Episode 2 - EI Team Tip #3

In this podcast, Laura Perez-Earhart discusses the importance of building a highly emotional, intelligent, and effective team. She emphasizes the need for team members to handle conflict and improve conflict resolution. Emotional awareness helps identify underlying emotions driving conflict and find resolutions that satisfy everyone. The breakdown in team dysfunction during conflict leads to a lack of cooperation, communication, and participation. On the other hand, emotional and social resilience can be achieved by reviewing team strengths and weaknesses, regulating emotions, and acknowledging accomplishments. Creating a safe space for team members to vent without problem-solving is also beneficial. Understanding team members' moods and addressing disruptive or negative cues can improve team efficacy. It's important to attack the problem, not the person, and support struggling team members without judgment. Norms of interpersonal understanding, perspective-taking, confrontation, and c I'm your host, Laura Perez-Earhart. Welcome to Coach Anonymous Presents Podcasts, a part of the EPS Network. This is our Mini-Fights series. Tip number three, building a highly emotional, intelligent, and effective team, also established by knowing how to handle the heat amidst conflict within the team is key. It helps to improve conflict resolution, and emotionally aware team members are better equipped to handle conflicts. They're able to identify the emotions behind what's driving the conflict and work towards finding a resolution that satisfies everyone. So let's unpack the barriers to conflict. When conflict happens, the breakdown in team dysfunction leads to a lack of cooperation, communication, participation. We see a withdrawal in commitment to goals, including an absence in emotional competence. Conversely, the breakthrough, the team demonstrates emotional and social resilience by consistently reviewing and reinforcing team strengths, weaknesses, regulating the group's emotional state, and the mode of interaction. This is a good time to also look at the rearview mirror and acknowledge the team's accomplishments. Additionally, by creating a safe space and having regular bitching sessions for members to vent, reserve from problem solving during that time. Make sure to set parameters, for example, allow each team member only 60 seconds to vent and move on to the next member. Knowing the mood of your team members will help avoid speculation or making assumptions, and will improve the team's efficacy. This helps to confront any festering behaviors and emotions that can erode a sense of trust in a team. Another tip to demonstrate emotional and social resilience is by picking up on disruptive or negative cues from team members. Understand the problem and work together to find resolution. Remember to attack the problem, not the person. Additionally, support team members who struggle without judgment. So, making this a group norm benefits the team as a whole. It emphasizes interpersonal understanding. So, work to accurately hear and understand one another's feelings and concerns can also improve member morale and cooperation. Also, consider matters from an individual member's perspective. A team needs to take the time to hear out the objective before coming to a conclusion, for example. Also, make certain that the team members see one another, making the effort to grapple with perspectives. This way, the team has a better chance of creating the kind of trust that leads to great participation among members. Also, show a caring orientation by displaying positive regard, appreciation, and respect for group members through behaviors such as support, validation, and compassion. Interpersonal understanding, perspective-taking, confrontation, and caring, these norms build trust and a sense of group identity among members. And all of them can be established in teams where they don't arise naturally. So, you may be asking yourself, hey, Laura, but is this really worth the investment? Does it make sense to spend managerial time fostering new norms to accommodate a few prickly personalities? Of course it does. Teams are the very foundation of an organization, and they won't work effectively without mutual trust and common commitment to goals. While the focus of team-building exercise is often not directly related to the group's actual work, the benefits are highly relevant. Teams come away with higher emotional capacity and, thus, a greater ability to respond to emotional challenges. Thank you.