Today, we are honoured to have a guest blog from one of our company’s UK People Oscar Winners, Abidemi Ogunbowale-Thomas.
Abidemi writes….Even within the hedges of pragmatism, the ability to pay attention to detail and a ‘respect for the art’ are two key traits that drive me to do things properly or at least with a certain level of excellence. With that said, the truth is that there is always room to improve on one’s present pragmatic achievements.
It’s this same desire that drew me to this organization as a graduate. I was looking for a community of professionals to learn from; being an island had lost its shimmer.
What I’ve since learned is that value driving collaboration that I desired occurs easiest when communication is multi-directional across all levels. We all have something to share that can make our teams operate more efficiently. However, in my experience and discussions with colleagues – the fore mentioned type of collaboration often doesn’t materialise.
Conversely, having observed the benefits experienced on projects where team members proactively collaborated, I would strongly suggest that ‘people first’ project delivery is worth the effort to get right.
Ergo, our collective professional experiences of ‘today’ are the proverbial building blocks of tomorrow’s competitive market advantage.
Therefore, how does one achieve or move towards a working environment that fosters the proactive sharing of professional insights from all team members?
I believe the answer can be found in a means of resolving another seemingly independent school of thought surrounding improving work-life balance.
Work-life balance can be simplistically defined as the relationship between the duration of time spent in and out of ‘work’. It has been suggested that a work-life in-balance can be the cause of frustrated and ultimately less productive people and teams.
One could advocate that work and life are not mutually exclusive concepts. Life constitutes both work and rest. Therefore, one cannot feasibly balance the concept of ‘work’ on a scale in opposition to ‘life’.
Nonetheless, what cannot be denied is a frustration that can arise with spending too much time at work over a long duration. Coincidentally, certain people experience this same feeling when they have been unchallenged for long periods of time. Conversely, there are also those that are happy to work to their heart’s content for hours on end.
It has been said that ‘the people’ are a key factor in what makes work ‘enjoyable and fulfilling’. This supports the fact that we humans are communal beings. Therefore, we can assume that if we are to ‘improve the work-life balance’ we should look to develop the quality of ‘community’ in the ‘work’ setting. However, to be effective, ‘community’ requires the proactivity of its members.
Furthermore, the push to improve one’s work-life balance is often the echo of a deeper root cause. Once again, as a result of discussion with others, the defining cause is often (not always) found to be the pursuit of happiness or fulfilment, which can frequently stem from a drive to live a life that is meaningful.
Whilst musing on this matter a few years ago I hypothesised that work-life balance and team proactivity simultaneously could be improved by doing the following four things (the key action being the last):
- I could support people in aligning their work and personal goals so that neither endeavour drowns out the other for long durations of time
- I could encourage people to take ownership and responsibility so that they have a vested interest and are more likely to push the envelope of value
- I could create the essence of the ‘one team’ mentality by providing clear team goals so that all members could align to overarching targets
- I could provide platforms that allowed the team to share knowledge and ideas freely; and then listen and steer the team to a point of self-organisation
Given my postulation ‘work is balanced’ by allowing ‘work’ to contribute to a person’s barometer of success and drive for their time on earth to be meaningful. Whilst, ensuring that personal goals did not negate professional expectations. Effectively honing work and fostering a community that proactively drives value.
I have continued to develop this train of thought in the aim of one day reaching the utopia and fostering the ultimate high performing team. Wherein, all team members drive value with no inhibitions.
It is intrinsic in our human nature that islands of driven individuals do not collaborate or create value as effectively as communities of people with common goals.
Our team recently completed a ‘greenfield’ project that involved creating a brand new digital platform in the cloud with cutting edge tech, new websites and also the use of an agile delivery approach with a distributed team and multiple vendors.
Incidentally, I have a passion for Agile as it mandates the placement of people and not processes at the centre of project delivery. Therefore, stemming from my interest in Agile, I have sought to use facets of Agile to foster teams to achieve things that matter and mean something…to us as a team.
On the fore mentioned project the distributed development team provided feedback that suggests we were able to encourage the desired proactive value driving collaboration. In my aim to lead from the ‘front’ in creating the desired team dynamic and developing people, the following are the three main areas that I sought to embed within the team ethic:
1. People are not resources
- Encourage people to listen and value the input of others
- Encourage people to show empathy with each other when appropriate
- Encourage people to show appreciation for each team member
2. Encourage people to take ownership
- We are the team and are therefore accountable to each other so encourage the team to engage each other and will be willing to take ownership and responsibility
- Encourage people to be pragmatic, embrace change and evolve where feasible
- Encourage people to take pride in what they do
3. Encourage people to be dependable
- Encourage people to be willing to share their time, knowledge and expertise with each other
- Encourage people not to hesitate to ask for help
- Every person is like a ‘brand’ so it’s important to encourage each person to commit and deliver
At the end of their time on the project, team members felt a heightened connection to the product. This was due to the fact that they had learned the product’s specifications, designed, challenged implementation approaches, refactored, developed, tested, redefined, enhanced, and worked hard in proactive collaboration to deliver a product…together.
Now I don’t for a second believe there is a one-size fits all approach for all projects in every industry. However, I believe that what I’ve shared has some traction. For example, within the digital space, product-centric companies like Square, Twitter, Facebook and Google have exemplified that the people first delivery approach contributes to delivering market leading value and products.
At the heart of enjoyable and profitable business are people who groom people to achieve and ultimately serve by helping the client attain their goals and needs.
And so, the legacy continues…
