“The more you think about how things look to other people and how might they see the world, the better you're going to work together as a team.”

There’s a lot that goes into making a team work well together. Of course there are those magical instances where you get a group of talented people together and it just works. But more often than not, you have to take a measured approach to make the magic happen. In this episode, Brett interviews Neil Vass, an agile delivery manager for Co-op Digital, about the complexities of leading teams. The conversation is productive and full of tactics and resources, and covers:

• Practices for staffing teams
• How to identify a teams’ strengths and weaknesses
• How to get teams aligned around organizational and project goals
• Ways to motivate team members, even when you are not a line manager
• Exercises to help with team building
• Low-effort, high-impact practices to help you keep the team feeling positive and productive

Links and resources mentioned in this episode: 

• Co-op Digital's blog 
• More on the role of a delivery manager 
• Resources on building empathy and communication in teams: A user manual for me by Cassie Robinson and Our Empathy Survey Says - Awesome Retro by Stephen Mounsey
• The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
• The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth

The quote Neil mentioned, which was by Dr. W. Edwards Deming