Team playing as the ultimate in motivating team members
I recently attended a boutique boot camp (it was an excellent experience, but this is not the point of this posting). Now, I am not known for my fondness of physical activity - no matter how nice the ex-Royal Marine who is pointedly not shouting at me, but I need to tell you a little about this place to explain something really quite cool I learned whilst I was there, about what make people work better as part of a good team than any other way of working.
So imagine the scene: it’s 7.30 am, on a windswept Devon beach in the last week of October…to give you an idea of the weather, our session ended with us being hailed upon. We had been doing varieties of runnning up and down (and muttering darkly under what was left of our breaths) when our instructor (”The Marine”) decided to pay a team game.
It will be fun, he said.
We were unconvinced, but were unimpressed with running up and down large, vertical sand dunes, and grasped at the straw that suggested the team game would be better…(I must post on “optimism, delusion and human tendancies towards compliance” at some point 
).
Now, I must first mentioned a key point, namely that my younger brother had joined me for the week, but unlike me, he was fairly fit, having played rugby, cricket and most importantly football, since he could walk. (Now I know what you’re thinking, but our mother assures us we are related). The point of mentioning this now is that my brother came from a background of team sports…I am sure that the other 6 guests who were with us on that beach won’t mind me confiding to you that the rest of us were not of the ‘team sports’ ilk at all.
This meant that during every event where we had to take turns, work intervals, or could even basically spare enough breath to talk, my brother used that breath to shout encouragement, congratulations and generally enthuse about the work the rest of us were doing. He was always a lone voice, but he persisted out of habit - he had always done this.
Now my natural instinct is to work hard for someone who asks me to (even The Marine), and my brother had been yelling encouragement and congratulations at me and everyone else fairly randomly all the time which we all found helped.
But back to the team game on the beach. When we discussed it later as a group, we all found the same thing: although we all enjoyed the beach event to different degrees, we all found we worked MUCH harder in that session than in any other - somehow it does matter having other people relying on you and at the same time these same team members are cheering you on, with only encouragement for your challenges, asking no more of you than your best, and then congratulating you on giving it make such a difference.
And here’s the thing that I find fascinating (and ties in nicely with the old scum story of chickens and pigs):
- Giving and receiveing encouragement and congratulations matters hugely….but…
- Giving and receiveing encouragement and feedback from a fellow team member who is as invested as you is exponentially MORE valuable.
I can tell you from stunned and bewildered personal experience that it makes a HUGE difference. If you play team sports you probably recognise what I’m telling you here, but as a novice (sports) team member, I got a revelation to how it might feel being a novice team member with an experienced Agile team member.
So, if you are an experienced agile team member, just look how great an influence you can have on a new team member!
And if you are a new team member, struggling to come to terms with the new world you find yourself in - seek out a mentor whose enthusiasm is evident.
And finally, if you are in a team that are not openly encouraging you, and not joining in celebrating your successes, you have 3 choices:
- Step up. Lead by example and YOU be the (possibly lone) voice in the team…it may take a while for them to join in, but they will notice very quickly, and they will respond well to it.
- Find a coach in your company - a lot of companies have them, although some are unofficial roles. If you are trying to work as part of an Agile team, yet with out open encouragement from within that team, try and persuade your company to get a specialist coach in - either as a permanent role or as a consultant (I’m available ;) ).
- If the above two suggestions aren’t working, try my last option: Drop me a line -I’ll coach you, and for free - just because I love doing it!