Team dynamics can mean the difference between a healthy work environment and a toxic one.
IT talent can be hard to find and even harder to keep – which means there’s plenty of incentive to make the workplace attractive to technology pros. Culture is paramount, and focusing on organizational development can lead to more satisfied and productive workers.
“I got very interested in this subject early on in my career,” says IT veteran Jackie Barretta, who today works as a consultant, writer and speaker to help teams boost innovation and achievement.
Barretta spent 15 years in the IT department at Con-Way, including six years as CIO of the logistics company. The culture that IT leaders created at Con-Way “became one of the most important things we ever did, as important as anything technological,” Barretta recalls. “People heard about our culture, they heard about the great things they would be able to do not only from a technology perspective but also from a team perspective. We attracted exceptional people, and the way that we led them just brought out their best.”
When an emphasis on process efficiency began to take precedence over culture, Barretta decided to leave corporate IT and pursue a different path. Today she’s a founding partner of Nura Group, a consulting firm that helps companies strengthen team performance. Many of her engagements are with IT departments. Some clients seek help with a technical problem, others want organizational assistance. Regardless, “there’s always a big element of team building that’s part of it,” Barretta says.
Barretta’s specialty is defining the kind of energy that makes elite teams successful — and helping organizations to create it in their own workplace. It’s the topic of her book, Primal Teams.
A core part of Barretta’s approach is teaching companies to harness, rather than stifle, their employees’ emotions. With that in mind, she shared five general tips and techniques for IT leaders who want to foster team spirit, better their workplace culture and spark innovative thinking.
1. Make room for negativity
“So often we want to have these very calm, serene workplaces where people do what they need to do, and stay in their heads, and forget about emotions. We tend to make negativity not acceptable,” Barretta says. At the same time, companies tout the value of employee engagement. “But you can’t have one without the other. You have to let people be more emotional in the workplace.”
Emotions can make the difference between a group that works with enthusiasm and one that just goes through the motions.
“If I really care about what I’m doing, to the point where I’m going to go all out, and really do a good job, that’s going to require emotion. I have to really care,” she says, “and if I care to that degree, then if things don’t go right, if I don’t get the resources that I need, or if I see somebody is an impediment to what I think needs to happen, then I’m going to get negatively emotional about it. I’m going to get angry, or I’m going to get frustrated. And if you don’t let me express that, then I’m just going to tamp down my emotions, I’m not going to care as much. Then I become less engaged.”
A workplace in which emotions are welcomes doesn’t mean one that’s unsafe, of course. There have to be guidelines, and people need to remain professional. “But make room for negativity,” Barretta says. “It’s really important.”
2. Deliver novelty
Instead of pigeonholing people, Barretta advocates using novelty to energize people. Companies can move people into different roles, for instance, or bring a non-expert into a group to add a fresh perspective. “We’re so good at putting people in positions, and expecting them to do the same thing year after year, and then thinking they’re just going to get better and better at it. But it doesn’t work that way,” she says. “Their creative juices dry up. They need to have novelty. They need to do something different.”
3. Play around
No one can force a team to think innovatively, but you can help encourage creative thought, Barretta says. Adding an element of fun to the workday can help employees release tension and get reinvigorated. Optimal play is fun, spontaneous, and takes your mind off of work, but it’s not so intense that it makes you tired or burned out, she says.
4. Stress mastery vs. performance
“If you really want people to be creative, you’ve got to stress mastery,” Barretta says. If a company is all about performance metrics, then employees will focus on achieving those metrics via the same old routines. Employees who are encouraged to become masters of their domain are much more open to new and creative ways of doing things, she says.
“Get them to think about being the very best at what they do. That causes them to broaden their perspective. They start thinking: ‘What could I do that would be new and different, that would really make me better at this?’”
5. Build emotional bonds between people
People who work together day after day want to feel something more than just the work aspect, Barretta says. “We as humans strive to feel a bond with people we’re in close proximity with.”
One exercise Barretta has done with clients involves each person on a team submitting five or six personal photos that show the person doing something meaningful, such as a hobby, or traveling, or family time. The photos are put together in a presentation that’s shown to the entire team. “That has an amazing impact on people, because you see a different aspect of them. You feel a closeness,” Barretta says. “They start seeing each other as humans, not just as coworkers. And you start building those bonds that we all crave.”
Finding the right fit
While clients have their own reasons for seeking out Barretta, there are some common needs among companies looking for team-building help, she notes.
Many IT groups find customers are becoming a lot more demanding of technology, for example. An increasingly complex regulatory environment and an abundance of data are other common challenges. In addition, business leaders have come to expect more from IT; CIOs and IT leaders are under pressure to deliver business agility, drive innovation, and increase their value to the business.
Another commonality? Too few top-notch managers.
“Unfortunately I see very few really good IT managers. I hate to say it, but that’s been my experience,” Barretta says. “There just aren’t that many out there… People who are good technically are not particularly good managers.”
That’s a familiar refrain in tech, where many IT managers are promoted because they’ve been successful at tech-centric jobs — even if they haven’t had experience managing other people.
Sometimes it’s only way to move up in an organization, Barretta notes, but it’s not ideal. She advocates establishing a technical career path, so employees can be recognized and promoted for their technical prowess without landing in management roles. “When I was a CIO, we had a very strong technical career path that people could move up without being a manager. But most organizations don’t have that, so you can get some pretty dysfunctional managers, there’s no doubt.”
A delicate part of Barretta’s job is delivering her message while keeping in mind the limits of people. Team dynamics vary, as do managers’ capabilities.
“It’s really easy to give a person advice on how they can do a better job if you feel like they’re able to do it, if they have the basic ability to change. But when you’re dealing with somebody who doesn’t really have that basic ability … it’s really hard to have those conversations with people,” she says. “You have to feed them the pieces that are going to resonate and that they’re going to be able to do something with.”
For Barretta, it’s a role she finds fulfilling.
“I love what I’m doing now. It’s really fun. It’s very different, but I feel like I’ve come into my real self, like this is somehow what I was meant to do.”
