Ep. 70 - Building and Sustaining Effective Teams: The Balance Needed to Drive Momentum - with Jennifer Trzepacz
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Many of us realize how important team dynamics are to the success of a business. And recent events have made that all the more relevant as many businesses have needed to quickly adapt and adjust to operating in a new way out of necessity.
Jennifer Trzepacz - known as JT - is the Chief Operations Officer and Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners. She’s been involved in implementing human resource strategies and managing operations at several transformative and industry leading companies including Yahoo, Salesforce, Electronic Arts and Living Social. She inherently understands the impact that the workforce, workplace and macro environment at large has on the business and the team dynamics within them. These evolving factors are more important than ever in the current situation we find ourselves in on every level.
In this episode, JT shares her perspective on:
Critical factors leaders and individuals need to consider when establishing and being part of high performing teams
Common challenges that affect the ability to develop the right team dynamics
What it takes to break through to create and sustain those levels of productivity and impact regardless of business size
A Passion for and Pursuit of Growth
JT started her career looking for a balance between data and relationships. And thus the banking industry and an HR job within it was where the journey began. Yet early on, her instinct was pulling her to find opportunities that had a growth mandate - that desire to be part of something new and progressive, and see it come to life was what drove her.
This pursuit of growth led her to become employee number six at a new division within Putnam Investments launching a new product - the 401K product. JT was responsible for the Human Resources aspects of the organization. Within three years it was a $1b dollar business and had expanded to over 900 employees.
She continued her passion for building teams and growing businesses in the financial services industry at Fleet where she helped cultivate their emerging markets business before heading out to Silicon Valley and transitioning to a business operations leadership role.
At Yahoo, she not only built out their HR systems and infrastructure as part of their growth strategies, she also became the COO of their media division. Within two years it had become a $500 million dollar business with 600 employees.
JT believed that for a company’s growth potential requires connecting the people and processes to it.
Being able to wear those dual hats of an HR and Operations executive gave JT the ability to effectively connect people, processes and potential. Marrying the business side with the people side was critical as she led companies such as Electronic Arts, Salesforce, Living Social and Rocket Fuel, through rapid rates of change and expansions.
Across these experiences, she had to think progressively, given the accelerated pace at which these organizations were operating at. And while there were a lot of successes, there were also a lot of failures. It’s that growth and wisdom she’s gained personally and professionally from both those aspects that positions her well to help startups in her role today at Wildcat Venture Partners.
“If you're pushing yourself hard enough, you are going to have failures and you need to be comfortable with it.”
This exposure to different talent markets, business scenarios and business models - most of which are converging - have given JT a unique perspective on both the people and operations front.
And throughout her journey she’s never forgotten the importance of human relationships, and how to help people operate effectively in matrixed and collaborative environments.
Challenges in Building the Right Team Dynamics
With multiple generations in the workforce, technology accelerating the pace of everything we do, and shifts in how and where employees work, the way organizations operate has inevitably changed. These shifts have tremendously impacted the way in which companies think about attracting and retaining talent - and developing these employees to work collaboratively to drive results.
When it comes to those phases of team development: ie. forming–storming–norming–performing, teams are learning to figure out how to best operate together in this new work world. But the common challenge JT has seen and experienced time and time again is a misplaced focus on “the what” (e.g. the project/product, initiative) vs. “the how” (e.g. the approach). Yet that is where the emphasis needs to be to create that high performing dynamic.
“And most teams dive into the what, ‘Let's get this done’, and don't take the time to say, ‘How are we going to do this?’ They may talk about the how as it relates to tech, ‘Oh, we'll use this software, we'll use this application’, but they don't talk about the how for each other.”
Further, the lack of self-management skills among individuals also inhibits a team from reaching its potential - that’s regardless of size or workforce locations.
What it Takes to Create and Sustain Team Momentum: Balancing Every Dimension and Focusing on the How
For JT, it’s always been in her DNA to think holistically about how the people and business needs have to be aligned, integrated - and balanced. Regardless of whether the business is a start-up or large enterprise.
And that balance involves the what AND how - up, down and across the business. The way you are looking to connect the people, processes and systems that make up a team’s performance is foundational to accomplishing your goals.
And while a company’s culture and leadership style influences those team dynamics at an overarching level, you of course can’t forget about what’s needed at an individual level.
It’s critical for one to have both the technical skills and soft skills. And those soft skills matter even more in today’s virtual and globally distributed environment. So remember to build up your EQ and not focus only on the IQ.
Because working collaboratively vs. individually is now the norm in order to be more competitive, more creative and to get to market faster. And just as great teams aren’t only made up of one type of employee, the process of building and sustaining them needs to take into account every dimension to drive growth. It's that balance between the business results, an individual's potential, and feeling connected to higher order, that creates (and sustains) a high-performing team.
Career Advice
Go slow to go fast or you go alone.
Just slow it down a little to enjoy the people around you, because there are amazing people that are going to be part of your community that can raise your gaze and knowledge in a way that you just didn't recognize, because you were going too fast.
Key Takeaways:
The culture and leadership of a company are overarching influences that will determine some of the team dynamics.
So as a leader, it’s important to take into account the following:
Understand how the cultural elements of your company, its leadership values, and your own leadership style create an environment that fosters the right business and team outcome that you are looking for.
It’s being mindful of balancing the business results and an individual's potential so that they feel connected to the company’s purpose - that’s what creates a high-performing team especially with technology proficiency, generational differences and distributed teams being a big part of the equation.
Realize that each individual has a unique formula that triggers them to lean in, be their best, and feel valued.
As an individual, the notion of balance is also important, as being technically good at your job isn’t enough. You also need to also possess the soft skills like communication and relationship management to be a good team member, particularly given the growing diversity in team composition.
Remember, “there is no replacement for that one-on-one exchange that you need to have at some point in time in building trust in that relationship.”
Your EQ - not just IQ - is crucial to sustaining that high performing nature of a team. It’s being mindful of others and really gauging the sentiment of the team that will enable you to harness and orchestrate their effectiveness to get to the end goal. With the remote nature of work this matters even more than IQ.
You need to be adaptable, agile, resilient, and fluid within your role. While it’s necessary to play your position, it’s also important to be fluid with how you go about doing it because of the dynamic nature of everything today.
To establish the right team dynamics, consider not only what has to be accomplished but more importantly how that will be done because the scope and people will inevitably change.
Make sure you spend the time to talk through it and revisit what has worked and what hasn’t.
Keep in mind that “how” may have diverse perspectives due to the multigenerational composition of your team. So it’s necessary to be open and respectful to the range of options.
For early stage startups, an important lesson with respect to “how” is the approach you take in identifying and deciding the right talent to bring on.
Any person you bring on board is critical because their impact is significantly magnified.
Go slow when hiring to get it right the first time, and fire fast when it’s not working. The velocity of team performance is at such a pace that you don't have the luxury of having the wrong fit. (Note: this is also covered in more detail in Wildcat Venture Partner’s book Traversing the Traction Gap)
Building effective teams in the case of mid-size/large enterprise companies involves that balance of the technical and soft skills on a macro level:
Take inventory of the functional areas to make sure you have that expertise represented while also taking into account the talent relative to their soft skills, their potential, their hunger, and passion.
