Author: Mike Urgo
No video this week, as I was traveling.
I could be off, but I feel like if you are someone who enjoys or enjoyed being in a group project, you probably were the one everyone else hated. That may be a bit harsh, but this is coming from the guy who always got tired of the Spider Man meme and ended up volunteering to do too much. Just because I was tired of listening to everyone else work to avoid responsibility and because I tend to be a bit of a control freak and didn’t want a bad grade.
But it’s not my goal to complain. It’s my goal to help uplift those who happen to read or listen to these weekly podcasts / newsletter / blogs, whatever you want to call it. This a tough topic though. If I jumped into group work and acted as if it was easy or enjoyable, I think I would lose all sense of credibility. It is not easy. It is not always fun. But I think as leaders we can make it tolerable and successful when working in groups.
To do this, I want to think of group work in a very simple way and have us focus on three steps. This is a topic that I think I will be able to dive into deeper over time, but for this week’s episode, I want to keep it simple and high-level. The three things I want to focus on in this article are understanding the players, gaining buy-in through servant leadership, and driving accountability through delegation. Whether you’re leading or supporting, here’s how to navigate group dynamics.
Understanding the players needs to be thought of from two viewpoints. The first is understanding who is in your group. What are their titles, what roles or organizations do they represent, who are they as a person? Those are questions you need to figure out without explicitly doing a biography on each team member. It requires you to be observant and understand who the alphas in the room are, who wants to be talk but not do, who has a short attention span, etc. If you have been on a group project, I am sure people are coming to mind. If they aren’t… it’s probably you.
Kidding. Kind of.
Once you’ve mapped the personalities, the next step is clarifying roles on the team and if no one has started the conversation, an honest conversation around roles and responsibilities needs to happen. This doesn’t mean you need to have a fully baked RACI chart (I don’t think it can hurt), but at least people need to understand what they are on the hook for and it can’t be more than one person (Spiderman Meme happens).
Once you understand who the group members are and ideally what roles and responsibilities people have, that is when you want to really start gaining buy-in through servant leadership. This is especially needed if your group lacks a good alpha leader or if you have multiple people who are sparring over playing the leadership role. Doing things like offering to send out meeting notes (really easy now with AI assistants), or scheduling the meetings can go a long way in building emotional capital with your team. It’s important to draw boundaries and highlight that this is NOT YOUR ROLE, but something you are volunteering to do to help out the team. You don’t want people in the group to turn around and treat you like the group admin.
Ideally, by sending out notes and coordinating meetings, it will start to put you in a position of leadership which can make it easier to begin to delegate, document and drive accountability. Sometimes the delegation doesn’t even have to come from you, especially with some other alphas on the team. You could throw out something like “Who is the best resource to own this task?”. Someone may volunteer or volunteer someone else without you having to call it out. If not, the best thing I have found is embrace the silence. So often people get uncomfortable when asking those questions and end up taking them on because they can’t take the silence. Especially if there’s a clear answer of who should take the task, let it set, embrace the silence. They will eventually step up. And if they don’t, that’s when you tactfully call it out.
If it’s a communications task, and you have a communications person on the team, it wouldn’t make sense for a sales director to take that on or anyone else for that matter. But just like you will have alphas, you will also have betas. Sometimes people are shy, or timid to speak up. There’s nothing wrong with a gentle: “Hey ____, I think this seems like something that you would knock out of the park, yea?”. More often than not, that is all it takes. Again, for more complicated issues, I will dive deeper into group work in a subsequent article.
Finally, before I summarize what we have covered, I want to make sure I call something out…
IT IS OK TO BE A BETA.
All the above is assuming your group needs a leader. Sometimes the group has one and a good one. Or sometimes the group has one who needs help in the background. Don’t be part of the problem by forcing yourself to the front if it’s not needed. Some of the best group work I have done has been silently, behind the scenes. Making sure people are supported or crushing work that is assigned to me and delivering it on time. Not every situation requires you to lead the group. Sometimes just being a positive member and supporting the leader is what is needed.
As a quick aside, I think at times “alpha” and “beta” can have different connotations and I want to explicitly say I disagree with that. I think being an “alpha” or a “beta” can both be great or detrimental depending on the situation and what is required of you. Naturally people tend to lean one way or another, but if you can recognize what is needed for a given situation, I think that’s an excellent skill to have as a leader. If you want to know more about that and how to recognize the needs, send me a message to connect.
In summary, group projects are not easy. However, as a leader, you can help make them more successful by understanding the players, being a servant leader, and ensuring tasks are delegated and documented appropriately. And, if the group has established leadership, be ok being a regular group member and supporting the leader by crushing your tasks and helping out when appropriate. Lead when needed, support when called—either way, own your role with intention.
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