Team self-selection Power of involvement

My personal belief is that if you want engagement you need to walk the path of involving. The arduous road of inviting people without pushing, carving a path without taking their choice of direction and method.

I was always  intrigued by letting people self-organize with who they work with and now due to circumstances, there was the challenge of reorganizing teams. The teams of question were running for some years and performed on a high level to give you a flavor of the challenge.

The intent was to create the best possible new end to end teams, all equally strong to deliver on our mission and vision with the remaining people.

We wanted the people to feel that they are the master of their fate and are heard. And not at least enjoy the process.

Inspired by the process of Creating great teams: how self selection lets people excel by Mamoli & Mole, the agenda was

1. Clearly stating the ambition of the collaboration 
2. Having pair check ins tapping into the hopes and fears to create a trusted all including environment and surfacing further expectations
3. Expectation of the workshop defined as rules to adhere
4. E2E deliver on mission & vision
5. Equally strong & sized
6. Each team 1PO 1QA
7. Team creation
8. Self selection by adding your picture into a tream reflected as white paper 
9. Dialoging in the teams the different rules and playing the challenges back to the group as challenge to solve for the next round
10. Using constellation for validating the rules, engaging everyone, making the decision e-motional and surfacing possible gaps

It went incredible smooth, maybe also due to the fact that the people knew each other and the majority had years of experience together. The trust created was so big that the most junior member dared to challenge the set up. The passion for the best solution was ballistic too an degree, that people choose to “leave” their closest mates for the greater good. The captured emotions were experienced very positive and the atmosphere was extremly harmonic. The immediately taken action to remedy some risks, were and are the center piece to prepare the earth to take the seed into direct taking roots.

This is merely the start, now the real work starts to reorganize without dropping the velocity to much and enrisking our key deliveries.

Stay tuned in to see how this journey goes!