Issue 29: How your team collaborates depends on these 2 things
Published about 16 hours ago • 3 min read
The [un]common stuff that lives between strategy and execution, that teams don’t talk about.
Your first read every Wednesday morning, meant to be applied and forwarded.
In an ideal world, we talk about collaboration as the gold standard. In practice, it’s a lot more nuanced than “everyone works nicely together.” When the rubber hits the road, collaboration asks a lot more of us.
Think about a familiar internal negotiation: 1 budget and 2 teams that need more of it. It could just as easily be 1 role, 1 shared resource, 1 deadline, or 2 priorities that both matter.
Most of us weigh how we engage based on 2 things: how much the relationship matters to us, and how high the stakes are.
We recently worked through this with a team using a simplified adaptation of the Thomas-Kilmann conflict model.
Adapted from the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model
Sometimes we don’t consciously choose to compete, avoid, agree, or collaborate. We read the situation, decide what feels at risk, and move into a response before we’ve even noticed we’ve done it.
The most useful part of this particular debrief was hearing people get specific about where they tend to go, what pulls them there, and what changes their response. This team noticed they’d often agree in the room, then go back to competing for resources once they left it.
None of those responses are automatically wrong, sometimes:
The issue isn’t worth the energy
Moving forward matters more than getting your preferred outcome
You need to defend what your part of the business needs above all else
When both the relationship and the outcome matter enough, teams tend to stay in the tension and work through it together...again...in an ideal world. But guess what?! We're human and rarely do we live in this ideal state.
What helped most with this team was talking about what shifts them:
What happens when the stakes suddenly get higher
When a relationship (internal or external) feels at risk
Or when pressure from outside the room starts influencing how they show up inside it
Without that context, we tend to interpret behaviour personally: they’re being difficult, they don’t care, they’re trying to win. Often, what you’re seeing is someone protecting what they believe is at risk.
Here's what you can do with your team:
Talk about our predispositions before the pressure hits
Where do I tend to go when the stakes rise?
What happens to me when I think the relationship is at risk?
What makes it easier for me to stay in a collaborative conversation?
What do I need from the people around me when I’m under pressure?
When you’re in the middle of it, ask:
What am I trying to protect?
What are they trying to protect?
Is the way I’m responding helping us get where we need to go?
If you lead the leaders
When teams agree in the room and compete once they’ve left it, the decision usually wasn’t as settled as it looked. It shows up later as relitigated priorities, quiet workarounds and escalations landing back on your desk.
Before your next planning conversation, ask each leader what they’re most worried about losing, and outline plainly which priority wins when 2 of them collide. Teams compete hardest for resources when nobody has told them how the trade-offs will be made.
The goal is to know when to avoid, agree, compete or collaborate, and to make that choice intentionally instead of falling into your default. How we function together should shift as the situation shifts, and the more aware we are of those shifts, the less time we spend misreading each other.
WORK WITH THE VENNED GROUP
How people relate to each other changes what they achieve together.
Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways we can help:
1. Get The Pressure Map
16 questions to bring to your next leadership meeting, so your team stops misreading each other when the stakes rise. Send me the Pressure Map →
2. Book a 20-minute conversation
We’ll look at where the human dynamics on your team are costing you time and revenue, and you’ll leave with a clear next step, whether or not we end up working together. Find a time →
3. Bring us in for your leadership team
If you’re planning an offsite, an end-to-end leadership program or want to explore our S.P.A.R.K. Assessment this quarter, tell us what you’re working toward, and we’ll put options together. Request a proposal →
Not your call to make? Forward this to someone on your leadership team with your recommendation on one of the above.
Talk soon,
Kendra
P.S. Where do you, personally, tend to land when the stakes rise? Out of pure curiosity, vote below:
Where do you, personally, tend to land when the stakes rise?
