Low trust (slow) teams

Slow teams are slow to everything. In contrast to nimble teams, slow teams are slow to share vision, questions, strengths and learning.

People on slow teams do whatever they think is their work and expect everyone else to do the same. When things don't get done, people expect those who usually take care of them to take care of them. Sharing happens when people feel like it, are expected to, or not at all. Trust is low, meaning minimal or worse.

This is in direct contrast to nimble teams where people share everything because they have shared expectations that this is how work gets done. Trust is high. Work is great.

Nimble teams and cultures of trust

Nimble teams grow and flourish in cultures of trust.

Trust is pivotal In three ways:

• Teams move at the speed of trust 
• Trust accelerates collaborative creativity 
• Trust turns uncertainty into an asset

There are many genres of trust that weave the cultural fabric of nimble teams:

• Trust in shared direction & plans
• Trust in shared expectations & decisions
• Trust in shared learning & strengths

The transition from slow teams as victims to nimble teams of empowerment

What is the more salient differences between slow and nimble teams is the fact that slow teams tend to experience a victim of identity. They feel like victims to current circumstances, conditions, strengths, gaps and deficiencies.

What's interesting is that their sense of victimhood occurs precisely to the degree that they lack a shared, compelling sense of the future. Nimble teams have a shared sense of the future that they want to see possible and create together. This keeps them in the space of empowerment and agency rather than victimhood. Slow teams can move from victimhood into empowerment simply by creating and acting upon a shared sense of the future they desired together.

It doesn't matter whether the organization as a whole has an up-to-date or viable strategic plan. It doesn't matter how much certainty the team has relative to its own future. To be empowered is to create the kind of clarity about the future that makes us empowered and proactive in the present.

The essential difference between nimble and slow teams

The core difference between nimble and slow teams is their relationship to uncertainty. 

In slow teams, there is intolerance for uncertainty. Success is a lack of failure. Uncertainty is seen as a risk to success. The priority is on the illusion of predictability through approved roles, rules, plans, agendas and goals. This culture of approval is what keeps slow teams risk-averse, reactive and slow to respond.

Nimble teams see uncertainty as inevitable and vital for growth. Success is growing together. The priority is on freedom to define the good we care about together and to engage each other's goodness in realizing the good we seek. This freedom is what gives nimble teams their velocity, alignment and agility.

The explicit and implicit differences between nimble and slow teams

Nimble teams outperform slow teams by 200-300%. 

The explicit difference is about tempo and agility. Nimble teams move and adapt quickly because their work in a culture of growth. People feel free to work with initiative, inclusion and integrity.

Slow teams work in a culture of approvals. They are slow and inflexible. They are too busy doing what they're assigned to do to make growing together a priority. They move at the speed of permissions.

The implicit difference is their relationship to uncertainty. 

Slow teams see uncertainty as preventable and problematic. The whole emphasis on approvals is to create a sense of certainty. It is only the illusion of certainty.

Nimble teams see uncertainty as inevitable and vital. They are clear that every plan and decision creates as much uncertainty as existed prior to them. They are clear that uncertainty is a rich source of possibility. Dedication to growth as the point and purpose of work infuses uncertainty with meaning. Nimble teams flourish in initiative, inclusion and integrity because they know that uncertainty engaged is the prime agent of growth.

When we are dedicated to growing together, every instance of uncertainty is a fresh opportunity space for growth. Nimble teams are clear on how to stay aligned and agile no matter how much uncertainty they encounter. What's most significant is how the nature of their work has little to no similarity to how slow teams operate and organize.  

Can a team become nimble without a commons?

The short answer is no.

The commons is the shared spaces of conversations, documents and workflow. It's the opposite of the slow practices of formal meetings, private conversations and emails. 

The commons accelerates velocity, builds trust and strengthens alignment. It requires easy to develop habits. It takes what we already know. It unleashes integrity, initiative and inclusion - the prime principles of nimble teams.

The slow-nimble team distinction

In a recent converation, the question arose about whether the distinctions between nimble and slow teams are exclusive. Do they have things in common? 

I would argue that they are two ends of a team culture and performance continuum. Teams can exist anywhere along the continuum and move consciously or unconsciously in either direction. 

Teams in the middle can have much in common, and less in common as they move closer to either end. At the ends, in more complete forms, they work from opposite principles and practices.

The principles of slow teams include:

• Do your job, make your numbers, react well to pressure to not be yourself
• Expect that focus on deficiencies is the shortest distance to improvement 
• Stay within the lines of permissions and approvals 
• Be careful how sharing anything can get in the way of your productivity 

The principles of nimble teams include:

• Make growing together the point and path of your work
• Define success together and move towards it through progress & sharing
• Expect that focus on our goodness will best support our growth 
• When you see something that needs to be done, do it, and pair with others for velocity 

The tyrany of team personalities

Before teams grow in alignment and velocity, they are dominated by the tyrany of personalities. If the chemistry of personalities is good, the team can do well, as long as this chemistry continues. If the chemistry is bad, the team will suffer and struggle in slowness. 

One of the classic indicators of slow team cultures is that people blame the personalities of team members and/or leaders for their slowness and all the karmic characteristics of slowness like fragmentation, disengagement and team learning disability.

The more nimble teams become, the less relevant personality differences become as points of blame. The more everyone engages each person's differences in goodness.

The neuroscience basis of the growth imperative

Neuroeconomist Paul Zak in HBR reports that high organizational performance is a function of engagement. Engagement is a function of trust. Trust is a function of freedom in our work, recognition of progress and continous growth. 

Nimble teams know this because we daily live it. In sync with the rest of the team and without permissions, everyone has freedom to do their best in whatever needs to be done. We define together the good we seek in all we do and move towards it in iterations of progress. We are always working from growing questions, expanding clarity in new ways.

Trust builds in this kind of culture. We enjoy high levels of performance.

A team culture of helping

Teams are more nimble when anyone can ask for and offer help that is completely unconstrained by the assumptions of fixed roles. Velocity occurs when all work is everyone's work. Freedom to do what needs to be done gets things done without delays, postponements, blame and excuses. Alignment happens when we decide together how and when help best occurs. 

How radically different does the future of work need to be?

People on slow teams, without viable known alternatives, continue to hope for a new future in their performance by doing better at business as usual. This is the myth of improvement. Improving the status quo doesn't lead to different outcomes. 

People on nimble teams are radically reimagining work without the industrial age sacred cows of meetings and emails, goals and roles, permissions and performance reviews. They are taking a whole different approach and seeing a world of difference.