Building happy teams

psychological safety
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Psychological safety makes the team work
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During Shortlist’s October edition of 17@7, Doris Muigei, Head of Business Development and Partnerships at Shortlist East Africa spoke about how SMEs can attract top tier talent. In case you missed it, you can watch the full video here. As you will learn, one of the pivotal conversations was that of psychological contracts and psychological safety, which emerged as critical factors when considering retention of unicorns (read: your awesome, top tier employees). 

So, what is a psychological contract? Simply put, it is an unwritten set of expectations, disparate from the official, codified employment contract. (Read More)

The psychological contract should not just exist as part of the recruitment process but should continuously be referred and adhered to. Perceived breaches can lead to mistrust, employee disengagement, reduced productivity, severed employer-employee relationships and ultimately, attrition. Consequently, the psychological contract is a key driver of whether top tier hires will stay and grow your business to the skies or dive back into the sea of organisations eager to hire them.

Companies ensure consideration for employees’ psychological contracts by creating a psychologically safe work environment. Psychological Safety, as described by renowned Harvard Business School Professor Amy Edmondson, is “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.” (Read More) It is about “giving candid feedback, openly admitting mistakes and learning from each other,” Prof. Edmondson further explains. Psychological safety involves creating an environment of fairness and trust where each individual is welcome to voice their opinions freely, experiment without judgement and fail without being marked a failure. An environment where all employees feel accepted and respected.

How can you make your workplace psychologically safe?

Creating a psychologically safe work environment requires consistent care and effort. While it is the responsibility of everyone in the organisation to uphold team values and norms, leadership holds the most impact. Employees are aware of and take their cues from their leaders’ behaviour. It is therefore critical for leaders to act in a way that encourages accessibility, fallibility, accountability and trust.

In a psychologically safe environment, people actively share ideas, challenge systems, ask questions and tackle tough conversations head-on. Imagine that. Imagine the output when people have the brain space to think outside the box, rather than mull over the validity of their questions or project ideas. Imagine the growth when collaborative thinking is encouraged and teams are allowed to reach their full potential. Haven’t we all attended a brainstorm session where everyone simply nodded in agreement to everything the most senior person in the room said? An effective team should share ideas, strengthen plans, ask questions and support each other. 

Psychological safety is the seed that nourishes curiosity, confidence, a speak-up culture and innovation. 

A few years ago, Google embarked on a project –  Project Aristotle – to unearth the key elements of effective teams. This involved a two-year study on what it takes to build high performing teams comprising over 200 interviews of 180+ active Google teams and administered by a team of psychologists, engineers and statisticians. Psychological safety, Google found, was the most important dynamic of the highest performing teams. 

Practical tips on cultivating psychological safety

Each individual and each team is different, so you will need to dig a little deeper to discover what works for yours. That notwithstanding, here are some practical tips to nudge you along the way: 

  1. Open up the feedback lines: Ask lots of questions during team meetings and one-on-ones to get you to understand how the team feels about inclusivity, the culture around failure and team dynamics. Open communication creates an expanse for honesty, clarity and healthy conflict, and ensures spirited movement towards shared goals. In meetings, active listening should be the order of the day – no phones, no emails, no latest music on Youtube – just intentional discussion between the people in the room. Two-way communication should not only be encouraged – it should be institutionalised.
  2. Share belonging cues: “Belonging cues are behaviours that encourage safe connection in groups,” Daniel Coyle explains in The Culture Code. As humans, we have a knack for reading cues. For us to thrive, it is essential that a sense of belonging is regularly refreshed and reinforced. This includes communicating with behaviour cues in mind: eye contact, turn sharing, attention and body language. Cues that communicate that you’re safe here, you can put in effort, you are a valuable part of this special group and we believe in you.
  3. Make sure that the learning never stops: A major part of learning and innovating is encouraging experimentation. If something goes wrong, take the time to understand why before abandoning ship and reaching to the next solution. Encourage curiosity by asking questions. For instance, when mistakes are made, place more emphasis on the resolution rather than the faux pas.
  4. Acknowledge your fallibility: admit to your faults. By admitting to your mistakes, you make it more comfortable for employees in the room to do the same. When you treat failure as a possible outcome, learning and fruitful discussion on working together to improve results is encouraged. Failure is an event, not a person; no employee, not even you as a leader, should feel like a failure because they failed at a task.
  5. Practice transparency: a common myth is that psychological safety is about being nice. The truth is, it’s about openness. It involves being real about the nature of work, engaging in generative dialogue and supporting each other’s growth. San Antonio Spurs coach, Gregg Popovich, embodies the spirit of psychological safety in the way he leads his team. “He’ll tell you the truth, with no bull**, and then he’ll love you to death,” assistant coach Chip Engelland says. Highly successful cultures may be energized and engaged but they’re not simply fun lighthearted places. They involve a mission to solve hard problems together which requires uncomfortable truth-telling and many moments of high candour feedback. With the right behaviour cues however, the team is strengthened. 
  6. Define your values: bearing this in mind, it may be helpful to have a written set of norms that guide employee behaviour; a set of values that everyone can hold each other accountable to. At Shortlist, our values are not only prominent on our website but on one of our Kenya office walls too. Our values are regularly referenced in feedback conversations and team meetings as well as used as a guide for work practices, daily decisions and performance reviews. This encourages a sense of purpose, inclusion and fairness, all tied to something tangible, transparent and understood by the entire team.

In order to build a culture that embodies psychological safety, it is important to also recognise the different subcultures that exist in your company and constantly check in with your team to ensure that if changes are necessitated, course correction is done in a timely manner. 

It takes time and deliberate effort. Keep going…you’ll have a more productive organisation as a result!

How do you create psychological safety in your organisation? Tweet us at @Shortlisthires and watch out for more resources on company culture during our ongoing culture code campaign that will run until February 2020! Looking to Hire in India? Let us help you

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What is company culture?
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Company Culture: It’s more than free food and bean bags
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Creating a thriving workplace culture that employees love and are passionate about is every employer’s dream. However, despite the vast array of literature highlighting different aspects of company culture, it’s still difficult for many companies to define what team culture is and what it’s not.

If this sounds like your company, have no fear, Shortlist is here to cast light on all things team culture…read on!

What is company culture and what is it not?

Company culture is a company’s character; it encompasses the company’s values, norms, systems, symbols, beliefs and habits. Culture is what defines employees’ code of conduct, including how employees should behave in meetings, the risks they can take, the unwritten rules that exist and all. In brief, company culture guides teams in their daily work-life and if you are lucky to have a strong culture, it binds the team together.

Companies tend to link defining their company culture with hosting fun activities. Hence, they frequently associate culture with the cool stuff (karaoke nights, free beer on Fridays, Secret Santa traditions) that showcase companies as an enjoyable place to work, rather than communicating what the company actually stands for as well as its values. Don’t get us wrong, free lunch and bean bags are great, however, they do not in themselves set or define company culture.

In order to win talent and set a strong culture, organisations need to ensure that every team member, from top to bottom, lives by the firm’s values.

Why is culture important?

Be it a start-up or a  corporate, a productive company culture helps to drive the company’s mission, goals and objectives in the following ways:

#1 – Attracting talent 

In today’s job market, the best candidates have many options; they are empowered with the ability to choose where they would like to work. This shift calls for companies to come up with initiatives that are a magnet for top talent, particularly because candidates can get a view of the internal work environment of a company through Indeed and Glassdoor reviews or by reaching out to someone within the team through LinkedIn.

It is important to have a workplace culture which nurtures employees who can double up as influential recruitment brand ambassadors. Just as a new customer would trust a referral from an existing one, so do candidates. Companies should strive to win their internal clients over through a culture that inspires cohesion, trust and confidence as well as celebrates individual and team success. You can survey your current team on their view of your corporate culture and values to understand how your team experiences your culture and what they are likely to share with candidates. For example, Twitter employees rated the company highly in corporate culture and values boasting of a supportive and motivational team-oriented environment as well as a great mission statement. This is a good sign of how their employees operate as brand ambassadors.

#2 – Employee engagement

Employee engagement is defined by how individuals feel about the work environment, their workmates and their job, and it is highly driven by culture. Engaged employees display great commitment towards their work and have a genuine motivation to exceed their goals.

Great company culture can help to ensure that every team member knows their role in the organisation and how they fit into the company’s ultimate goals and objectives. When the team connects with the company culture, it gives their day to day tasks broader purpose and they feel like they do meaningful work. It gives them the energy to be at work and infuses a deep sense of ownership and employee loyalty. Teams with a great culture are more likely to come up with new ideas and also inspire the best out of other team members.

On the contrary, employees who do not see how they fit into the company’s goals tend to have a negative attitude towards their work. A poorly defined culture could further instil fear and mistrust among employees and also between employees and leadership. This eventually affects both individual and team motivation and performance.

Although work may be challenging, companies can help reduce individual stress through a strong culture. It is imperative for companies to promote a culture that allows employees to be the best versions of themselves and motivates them to work towards the company’s success. For example, Google strives to keep its employees happy through the freedom to be creative, a flexible work schedule among other intangible benefits. As a result, it was named the tech firm with the best corporate culture.

#3 – Retaining talent

Companies exert a ton of time and energy hiring the best people – thus, it makes sense for them to work just as hard to keep talent in the company. While competitive compensation and great benefits may keep employees hooked to a company, the role that a winning culture plays in retaining great talent cannot be understated.

Individuals are looking to work for organisations whose goals and objectives resonate with theirs, as well as a company that is genuinely interested in their growth. This was evident in our employer brand survey which showed that professionals value learning and promotion opportunities over salary and stability. Job seekers are looking for companies that offer freedom and encourage openness by having an open-door policy. When employees find such employers, they tend to be satisfied and happy, increasing their chances of staying longer at the company.  Safaricom, for example, has emerged as a top employer in Kenya in multiples reports for years now. The telecommunications giant’s employees appreciate its fast-paced yet fun environment that also offers real opportunities for growth.

Overall, an exceptional company culture is a win-win for both employees and employers. Employees get to be the best versions of themselves and perform at their full potential while employers get to attract and retain effective star talent. There is no better time than now for companies to promote a culture that defines them in a way that enables them to win both internally and externally.

How do you ensure a thriving team culture in your workplace? Share with us and watch out for more resources on company culture during our ongoing culture code campaign that will run until February 2020!

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Giving constructive feedback
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Four tips to help you give constructive feedback
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When was the last time you gave critical feedback to a teammate? How did it go? Better yet, is there someone you know you need to share constructive feedback with, but you’re afraid the conversation won’t go well? 

We all know that feedback is critical to keep employees motivated, create a culture of accountability and get the most from our teams. While there are many types of feedback, all of which serve a different purpose, this article’s focus is on four tips to guide you in giving thoughtful, actionable and constructive feedback.

#1 – Share the *why* in addition to the *what*

When giving feedback, we often focus on the issue or behaviour we need to address – “you never come prepared to meetings” or “you consistently miss deadlines” – and under-focus on *why* we’re giving feedback in the first place. 

Our intention in giving constructive feedback is typically to help someone improve – and it’s also typically coming from a belief that this person can improve. Our feedback should, therefore, encourage improvement, rather than cause recipients to feel shame or guilt.

Further, critical feedback is typically not intended as a critique of who our teammate is as a person, but rather a series of actions or habits that are problematic or counterproductive. Taking the time to make certain your team member understands that your feedback is intended to help them grow and develop, and being careful to distinguish your teammate’s behaviour from who they are as a person is critical to creating an environment where your teammate can actually hear what you’re saying. 

#2 – Take responsibility for being clear 

Have you ever left a conversation where you intended to give critical feedback unsure of what the recipient heard and how they interpreted what you said? 

Sometimes, in an attempt to not hurt someone’s feelings, we bury our constructive feedback within a lot of praise, frequently known as the “s**t sandwich”; other times, we struggle with the right language to share difficult critiques, so we end up being vague or indirect.  Oftentimes, we are unaware of our own verbal gymnastics and think we are more clear than we actually are. 

As the person giving critical feedback, it is OUR responsibility to do everything we possibly can to: 

  • Make sure the recipient understands exactly what we set out to communicate. 
  • Ensure we deliver the feedback in a time and place that is thoughtful and considerate, 
  • Gives the recipient room to process the feedback, oftentimes requiring us to get comfortable with uncomfortable silences and give our message time and space to sink in. 

#3 – Make it actionable 

Oftentimes, in giving critical feedback, we focus on the ways in which something was not up to standard. While it’s important that our teammate understands that there is a gap between expectations and their performance, it’s also vital that they know what good looks like.

“I’m frustrated that you’re often unprepared when you come into our meetings, can you please focus on ensuring you’ve properly prepped for our meetings before they begin?” is a lot less helpful than, “I’m frustrated that you’re often unprepared when you come into our meetings. In order for you to be well-prepared, I need you to send an agenda at least two hours prior to the meeting, bring a pen and notebook to take notes, and send summary notes within 24 hours of the meeting.”

When constructive feedback is actionable, the question shifts from, “Does this person know what good looks like?” to “Are they willing, ready, and able to put in the work to do well?”

#4 – Be vulnerable and empathetic, but not self-centred

Often when giving constructive feedback, we’re reminded of critical feedback we’ve been given in the past. It can be powerful in building rapport and trust to share openly and vulnerably when we see a parallel between the areas we are asking our teammates to improve and our own career evolution and remind our teammate through specific examples that we all have areas for growth. 

However, while giving critical feedback can be difficult and uncomfortable for both the person sharing and the person receiving, it’s important not to focus too much on our experience as the person sharing.  While it might be tempting to acknowledge that the situation is uncomfortable by saying things like, “This is difficult for me too,” it’s important to remember that it’s unlikely that it’s more difficult for us to give feedback than it is for our recipient to hear it.

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Top startups in India
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Top startups in India: Three lessons on culture and team-building
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Ravi Venkatesan — in his analysis of some common threads between these top startups in India — said it best:

“Becoming a magnet for talent is a very strong predictor of eventual success for all companies and even more so for startups.”

Being the recruitment geeks we are, this got us wondering… what makes these top startups in India so good at attracting and retaining top talent? And what can other growing companies learn? Read on for the three lessons on culture and team-building that you can apply to your startup today:

  1. Craft an amazing employee experience

Even though access to the world’s most advanced technologies continues to become easier and cheaper, it feels like it’s harder than ever to find the right people to power your business. Add to that the fact that it’s often difficult for a scrappy startup to compete on salary with established industry players. How, then, have these upstarts been so successful at using their people as a competitive advantage?

An engaged workforce is a motivated and high-performing workforce. If there’s one thing that stood out to us across these top startups in India, it’s the care with which they craft their employees’ experiences. This means everything from obsessing over their onboarding (like Schbang’s potli of hope) to making sure employees are challenged and given room to grow every day, and to being deeply invested in employees’ physical health and wellbeing.

Every new joiner at Schbang is greeted with a ‘Knapsack of Hope’ (Photo Credit: @letsschbang)

2. Build a strong connection with the customer

“Love your customers and they will love you back”, or so the conventional wisdom goes. Purposefully creating a direct connection between your team (regardless of seniority) and your end users not only helps keep your team’s ears to the ground but also creates empathy and ownership for the problems your customers face (which is ultimately why you are in business).

For example, all new employees at Dunzo — a Google-funded, online concierge services startup (and one of our clients!) — are required to complete a customer order to understand the nuances of the business firsthand. Similarly, Razorpay team members at every level are required to answer customer calls for 4 hours a month.

It may seem counterintuitive to have employees spend their precious time on such unscalable things when your primary goal is growing faster than your competition. But you need to look no further than companies like Amazon or AirBnB to realize that the world’s most customer-centric organizations are also the most innovative (and successful).

3. Create a business that solves real, everyday pain points

From working with over 200 companies across India and East Africa over the past few years, we’ve noticed ‘problem-solving ability’ to be a nearly universal requirement for any position employers look to hire for. It also happens to be the case that the brightest, most ambitious talent is attracted to companies that are committed to solving large problems in a unique way.

Mukesh Bansal led Cure.Fit is a stellar example of this, combining primary care clinics, yoga studios, no-equipment gyms, and food delivery into a one-stop healthcare platform (or, as Aviral Bhatnagar put it in his fantastic analysis of Cure.Fit’s business model, “a combination of Swiggy, Gold’s Gym, Baba Ramdev and Metropolis”).

It’s also no surprise to see Digit Insurance make the list of top startups in India given its bold mission to create simple and transparent products in an industry that is otherwise anything but simple or transparent.

At Shortlist, we’re always thinking about how we can help growing companies build happy, high-performing teams. Did you see any other big lessons we missed? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks to Sneha Iyer, Olivia Wold, Doris Muigei, and Yvonne Kilonzo for their contributions to this post.

Managing distributed teams
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Distributed Teams: Eight Ideas to Help Them Thrive
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We believe that talent is global and the strongest teams are borderless. The digital-first jobs of tomorrow — engineers, data scientists, digital marketers and content creators — can be done by anyone, anywhere as distributed teams,  as long as they have the right skills, a computer, and wifi access.

The rise of global freelance marketplaces like Upwork, Fiverr, and Toptal is a bellwether, but so is the increasing number of firms that choose to be distributed from the start, with teammates scattered across living rooms, coffee shops, and WeWorks, and connected through Slack, Zoom, and WhatsApp. Some investors have gone as far to proclaim that distributed teams are the “new cloud for startups.”

The concept of a global distributed team is deeply ingrained in our Shortlist DNA. We launched in two markets (India and Kenya) nearly simultaneously, and today have three offices across two countries, along with consultants and board members in New York City, Washington DC, San Francisco and Mauritius (not to mention clients in 12+ countries).

We certainly still believe in the power and the magic of working (mostly) alongside our teammates. Special things can happen when brainstorms are done in person with a whiteboard, when data can be explained while pointing at the same screen, and when relationships can be formed over regular coffee or lunch meetings rather than just messaging platforms.

But with 80+ Shortlisters in across our Nairobi, Mumbai, and Hyderabad offices, we’ve become thoughtful and creative about how best to build a #OneTeam culture and generally get stuff done efficiently and to our high standards. So what are some of the things that have worked for us in operating through distributed teams?

1. Create spaces for chatter and personality

Because we can’t count on the spontaneous collisions of a single shared space to deepen connections, we have had to create these opportunities digitally. We have a series of WhatsApp groups keyed to different logical divisions (by geography, function) where there’s a steady flow of welcomes, birthday wishes, photos of social events, GIFs, and more. It’s the modern day company-wide water cooler.

Shortlist team

We also have a weekly Zoom call among the senior leadership, which is less a space for substantive discussions and  decisions, and more space to just chat and catch up. Each person has a lightly structured few minutes to share travel plans, a mood check, points of nervousness and points of celebration, which usually involves a lot of venting, movie references, and vacation longing. It’s the one time when no one cares if you take the call from the back of an Uber.

2. Institute a global social operating system

As we’ve built and tweaked our social operating system (i.e., the processes and tools in place to ensure an efficient flow of information and decision-making), we’ve done so at a global and local level. It’s helpful when everyone is on the same page about how we structure functional team check-ins, send calendar invites, and join video chats – especially when they’re happening remotely!

We have quarterly Town Halls where we attempt an (often fraught) global video-conference, with all the offices beaming in (below are all three distributed teams tuned in to our most recent Town Hall). The meeting features updates on important stuff, but also introductions to new folks, celebrations of promotions, and cross-office “high fives,” where the Kenya team gives shout outs to members of the India team and vice versa. It’s a valuable chance to express recognition of great work to team members who you won’t have a chance to thank in person.

3. Invest in “unnecessary” travel for distributed teams

We accept that part of the cost of multiple offices is increased travel bills. We make sure to budget for frequent flights between Hyderabad, Bombay and Nairobi – for the senior functional heads, of course, but also for more junior managers on the team.

These visits serve a critical culture transmission-and-smoothing tool, as teams learn from the visitor (who is usually extra motivated to go out for some local food, drinks and adventures) and the visitor brings back lessons and perspective to their home office. Below are snapshots from Product Manager Austen and Talent Advisor Mehndi’s visits to the Mumbai and Nairobi offices.

4. Commit to annual retreats

While this can sometimes feel like a scary line item in a startup budget, I highly recommend committing to gather parts or all of your distributed teams together in one place on a regular basis. Our leadership team meets for a retreat at least once a year (here we are during an epic brainstorming session) and we make sure to find a place that feels suitably adventurous: the hills of Lonavla outside Mumbai; a house on the shore of Lake Naivasha outside Nairobi.

It’s an incredible opportunity to push strategy forward but also go deep as teammates and as whole people, and have a little fun as well. We also recently invested in an “All-India” retreat bringing together the Mumbai and Hyderabad offices at one resort for a couple days of programming, a “gala” evening of team appreciation, and a surprisingly competitive cricket match.

5. Don’t cheap out on phones, speakers and internet

This should probably be #1! We’ve cycled through so many different pieces of technology in hopes of finding the Holy Grail of cross-border communication. Would that Pied Piper’s video calling were real!

The best answer we’ve come to (and we’re not being paid to say this): the Jabra 510, a steal at $110. We have a few Jabras and it takes us from our standard sequence of “Hello?… Can you hear us?… What?… Switching wifi to data… Seems there’s a delay… There’s an echo… Let me try you back…” (you know you’ve been there!) to a welcome sense of “We’re in the room together” crispness and clarity. Even better is when we get video working: we’ve had a lot more luck with Zoom than Google Hangouts or Skype but we’re still hunting for The Answer!

6. Enshrine and preserve the important stuff at a global level…

We’ve had to be even more deliberate and intentional about defining our global values, culture and identity, given the fact that we can’t count on it to simply “emerge” from the great people we have sitting around the same table. We spent significant time on our core values (read how we did it here and here), and we make sure to highlight these values and recognize the importance of company-wide culture and ways of working together at every chance we get.

Last year our co-founder Matt started an internal  “values podcast” in which he interviewed folks on the team about their personal stories and journeys to Shortlist, including a deep dive on the person’s favorite value and what it means to them. It’s been amazing to draw out the different dimensions and texture of our values that are important, deepening the words beyond just posters on the wall.

7. …but let local be local

At the same time, not everything can be global. We have such vibrant teams and offices in our two markets, and there is plenty of space for local innovations: from our Holi parties to games of Kahoot to First Friday team brainstorms to “Biggest Loser” fitness challenges to “Wellness Wednesday” self-care breaks (check out that chair yoga!) to the once-famous “Meditation Room” to the Snack Wars to the After-Hours Ping Pong Tournaments to the chai breaks to the Throwback Thursdays (game of “guess who” with childhood pictures) to Friday Jam Sessions (with guitars and beers), each office has found unique rhythms and rituals and inside jokes to keep things fun and human.

8. Cherish the diversity 

One of the best parts of building global distributed teams is that there are so many differences across the group, and so many opportunities to learn from each other. Beyond national diversity, we’re proud that 75% of our senior leadership and 65% of our global team is female. We celebrate a range of Hindu, Muslim, Jewish and Christian holidays, we sample foods from all over India and Kenya, we learn from the dramatically different life experiences of folks who have grown up in all sorts of different circumstances, went to all sorts of different schools, come from all sorts of different prior jobs.

Managing distributed teams

This is magical and fun and one of the most enriching parts of my job, so while building that global team, don’t forget to embrace and enjoy the differences!

To be clear, we haven’t figured it out and we’re always looking to make improvements, learn, grow. We’d love to hear how others do it out there. If you’re on a team that’s distributed across multiple locations or has multiple offices, how do you make it work? Any tricks, tactics or tools you can share? Let us know; this is only going to become more common and more pressing for all of us to figure out!

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