, I noticed just how much is left out in many of these teamwork guides. The biggest and most commonly glossed over phrase: “Identify skills and assign people appropriately”.

If you happen to have a diverse set of skilled people, each one fitting into the right spot in a project, buy yourself a lottery ticket. If those people also just so happen to want to do those jobs, I’ll buy that ticket off you for 10x its price. Those teams rarely need your help, and will often self-organize and distribute the work naturally. It’s far more common to have unbalanced or unmotivated teams that you have to make due with. Tell me if this sounds familiar: You need 3 mechanical engineers to work on one project. You ask for volunteers for the first two sections, and everybody raises their hands excitedly. You ask about the third, and the room goes silent. Nobody raises a hand, and everyone is looking around at each other and avoiding eye contact. Now what?

When no other option is available, you may be forced to order someone to do it. “I understand this is tedious and boring, but John, I’m going to ask you to help out on this one. It would mean a great deal to the team if you could do this, and I would really appreciate your skills.” It’s quick, simple, and if you word your request correctly, it makes the point to everyone else that the person doing the job is valuable and that you appreciate and understand that it’s not pleasant. When time is short, sometimes you need to step up and make a choice, then trust that others will follow you. This sort of decision making does make others feel less appreciated, even if you use flowery words and uplifting phrases. If you have to tell someone to act, try to reward the person afterwords and give the person every tool you can to make the project more successful. Additionally, recognize people who take on these tasks publicly. People are far more willing to obey an order if proper recognition is provided later.

What about drawing lots? It’s fair, right? Fun fact: nothing in statistics is perfectly uniform. Assigning tasks randomly will inevitably result in one person being assigned those tasks more often than others, and someone else with fewer. Random assignments are also hard to prove, and some people will seek out possible explanations as for why you ‘rigged’ something, even if it’s truly random. It’s far more advisable to rotate people in an alphabetical list which is clear and easy to validate. It also helps people to plan ahead for tough tasks. One location I worked at required help testing machines, and a rotating schedule was made so everyone knew in advance when the requests would be made. This allowed the workers to swap tasks on occasion, and helped prevent people from being overburdened with critical tasks while being pulled away from their desks.

Another option is bargaining. If a task is especially tedious, but not time sensitive, think about options such as allowing the person to take longer breaks, work from home, or leave early while on that assignment. If significant overtime is required for a task, consider offering a few extra days of leave after the task is complete, or in the case of a group, offer to buy dinner for the team. Even something as small as offering lunch or giving public recognition can make people feel better when working on tasks that are not enjoyable. Different people have different goals, and sometimes finding and providing something specific to that goal can result in people volunteering for tasks that are otherwise avoided. Be thoughtful if you bargain, however. The goal of a manager is to make the project successful. Going too far and offering too much can result in equal if not greater losses than you may have started out with. Balance what you supply with the required demand for the work that needs to be done. Additionally, be careful that you do not act beyond your position nor play favorites. “Trading favors” is a dangerous practice that leads many to ruin, so it’s best if you can find a few simple rewards that everyone can agree are appropriate, and never do so in secret. If in doubt, get approval from someone above you first. Your boss should also want you to be successful, and may even be willing to approve extra spending budget for food or such for especially difficult assignments.

Lastly, ask for help. Everywhere I have worked, I have seen at some point in time or another a project that just didn’t go as planned. Perhaps additional design work was needed, or the customer made a change late into development. There was one time when Solid’Works’ simply overwrote everything that my manager was working on (and no, it could not be checked in in advance) and destroyed several weeks of research design. It happens. Ask for help, be it additional team members, more time, or a reevaluation of the project budget. A problem caught early can be fixed or worked around, but one hidden until the due date will cost significantly more time and money in addition to the work that already needs to be done to fix the issues. Consider a project with a budget of 1000 work hours scheduled at 5 hours per day and a team of 10 people for a projected duration of 20 days. An unforeseen issue requires an additional 200 work hours to remedy half way through design. If that problem is caught early, it may be possible to request an additional 4 team members for help from projects ahead of schedule at the same 5 hour per day estimate to keep this project on schedule. If it’s not caught until the due date, the project will be late, and without additional support, the 10 team members (if producing 5 effective hours per day) will require 4 more days to finish the project, a 20% increase in the duration and cost, not to mention disruption to future project that must be pushed back, and decreased rapport with the customer (which is priceless). If those 4 members are added for the 10 day duration, you would still expect an increased cost of 20%, but the project will be on time.

In conclusion, be creative with the methods you use to manage people in subpar situations. Be fair and transparent, reward people appropriately for the work that is done, and be ready to stand firm and make a clear decision when you must. If you find that a project has issues, request help. Solving problems is your job, not covering up problems. As a side note, get out on the floor when you can, ask people how they feel about the work, and provide solutions to problems. When you show that you are willing to go the extra mile for each person on your team, you will find that most will be much more willing to do the same when you need help in turn. The leader is usually the core of the team, so set a good example and mindset for other to follow.

Some additional topics of discussion:

What other methods would you consider when nobody wants to perform a task?

What’s the worst thing that happened where you work, and what got the project back on track?

How would you word a request to your boss asking for more people, time, or budget?