The journey to becoming a “true team” after the foundation of culture is laid, and every day being built upon “strengthening the threads” of team bonding, is exciting and intimidating at the same time. There are both positives and negatives in team building with small, tactical teams.
First, let is go over to the positives. Small, tactical teams have a lot more a lot more opportunity for everyone to get to know one another on a deeper level. That strengthens the “thread of bonding” to becoming that team who not only pushes forth towards a mission but cares deeply for one another. Having those many opportunities and repetitions on a frequent basis with a team member leads to:
- A deeper strengthening of that relationship
- Potential for caring for that person beyond just working side by side.
Think of it as a college roommate or a partner on a police department. When that bond is great, they become like a second family, in some cases, a first family for some people. It reminds me of a scene with the famous James Earl Jones as Coach Couzo. In his first time meeting his newly formed small, tactical team, he set the expectations about how they should be treating each other right away! Check below
Now, the positives of learning about someone so closely are that there is a great opportunity to find out what makes the person tick, how their personalities change when the pressure is on during good times, bad times, in sickness and in health. Therefore, the teammate can successfully work alongside that person, support them the right way, and the same would go for the leader of the team.
Small teams are great opportunity to spend a lot of time and get a lot of personal repetitions when people are cut from the same “internal cloth”. It is even better when the individuals are diverse with their backgrounds, of who they are, and their makeup. If that thread or that makeup of that person is similar, then there is a great chance for positive bonding and developing into that second family and team. The team becomes more about making sure each other succeed in helping each other, probably more strongly so than the mission of the organization that they are a part of.
Some negatives of having small tactical teams are if the makeup of the individuals is off, or they have already had a bad experience together in the past in some way. These can wreak havoc on a small tactical team. There ends up being not many people to form those bonds with and cannot meet and get to know different people. There is nothing worse than working (especially remotely) alongside a person that has a completely different internal makeup, cannot buy into a culture, have had previous bad experiences, and cannot mentally move towards the future.
In that case, a leader of a small tactical team has few options. They are limited in pairing different people up and switching internal efforts amongst different people. In other words, there is not a lot of opportunity for changing things up because the team is so small. This can become a problem. Relationships need to be on point between members of a team when it is small. So, stressing the importance of establishing respect, culture, the mindset, the approach early on, and the expectations must happen before people build those relationships. The small team must know the rules of the game before they start getting to know one other on a deeper level. If not, they will be carrying over baggage from other places that may not align with the culture that was established with this team. There is a great chance that things will not work out as optimally as possible.
A technique that could be useful on a team that is small, or there’s not really opportunity to change things up, is to have rotations of outsiders (staff, etc.), guest visitors of people who fit the bill of the right type of culture, speeches from others, attending functions, and conferences where people are speaking the same culture language. These are the tactical things that you can employ when relationships have a tough time getting off the ground, are getting stale, or where you are finding there is a little animosity that needs to be nipped in the bud between people.
What have you experienced? What interpersonal strategies have you employed? What was the worst negative or positive you have witnessed with being a part of a small team? CreatorOfCulture wants your feedback and hear from you!