9.5 Effective Communicators
Effective meetings have team members who have developed their skills in communication with formal training, or are generally a relationship-oriented personality.
Team members are able to have an open and honest conversation on the topics in the meeting. The team is open for any opinion and feedback from the members.
Criticism is constructive and focused on achieving the same goal of the meeting. Disagreements are good, because the team is looking at all options and possibilities.
Excellent communicators create a strong network of peers that they can lean on for information and expertise. Elite team members will keep a contact list of all the people and their job title, and it has become very easy to keep with the use of the smartphone.
Effective communicators are not afraid to say, "I don't know," when there is a question they cannot answer. This is the first step, because they are being honest and truthful to the person asking the question. It is better to say, "I don't know," than to give a dishonest or unknown answer.
When a high-powered team member cannot answer a question, or does not know the answer, they are not afraid to ask for help. They will communicate and contact someone within their network to help give them the correct answer.
9.6 Willing to Access Themselves on Performance and Identify Waste
Highly skilled teams evaluate themselves for faults or problems they might be causing. This comes from honest and constructive feedback from other peers. This is not criticizing the performance of a team member, but giving advice on how to get better.Team members are willing to identify opportunities of waste in the system they are causing. They encourage self-improvement to eliminate the waste in a meeting.
Team members give feedback to the chair or leadership on potential improvements to help the meeting run effectively. Every idea is valuable, even the ones that are way out of scope. These ideas can spur more additional ones for efficiency improvement.
Bad habits are hard to break, which is why teams with members skilled in identifying waste help point out these things. Team members might not even know they are creating waste, because they do not realize they do things out of habit. Powerful teams can point that out and break bad habits in the organization.
9.7 Devil's Advocate
Having someone that always disagrees with the team in the meetings is actually valuable. While most members see this member as a roadblock, this person is actually being the guardian against groupthink.There will be a team member that always disagrees or questions everything, this person should not be considered a problem, but managed as someone who is a guardian against bad decisions.
The Devil's advocate is the person who will question everything. As a team leader, you have to manage them as a powerful tool, asking them their opinion while making sure they do not disrupt the process of the meeting.
The Devil's advocate is welcomed by high-powered teams, because they give information or experience that helps the team. They are the guardian against making a decision before all alternatives are considered.
Project leads should not dismiss the input of the team member as Devil's advocate, but manage the personality to make sure they do not go off on a tangent and become disruptive.
When managed right, the personality that questions everything is a great barrier to jumping to quick decisions as a team. They are the ones who help bring the team back to analysis of the topic on the agenda.
The Devil's advocates tend to have a self-directed personality, so they need oversight to ensure they do not become disruptive.
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