3 practical tools for creating a positive working atmosphere within a team

This article will give you some concrete tools for supporting and maintaining a positive work atmosphere within your team.

Before describing the tools themselves, I will clarify the terminology from the title so that you can decide before reading whether this article can actually help you.

What exactly is a “team”?

By the term “team” we mean a group of people, ideally 6-12 individuals. Individuals are work colleagues, formed into a group to solve business challenges.

Usually, within a team, there are colleagues who communicate frequently, and their skills complement each other and are needed to solve the problems that the team faces.

Colleagues in a team do not have to be at the same hierarchical level within the company.

Oliver Linzbauer, Skill Builder & Trainer at Otom Potom

What is a positive work environment?

An environment where individuals feel safe and express their needs, wishes, and ideas without fear. An environment that offers support to individuals in accepting new challenges and solving problems. An environment based on open communication.

These tools will come in handy if you are a team lead, leader, or manager or often work with a group of people and lead meetings.

It will also come in handy if you're just part of a team that suffers from unstructured and ineffective meetings - suggest some of these tools as part of your workflow and see if they can help with efficiency.

They are primarily designed to be applied during a work meeting or the time you invest in communication, but once you start using them, you will realize that some of them can be applied in a much wider range.

They can be used once or as needed, and you can also introduce them as part of standard practice during your meetings.

You can also use these tools if you work informally with groups, as an educator or facilitator.

It is recommended that you do not use these tools convulsively and at all costs, but rather create a relaxed working atmosphere before using them.

Think - write - share

Needed

Paper and pencil for each team member

Application

Ask a question or look for a new idea. Team members do not answer directly, out loud, but give them some time. First they have a minute to just think about the problem.

Then, they have a minute to write their answer, with pencil on paper.

Only after that comes the sharing of answers/ideas.

What do you gain with this tool?

• Equality - every team member will get a chance to express their opinion. When you ask questions openly, the fastest and loudest members often steer the discussion in their own direction (the fastest and loudest are not always the best).
• Better solutions - you give them time to think about their answer and formulate it into a concise sentence. You also leave room for unbiased solutions - team members will not be influenced by someone else's idea they heard from a colleague, but may find a new, more creative solution.

If I have team members who like to talk about their ideas, if I have team members who always have an answer, or if I have team members who are never heard from.

With this tool, I ensure an environment in which each individual gets their chance to express themselves.

I often use this tool if it is my first time working with a group of people and I don't know them yet. In this way, I create a place and time for each team member.

Possible modifications:

• The time you give them to think and write down depends entirely on you and the complexity of the problem you are solving.
• When they share their answers, do not let them retell their answers, just let them read what they have written down. This way you do not waste time on individuals who like detailed verbal elaboration, but rather force them to come up with a concrete and concise solution right away.

1-2-4-all convergence

Needed

Paper and pencil for each team member

Application

Ask them a question/problem.

Don't answer directly, out loud, but give them some time. First, they have time to think, and then they write down the main points of their answer on paper. You give them 2 minutes.

In the next step, you put them in pairs. Each pair discusses a possible solution and together they have to find a solution that both of them will be happy with. You give them 4 minutes.

In the next step, you put the pairs in groups of four. Each group of four now has the same task as in the previous step - to find a solution that each member of the group will be happy with.

In the final step, you have several groups of four with ready-made solutions. Choose the way you want to present the solution, depending on the type of problem they were solving.

If you need to choose only one solution, there are several ways. You can give the team the opportunity to choose the best solution themselves and continue working on it.

It is recommended that you do not use these tools frantically and at all costs, but rather create a relaxed working atmosphere before using them.

What do you gain with this tool?

• Equality - Similar to Think-Write-Share, each team member has a chance to contribute to the solution.
• Relationship - You give team members time and space to build relationships with their colleagues.
• Time-saving - This tool is a quick way to arrive at a solution that everyone will be happy with. Everyone has had a chance to contribute to the solution.

When and how do I use this tool?

It has proven to be good for me when I want to get a list of important things from the team.

It can be a list of priorities that need to be done, it can be a list of rules that we need to respect, it can even be the most ordinary shopping list for socializing on Friday afternoon.

Everyone starts with what is important to them, and when joining a larger group (a pair or a group of four) they keep their priorities.

The good thing is that when joining, you can set additional criteria - if everyone started with one priority, when joining a pair, set a condition that as a pair they must choose only one priority!

And again, when joining a group of four, set a condition that as a group of four they can only have one priority.

In this way, you encourage discussion in small groups about what is really important. If I have a team of 12 people and I ask them for a list of priorities, using this tool I don't get a list of 12 priorities but only 3!

1-2-4-all convergence also works great when you want to get specific, ready-made suggestions from something very general.

For example, you could give the team Friday afternoon off to socialize and task them with figuring out what they want to do during that time.

Instead of getting 12 suggestions that you now have to balance, take them through this tool. After the first step, where everyone writes down their suggestions on paper, have them read what they have written down, then group them into pairs based on the similarity of their suggestions.

If three of them wrote “beer,” pair them up and have them come up with a concrete plan. If four of them wrote “karaoke,” group them together and let them work on developing their suggestions.

Possible modifications

• At each step, you can give them sub-questions or, when joining a larger group, point out what is important for the solution. When merging into a larger group, you can e.g. suggest that they find similar points in the solution and points that are completely different.
• Grouping into pairs and foursomes can be completely random or according to some criteria. If you want to develop relationships, you will bring them together, so bring those who normally interact the least together. If you want better, more elaborate solutions, group those with similar solutions.
• Think about the way to present the solution of each quad in the last step. If you are short on time, it can be just a verbal presentation of one member, and there are ways to involve the whole foursome and make the presentation of the solution dynamic.

Peer-2-peer knowledge transfer

The first two tools are very concrete tools, ready to be implemented in the first meeting with your team. This tool is more of a concept that you need to think about and find the right way to apply in your business environment.

The idea is to create a knowledge transfer among colleagues within your team - those who know more about a certain topic teach those who know less but want to learn more.

The topic could be a software tool or application that you use at work, or it could be English language skills. For example, if your business requires knowledge of graphic tools like Photoshop or Canva, specific topics for knowledge transfer could be “basic work with layers in Photoshop” or “how to export templates from Canva”.

Peer-2-peer knowledge transfer is a concept that you need to think about and find the right way to apply in your business environment.

To make this concept come to life as a tool within your team, I can help by suggesting concrete steps:

1. Research possible topics that are interesting within your team, useful for your business, and interesting to your team members, and define a list of topics

2. Research the level of knowledge of each team member on a particular topic. You can do this through a quick self-evaluation process with a small informal questionnaire. Specifically - give each team member a sheet of paper with a list of topics. At the end of each topic, the individual must rate their knowledge of a particular topic with a number from 1 to 10.

3. Research in which direction the team members want to develop, that is, which topics interest them. On the same sheet of paper, each individual marks three topics in which they want to develop.

4. Evaluation of results - find who in the team has the highest level of knowledge on a particular topic. Find who would like to develop in that topic. Divide them into working groups, the smaller the better.

5. Balance. If you are making a long-term plan, keep in mind that the people who “teach” sometimes have to be “students”, and vice versa.

6. Provide a time and place for knowledge transfer. You don't have to do internal multi-day courses, just 1 hour of time per month can make a huge difference.

What do you get with this tool?

• Expertise - more people on your team become more expert. And in a topic that is important to your business and in a topic in which they themselves want to develop.
• Relationship - a special relationship is created between the teacher and the student. First of all, you build trust between colleagues.
• Motivation - you touch on two important pillars of intrinsic motivation. In the role of "teacher", individuals become aware that they matter, that their knowledge is important and appreciated, that they can help someone (in addition to contributing to their company). In the role of "student" they develop in the direction in which they want to develop, they become more expert and skilled. People are generally motivated when you give them the opportunity to develop their skills.

What are the traps?

When self-evaluating, individuals may misjudge their level of knowledge. That's why you're there to review and, if necessary, correct their ratings.

It's common for experts in a field to give themselves very low ratings, simply because they know how much they don't know, while in reality they are very effective at solving all the business problems they encounter. The opposite is also true (see Dunning-Kruger effect)!

These tools are free, practical, and easy to implement into your business processes. The first two tools will actually save you time, while peer-2-peer knowledge transfer will still require some extra time.

Given the benefits that arise, it's worth it. Start small, and when you see the results, decide if you want more.

The hidden, but desired consequence of using these tools is, above all, the creation of psychological safety. In your business environment, within your team, within the entire company.

Likewise, the goal is to create an environment of open communication and mutual support, and to enable quality relationships among colleagues.

Why?

You get employees who provide more creative solutions, are less stressed and - more efficient! And that is ultimately where your profit lies, be it financial or otherwise.

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