Grounding yourself within a Team

Holding your Team Accountable is a sign you Care

7 min readFeb 11, 2021

Buzzwords like Psychological Safety and Team Safety really come down to the “little things” you do every single day to create a better team environment.

How is your sense of belonging with your team? How are you expressing what you like about the team and what gets under your skin? How are you showing up for the Team?

As a Coach, these are the questions that come to my mind when I think back on my journey of experimenting with techniques to create better engagement & keep teams excited about the WHY. Whether it is a new practice that the team is starting to adopt or a new product that is being developed — it all comes down to “the little things” that a team does daily to build trust and connection.

As a Team member, when you get to a place where you can “call it as you see it” with a team every team event can become invigorating. Team events then become something you look forward to rather than dread. You can feel a sense of “grounding” that is developing with your team.

Finding ways to build Connections

As human beings we seek a “sense of belonging”. Whether you are an introvert or an extrovert I’m sure you will agree that it feels good when a team member asks you a continuing question from your last conversation. It shows that you are Listened. You Cared.

Building in small ways to make personal connections with the team you work with day-to-day can pay dividends later.

A story comes to my mind from 13 years ago about when I was a Scrummaster in a consulting company leading a team of developers who were new to agile ways of working.

A senior developer I worked with was brilliant at what he did and I was grateful for his contributions. Let’s call him Joe.
Joe was always late to demos and backlog refinement meetings with our client(s) and even when he attended them, he was distracted and fell asleep during meetings. This was a setback for the team and I knew I had to have a conversation to get to the bottom of this.
When I sat down with Joe for a coffee to understand how he was doing & asked what he was going through he shared something about his personal life that kept him up at night. This was the reason for his extreme tiredness.
Joe did not realize how he was coming across since he was caught up with his personal situation and doing his best to keep up with work demands.
Once I opened up the conversation, Joe was apologetic for the way he came across and the negative impact he was having on the project from his actions. He said from then on he would always come to meeting(s) with a hot drink to stay awake so his participation was not compromised. Eventually when his personal situation changed his routine would be back to normal and he would no longer need this habit.We had just “agreed” on a “simple norm” to mitigate this type of a situation in the future.
After I learned the reasoning behind Joe’s actions I was able to be empathetic and yet make it clear that I would be holding him accountable on our working agreement.

Connections are built and strengthened between team members as a result of simple caring gestures. In this example above the mere act of taking the time to understand Joe’s personal situation and giving him the benefit of the doubt changed our conversation and dynamic for ever.

You don’t have to be a ScrumMaster or coach to have a conversation with your team member. The truth is if Joe’s behavior is affecting the team’s delivery you are not alone in being concerned about it.

What weekly practice can you start within your team to learn more about each other and connect on a human level? How can you help your team check in with each other on how they are showing up today?

Showing you Care by Holding each other Accountable

When you hold each other accountable on a team it shows that you care for the team’s success. As a team member if you notice actions or behaviors holding the team back or causing the team to get stuck in their ways repeatedly, it is important to vocalize it.

Depending on the level of safety within the team this may be an easy conversation in a retrospective or something that you need to get more guidance on from a coach or your leader to proceed further. Regardless of the situation, the conversation needs to be had since unattended issues only get worse with time. It may be time to establish some team norms to create healthy habits.

Team norms or working agreements are a way to establish some “simple rules” which help teams work better together.

So how do you go about forming these norms or agreements? A good place to start is by observing team events to see if there are any unhealthy patterns from the last few weeks. Team norms are best when they are created by the team , agreed upon by every team member and kept up to date as the team goes through any changes.

Using Ecocyle Planning (Liberating Structures) as an inspiration, here are some questions you can explore to discover what your Team Norms need to be:

What old ways of working are dying that we need to get rid of as a Team? (Maturity)
What new ways of working are emerging that we need to make space for as a Team? (Birth)
What experiments have been successful? What new habits need to be formed to improve the way we work?

Examples of Communication Norms:

Communicate when team members are out of pocket. [Send a message on the Team Slack channel so everyone is informed]
Provide a daily stand-up update offline when team members are not able to make the meeting. Take the time to create a shared understanding of where you are with your work. [Send a message indicating what you are working on & when you expect to need support so the team is informed]

Examples of Team Norms that effect Delivery:

Set Weekly Goals to create focus. [Ensure goals are agreed upon by every team member & shared in a Team Slack channel or Collaboration space so everyone is informed]
Smoke Test an application together after a Production Deployment. [Setup a production deployment call that includes every team member to make this a collective effort]

Ground yourself and Build your Team Cadence

I am an idealist and whatever I am a part of needs to be meaningful. When I reflect on the feeling that I would want every team member to have within my team — I think about “Earthing”.

The natural magnetic field of the Earth helps us feel better when we physically ground ourselves to the Earth through the bare skin of our feet. Disconnected from the earth we feel fatigued. Connecting to the Earth restores our sense of balance

Have you ever thought about why you get so energized when you walk barefoot on the beach?

Just like the earth grounds our energy, connecting with our team grounds our values/principles and reminds us that we are a unit and need to work cohesively together to get to a high performing state.

Ground Yourself : Know your values, your team’s values & ground yourself with the team. When you make an effort to really listen & get to know your team members on a 1:1 basis it can create a great sense of belonging. The connections you build can make it easier to solve work problems together at a later point in time.
Use your TEAM POWER : Know your team’s strengths and their superpower. Find what you’re good at as a team, and amplify that. Identify where you need support for the team and work with your leader or coach on that.
Hold each other Accountable : Holding each other accountable shows you care about the success of the team. Focus on having honest conversations to surface what you see. “Psychological Safety does not mean you feel comfortable all the time. It means you feel comfortable talking about what makes you uncomfortable.” (~ estherderby)”
Continuously Improve : You cannot get better without honest & accurate reflection. Find “experiments” your team can work on together to improve & work to make successful experiments a “habit”.

How much do you really Care?

Now that you understand the importance of building connections, feeling grounded with your team and how holding each other accountable can be healthy — what action can you take to vocalize this and show you care?

How can you as a team member, scrum master or a coach help create this environment for your team?
How can you be a mirror for the team and help them see what is holding them back?
How can you help start the conversation on the value of team norms?