The power of vulnerability in High Performing Teams
Braver Leaders empower the revenue team of ShootsTa to step up and lead
Shootsta is an international video tech platform that aims to simplify video for businesses through a suite of apps and professional services. They have an impressive portfolio of clients worldwide, including Samsung, Clinique, Deloittes, Aldi and GSK.
“We’re in the ‘scale up’ phase of our development, said Jack Linscott, Shootsta’s London-based Head of Account Management, US & EMEA.
“In our minds, we feel like we’re still a start-up, but actually, we’re growing fast, which comes with transitional challenges. It’s a high-energy working environment, which we all love, but there’s a lot of change and a lot to keep up with on a day-to-day basis.”
International collaborative teams
“The global aspect of the business means that most of us belong to teams in multiple locations, including a local team ‘on the ground’. This means working with different managers in different places around the world. When you factor in international time differences, doing collaborative work means we’re ‘always on’. All day, every day. Everyone is driven and ambitious, but that also comes with some pressure and responsibility.
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Empowering the next generation of leaders
In the UK, we have what we call a High Performing Team (HPT). In Shootsa, HPTs are teams who are aligned on vision and purpose and who exceed their targets. This means they need to collaborate, understand and support each other and work as a tight unit to stay focused on the vision and deliver results.
We asked Braver Leaders to help our UK HPT bond and improve our overall performance. Also the team’s VP was moving onto a different role, and he wanted to empower the team to take on more responsibility and make their own decisions. So in the summer of 2021, Braver Leaders helped this team to change the way they worked together.
Everyone loved working with Braver Leaders right from the start. It helped that they had previous experience of working with SAAS businesses. They understood the vibe and the culture, which meant that everyone related to them right away.
Braver Leaders designed four separate sessions held during the summer of 2021 at our London office. The way they facilitated the sessions was impressive. They guided and brought out the best in every team member. Everyone appreciated how attentively Braver Leaders listened to them and took the time to consider every response to their questions. One of the most significant breakthroughs was that they made it OK for individuals in the team to be vulnerable with each other. It helped that they were prepared to be vulnerable with the team first, making it easier for everyone to let their guard down.
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During the first session, Braver Leaders encouraged our team to come up with a list of things they wanted to be accountable for. Almost immediately afterwards, the team decided that they didn’t like the way they ran their own Monday morning meetings. So they changed it. They now take it in turn to lead, and it has made everyone’s participation in meetings more active.
They also decided to hold their own team sessions, which had never happened before. The team have found a way to do better feedback sessions with each other and made their own giant Miro board on how each person prefers to receive feedback. Individual values were added, which really helped everyone to get to know each other. The net result is that the team all feel OK being vulnerable and honest in front of each other.
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As part of the sessions, the team created their own charter on what they expected from each other and how they wanted to work together. They decided to take this a stage further and created an additional charter on what they expected from the Shootsa senior management team.
It turned out to be a big win for the team. Our CEO mentioned how grateful he was for this proactive approach and felt that it was a massive step forward in making Shootsa a more collaborative organisation.
Small changes have made a massive difference
The Braver Leader programme helped the team identify practical issues such as, how bad they were at timekeeping in meetings. Nothing ever started on time and they realised how much time was lost waiting or veering off topic. So now, they always appoint someone as the timekeeper in every meeting. This has saved time, it keeps things focused and more is getting done as a result.
Another simple technique that has revolutionised the team is the ‘swimming pool’ exercise. This is an analogy where team members can describe how they feel about work or life. So, for example, someone might say, “I’m in the deep end, and there’s a wave coming at me.” Or someone else might say, “I’m in the shallow end right now, and it all feels a bit too easy.” The swimming pool has given the team more accurate language to express how they feel at any given time.
Previously the team used a “marks out of 10” approach. But there were two problems with that system. Firstly, because of the high-energy working environment, no one would ever admit to being anything less than a ‘9’. Also, one person’s ‘8’ could be another person’s ‘5’. So it added nothing.
The swimming pool analogy is more accurate and honest and provides everyone with a simple way to be vulnerable. It has strengthened the bond between team members and allows everyone to be more human.