My Personal Experience Leading High-Performance Teams

In 2021 I accepted the challenge of leading a superb team of data scientists. Just before beginning my duties, I was agonizing over a persistent imposter syndrome that invaded me. I got into a coaching program to prepare myself to take on this responsibility. On the day of my first meeting with the team I got one of the warmest welcomes that I could hope for. I was truly grateful that I was blessed with this opportunity. I did not know it then, but this was going to be one of the most significant experiences in my career — until everything abruptly ended.

What I did right

Rehire your employees

One of my best learnings that I employed was to rehire my team. This means that, although they were already hired, I would involve myself with them as if they were new recruits. I asked them personal questions, about their family, their hobbies, their passions and preferences. This allowed me to get to know each one on my team in a more profound way. I even asked how they preferred their coffee, so that I could surprise them one day. That day sadly never came. More on that later.

Team roles

The team roles test is an assessment tool that shows which type of team member a person is. According to the research done by Dr. Meredith Belbin, in a team, people adopt either action-oriented, thought-oriented, or people-oriented roles. There are three roles for each group for a total of nine roles. The best outcome is when teams are balanced in their roles, which means that there is enough role diversity and therefore few or no roles are more than once in a team. It makes sense, because when all in the team are action-oriented, everyone will be executing but no one will be planning. If everyone is thought-oriented, you can imagine… It was little surprise that many in my team were thought-oriented. Luckily, their teams were balanced enough.

You can take a team roles test here and read about the roles here. Since the word "Belbin" is copyrighted, the exact team role names cannot be used without infringing the rights of the holder, so you need to figure out the equivalent names. If you need to be sure about the role names, just send me a message with your email and I will be glad to send a handy equivalent role names table.

Stabilizing the weakest team

In one of my teams, four people resigned in four months, including their team leader. I became head of their team during the crisis (in addition to my management role). We held daily 15-minute meetings to go through pending items, and we also dedicated one hour every friday to reflect on the achievements and share knowledge. Although it was one of the most intense efforts that I have ever made, it also paid off immensely. After adjusting salaries, filling the empty positions and promoting one of the team members to team lead, they became the most cohesive, engaged and happy group of people that I could possibly witness. I continued to participate in their meetings thereafter because of how engaged I was with this team.

Coaching

The new team lead felt that he was lacking experience as a leader. But his attitude was amazing. So, I started to share with him my most valuable experiences and this morphed into a coaching process. I started to gradually focus on his priorities, and we explored his weaknesses and turned them into strengths. He ultimately gained the respect of the whole team and became a role model, leading by example. He cannot begin to imagine how proud I am of him.

Emotional deposits and withdrawals

Another principle that I followed was to always have a positive emotional balance with each of my team members. If you compare a relationship with a bank account, whenever you do something that upsets another person, you are making an emotional withdrawal. On the other hand, if you do something that makes the other person happy, you are making an emotional deposit. If you have made too many withdrawals, you cannot expect the other person to stop being upset with you just by making another deposit. Only when the other person perceives that you have made enough deposits to make up for your withdrawals, he or she will be happy again with you. I took this principle very seriously. I just wanted my team to feel comfortable with me. But I had not imagined how profound an impact this would have on my relationships with each of the team members. Once I asked one of them how I could do a complex query of financial data and, before two hours, that team member sent me the solution. I was dumbfounded, amazed and so grateful! Just by asking how I could do this, I was given the complete, working solution! Your team members will get out of their way to help you, if you treat them right. I will never forget that day.

If you need some valuable pointers on how you can better engage with your team, just get "1001 Ways to Energize Employees", by Bob Nelson.

Have fun!

This one needs no explanation. I set myself the goal with each person on my team to make them laugh at least once a week. This made everything, even intensely stressful times, much more pleasant. During one presentation, one in my team had delays because of other people outside the team. I made one slide with a picture of an outdoors billboard, as if we would hire it, to display a message that said, “We were not on time because X is to blame…”. Another time, I was going to participate in a call to announce a raise for one of the analysts. Since her boss and I were on the call, she did not know what it was all about, and she was nervous. I just opened the call with “Please let me know what the problem is …”. I was secretly laughing inside myself for my malice. After a brief adrenaline rush, everything was clarified, and you could notice a sigh of relief and a big smile on her. Oh, I miss those days!

Show that you care

When our first year together was approaching, it coincided with our first in-person meeting. I wanted to give my team something special for the occasion. I printed some mugs with their name and the logo of our team on the front-facing side, and on the back it said, “I survived the 2020 toilet paper crisis!”. We had such a wonderful time that morning! To preserve the moment of their reaction, I told them to take the mugs out of their boxes when I was already filming the event on my iPhone. I may even have felt it more special, because I had so anxiously wished for that day to arrive with great anticipation, that I purchased and printed the mugs two weeks in advance (with my own money obviously) and filled them with chocolates and candies. As I was wrapping them, I could not stop thinking about the day of our meeting and their reaction when opening them!

Your care for your team can get to the next level if you read "The Dream Manager", by Matthew Kelly.

Empower your team!

One of the analysts prepared a multichannel model that we designed together for a presentation. He knew the details inside and out, but I sensed that he was a little insecure to present it. The day of the presentation, I introduced him to the audience, I said that he had put a lot of care into preparing the model and that no one besides him was better fit to carry on with this development. From that day, he ran the show, led all the technical aspects of this project and became the sole point of contact. Whenever you can, say exceptional things in public about your team. This will make them feel proud and will instantly empower them.

Be there when they need your support

One in my team got severely sick and ended up in the hospital. I was really worried about him, so I visited him. I was surprised by how grateful he was just for my presence there. As if nobody else would ever visit him. It made me feel grateful for having an opportunity to do something that would be so much appreciated! Another time, I supported a colleague that had personally been through very rough times, he had lost one child, and was not delivering his projects on time. I approached him and just asked if everything was OK. He was hesitant at first, but it turned out that not only was he feeling down, but he also felt weak with some skills that he needed for his projects. We made the arrangements to temporarily transfer some of his workload to other analysts and make sure that he was additionally trained in those topics where he felt weak. Remember that your kindness is always welcomed by those around you. You never know the secret battles that people are fighting in silence.

Leave a better place

I am convinced that our mission is to leave a better place than how we found it. In that regard, I paid a great deal of attention so that no one in my team was left behind. This meant making time to pay attention to each one, but also treating everyone else with respect (just as I would like to be treated). I was fortunate enough to get along very well with the lady who serves the coffee, and even made her laugh a few times. I greeted the janitor who no one talks to and had some brief conversations with him. I made sure that I cleaned the mirror in front of the sink after I washed my hands, so that the janitors would have a little less work.

The end

Everything above was apparently not enough or not ever noticed. When I was let go, I was told that my management was good and that I am a good person, but I did not make any contribution to the business. I am still wondering what they meant by that. What touched me to the core were the heartfelt messages that I received from my team when I left. I still cannot hold back tears when I read those precious messages again. I will treasure them forever. They convinced me that I indeed did something right.