Dynamic Teams

I’ve spent most of my career leading and working in teams. And over that time, I’ve continued to refine the principles of what make teams work effectively. While teams inherit the culture of the organization, they also develop their own unique cultures.

And the best teams I’ve worked with shared these three principles:

1. They think out loud, sharing thoughts, ideas, and opinions openly.
2. They show their work, regularly capturing feedback before work is done.
3. They write everything down, capturing all decisions, ideas, and solutions.

1. Think out loud.

When a team thinks out loud, they brainstorm, collaborate, and fluidly share thoughts and ideas. Communication flows freely and the best idea wins. Leadership is treated like an activity, not a position. The team rows in unison, farms for dissent, and engages in healthy debate—the sole purpose to seek out the best possible solution to the problem.

How can your team think out loud?

Share solutions and the thinking behind it. When posting a sketch, design, or opening a Pull Request for the team to review, include the thinking, context, and thought process behind the work. It leaves a paper trail of thinking you can reference as the team composition changes.

2. Show your work.

The details of the work live in the thinking instilled in the process. If you don’t openly share your work, you trap that thinking in a black box. You don’t bring others along, and you miss moments to share deeper insights and learnings. The best teams share works in progress, actively seek feedback, and work with the garage door open.

How can your team show your work?

Record Loom demos and walkthroughs. Loom is a great tool. I use it daily to share thoughts, provide context, and create artifacts. Teams can use it to show their work by including demos, explaining design concepts, or walking through code. I even had a team member use this in place of written Pull Request descriptions. It’s wonderful.

3. Write everything down.

Thinking out loud and openly sharing your work is important, but you need to codify and clarify the thinking in words. A great team cultivates a culture of writing—taking the time to explore ideas, synthesize thoughts, and solidify knowledge. Documents are living and breathing artifacts, meticulously curated and refined as work happens.

How can your team write everything down?

Use AI tools to translate thinking into documentation. Writing is thinking. And the process of writing creates clarity. It forces you to put thoughts into words and wrestle with a topic. If you can’t articulate something clearly in writing, you don’t understand it well enough. But it also takes a lot of time to write, and this is where AI tools can help. I like to use ChatGPT’s voice-to-text to transcribe my words and prompt it to formalize the thinking. Find shortcuts to formalize your thoughts, but not your thinking.

Intentionally build your team’s culture.

These principles foster an environment of open communication, continuous improvement, and shared knowledge. Great teams are cultivated through intentional practices like these. As you lead or participate in teams, consider how you can incorporate these principles to create a more dynamic and successful team culture.