Corporate waters.

Corporate waters.

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Corporate waters.
Corporate waters.
How to build teams

How to build teams

An actionable playbook based on my failures and learnings.

Mikhail Shcheglov's avatar
Mikhail Shcheglov
Jun 02, 2024
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Corporate waters.
Corporate waters.
How to build teams
Share

Back in 2021, I was leaving OLX for Bolt. I vividly remember those last few days. It was post-COVID, so the offices were half empty. I went in to pick up my things and hand over my laptop to the IT department.

Upon my arrival to the office, I met zero familiar faces. I did the exit errands, signed the docs and briskly walked out. One last thing I did before exiting the building was taking a selfie of my workplace. A space where I’ve spend the last few years.

What surprised me the most was that nobody from my team was there. There was no farewell event, no goodbyes, not even a note in Slack. A few fellow colleagues acknowledged my departure, but that was it. The people I had spent those three years with, back-to-back, were not there.

Back then, I had a team of 6 direct reports who also managed their own teams, totaling 12 product managers. We’ve been navigating through wins and struggles, went through multiple reorgs, generated sizeable impact.

Hey thats cool BUT NOONE CARES | Quick jokes, Funny memes about work, No  one cares

Here I was, assuming myself to be “THE shit” when it came to team management. This incident made me question my assumptions. Maybe I wasn’t as good of a team leader as I thought myself to be. Maybe what good of team collaboration we had was just dumb luck?

I've started digging into the the topic, reflecting on where I’ve fallen short. This led to a few painful, but much needed conclusions that I’d like to walk you though.

Let’s dive in.

The cohesive team through the eyes of MidJourney v6.0, loosely inspired by the art of Alex Katz

🤷‍♂️ Why do teams fall apart?

What it takes to build a team and how I’ve managed to fail at each ;)

🎯 Not having a common goal

I once had a debate with one of my direct reports. He was claiming that his vast array of projects contributed to improved efficiency. The whole team was overworked and seen zero impact over multiple quarters.

Which efficiency? I asked. Turns out the team was digging really deep into optimizing a local maxima without seeing the big picture.

Instead of working together towards a common goal of improving conversion, the team reverted to working on their internal proxy.

The goals might seem obvious. For instance, topline improvements or cost reduction. However, I always under-estimated how skewed this understanding can become without proper alignment.

Yes, we had a product strategy. Yes, we went through the key targets (up to the EBITDA-level). Despite all of that prepwork, I still ended up with multiple teams in one domain that worked in different directions.

👥 Not having a shared responsibility

My biggest flop was taking too much responsibility. There’s a widely held belief that as a leader you should be fully accountable for your team. That is true, but there’s a limit to accountability.

At one point in time we were granted 13 hiring positions for an entire org (FTEs). Resource is great, but how do you allocate it between the teams? We’ve sat down with my engineering partner and decided this ourselves. Once we rolled out the news, some teams accepted it, some were outright angry. The whole process seemed shady and unfair.

In another instance, I noticed my team’s recognition levels were dropping. This came from our quarterly survey evaluating the org health. I came up with a strategy to fix this. All good intent, but I did it solo without involving the team. Fast forward a quarter and a ton of effort, the recognition metric dropped even lower.

In both cases I excluded the team from owning those problems. As a consequence, the burden of responsibility was on me. Since I failed to deliver and didn’t trust the team, they felt alienated. The alienation framed me as an aggressor and the team as victims.

our responsibility or your responsibility - Futurama Fry Meme Generator

This could have been avoided if I had simply collaborated with the team. In “Tribal Leadership” Dave Logan and John King introduce the concept of “diadic” and “triadic” relationships. The more people you involve in the problem, the more this fosters shared ownership and collaboration. In a triadic+ setup, discussing a problem with the whole team builds mutual context.

🛑 Not caring about detractors

I had a manager who complained non-stop for close to two years. She was a victim of this, a victim of that. The whole org oppressed her, the workload was continuously piling and unrewarding.

Instead of looking beyond the veil, I was simply angry at her. I didn’t voice it, but I thought, “Gee, mature up already. Take ownership and stop whining.” This attitude was probably evident through my facial expressions.

YARN | I'm the victim! Me! | Fargo (2014) - S01E06 Drama | Video gifs by  quotes | b7bfb0cc | 紗

Then she suddenly came in with a resignation letter and an offer from a different company. Her previous manager lured her in. Frankly, I was semi-surprised. I tried to negotiate a counter-offer, but she didn’t accept it.

When I asked her why, she mentioned the same reasons she had flagged over the years, mentioned them between the lines. I was just too busy to pay attention. This could have been fixed, but I flunked it.

She left the company, but the story doesn’t end here. She was a trend-setter within her peer group. Since there were close ties with her direct reports, cross-functional peers, and engineers, they all shared the same agenda. The workload is immense and unrewarding. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel.

When a whole team feels victimized, collaboration halts and efficiency drops. Now, you’ve got much more alignment to do. In such instances, damage control is way costlier than just carefully listening to your manager.

🛡️ Not building enough safety

Safety is more nuanced than it appears. Of course, an angry gorilla boss, who screams and throws stuff at his reports, ruins safety. However, safety is usually compromised in a much more delicate way.

A passive-aggressive attitude, a “know-it-all,” or a manager that continuously challenges any idea his team brings are all destructive to safety. Even a manager who is pissed at life will unwillingly compromise safety.

An easy way to tell whether there’s safety in the team is to look at how the weekly meetings are held. In unsafe environments, the boss typically does all the talking, while the rest of the team silently complies and occasionally voices affirmative comments. In safe environments, it’s all a playground; every team member is engaged and shares ideas, no matter how half-baked. As safety is established, people can share their vulnerabilities, deepening the trust in the team.

🏆 Not enough recognition

Team needs recognition. Period. Just money and belief in the company mission won’t cut it. At some point, the team will ask: “What am I doing this for?”.

Recognition can come from many levels: product impact, user feedback, team praise, or acknowledgment from senior management.

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