Smart Teams

“Are you helping your team succeed, or unwittingly creating obstacles? The answer lies in how you communicate, plan, and lead.”

1. A Culture of Friction Impedes Productivity

Every workplace experiences disruptions, but some cultures unintentionally breed more obstacles than progress. These include frequent interruptions, lengthy irrelevant meetings, and overflowing inboxes. Such environments diminish focus and derail priorities, often stemming from norms that go unchecked.

Productivity friction isn’t about grand disruptions but the accumulation of small, daily inefficiencies. Think of reply-all email chains, unclear meeting purposes, or norms that discourage declining obligations. These habits pile up unnoticed until they severely hamper accountability and progress.

However, most disruptions stem from good intentions. Colleagues may seek your feedback or involvement unaware of your workload. Addressing these norms requires identifying the specific behaviors that hinder productivity and creating an environment that supports focus and mutual respect.

Examples

• Meetings running long because they rarely start or end on time.
• Vague email subjects leading to misunderstood priorities.
• Overcommitment driven by a culture that discourages saying “no.”

2. Productive Team Members Exhibit Purpose and Reliability

Strong teams thrive on shared goals and mutual trust. Purposefulness and mindfulness contribute significantly. Purposeful individuals identify priorities and focus on tasks that serve collective goals, while mindful ones consider how their actions impact teammates.

Trust is the cornerstone of collaboration, built on punctuality and reliability. These qualities allow team members to depend on one another without second-guessing commitments. Punctuality goes beyond being timely; it involves managing deadlines and honoring requests promptly. Reliability lies in delivering on promises—keeping others from unnecessary follow-ups or rework.

Fostering these attributes within a team creates harmony and supports achieving shared outcomes. Without these, distractions and inefficiencies undermine the group’s potential.

Examples

• Timely delivery of a shared document prevents project delays.
• Double-checking your deliverables avoids creating extra work for colleagues.
• Scheduling sufficient time buffers ensures deadlines aren't missed.

3. Productivity Principles Help Shape Better Behaviors

Good productivity isn’t an accident—teams need guiding principles. Productivity principles combine values like mindfulness with specific situations, offering clarity on desirable behaviors. These principles align team practices and create accountability.

For instance, if email overload is a regular problem, a principle could be to write clear, concise subject lines or only CC when truly necessary. Such behaviors are specific, measurable, and can directly improve efficiency. Moreover, these principles empower teams to self-regulate, ensuring everyone knows their roles and standards.

Developing principles begins by identifying sources of friction. From there, teams transform these challenges into actionable rules. The more intentional these rules are, the smoother collaboration becomes.

Examples

• Setting a rule to wrap up meetings 10 minutes early to stay on schedule.
• Designating specific tools for project updates to reduce redundant emails.
• Creating shared templates for consistency across deliverables.

4. Clear and Intentional Communication Reduces Overload

Emails, chats, and calls are tools, but their overuse drains productivity. Everyone benefits when communication is intentional. Start by clarifying why you’re reaching out—what’s the goal? Identifying the purpose shapes the message and ensures it lands effectively.

Clear content is equally vital. Whether it’s an email or memo, structure content to highlight immediate actions or decisions needed. Following frameworks (like adding summaries or keywords in subject lines) transforms your message into something actionable rather than just informative.

Be just as selective with your audience. Only include people directly related to the discussion. By adopting streamlined communication, you avoid overwhelming your teammates and ensure meaningful interactions.

Examples

• Adding keywords like “Action Required” to email subjects for clarity.
• Including summaries upfront in emails to save readers’ time.
• Avoiding CC’ing an entire department for minor updates.

5. Properly Directed Meetings Save Time

Meetings are expensive and too often waste time. A simple way to improve them is by cutting unnecessary ones. Before scheduling, ask if a resolution can be achieved via email or a quick call. Next, keep meetings short—45 minutes may suffice instead of an hour.

A purposeful invitation list also limits distractions. Amazon’s "pizza principle" suggests only inviting as many people as two pizzas can feed—usually around seven participants. Research supports this; larger groups often struggle to stay focused or make decisions.

Finally, every meeting should have a clear purpose statement, ensuring participants know their roles. This structured approach ensures meetings produce results instead of endless discussions.

Examples

• A weekly update replaced by a memo saves time for the entire team.
• Aligning the purpose statement ensures the team focuses on specific outcomes.
• Including only key decision-makers reduces meeting bloat.

6. Project Success Depends on Collaboration

Projects rarely succeed through individual effort alone. They rely on alignment, agreement, and awareness among participants. Alignment ensures shared goals, avoiding confusion about priorities. Agreement defines a clear process, streamlining cooperation.

Awareness tracks how the team is performing and addresses any gaps or inefficiencies. Including regular check-ins keeps everyone synchronized and prevents minor issues from escalating. These strategies focus not just on the tasks but the working methods that make collaboration seamless.

Examples

• A shared roadmap clarifies steps and timing for a team project.
• Bi-weekly calls prevent updates from getting lost in email threads.
• Pre-agreed communication tools reduce unnecessary back-and-forth.

7. Reacting to Urgency Weakens Long-Term Productivity

Our reaction to urgency often undermines our focus and priorities. Most workplace "emergencies" are a result of poor planning—what feels urgent isn’t always important. Learn to differentiate between real critical issues and tasks that can wait.

Moving from reacting to responding involves taking a strategic approach. Plan your time and tasks carefully so you can address requests thoughtfully without being dictated by others' timelines. This shift avoids constant task-switching, which can heavily drain overall efficiency.

Stay proactive and manage expectations mindfully. This ensures you work smarter, protecting productivity instead of sacrificing it to last-minute pressures.

Examples

• Scheduling priority tasks to avoid interruptions from less important demands.
• Politely rescheduling non-critical requests you’re not ready to handle.
• Introducing a notice period for last-minute requests.

8. Productivity Starts Locally Before Scaling Up

Change doesn’t need to come from the top; impact starts with small, local improvements. Whether or not you’re a manager, influence begins with modeling good habits and leading by example in your immediate environment.

Co-created principles and strong teamwork make groups noticeable in the wider organization. This ripple effect encourages others to emulate what works. Positive reinforcement enhances adoption across teams and gradually shifts company-wide norms.

Leaders, particularly, amplify these changes by focusing less on micro-managing and more on encouraging their team. As habits evolve, even the smallest groups create visible change.

Examples

• A team's punctual meeting culture inspires other departments to adopt similar practices.
• Productive teams attract internal recognition for hitting deadlines while avoiding burnout.
• Immediate managers empower teams by shielding them from inefficient company practices.

9. Leadership Influence is Built Through Example

True leadership lies in consistent personal actions. Forget titles; setting an example underpins influence. Showing up on time, following through on commitments, and prioritizing a calm working environment draw others toward productive habits.

A leader’s actions send messages more powerful than policies. How you behave sets the tone for what’s acceptable. Teams naturally mimic reliable, accountable leadership.

Start small with your efforts. Tackle one inefficient norm at a time and ensure your actions align with your values. Over time, you’ll build a workplace anyone would want to emulate.

Examples

• Finishing emails with actionable next steps to foster clarity across teams.
• Canceling unproductive meetings as a statement of valuing team time.
• Stepping back from micro-management to build trust within your team.

Takeaways

1. Create productivity principles tailored to your team’s challenges, like setting clearer email guidelines or limiting meeting participants.
2. Shift from reacting to requests immediately toward thoughtful responses, protecting your priorities while helping others plan better.
3. Model the behaviors you want to see—reliability, punctuality, and focus—because visible actions influence more than words ever can.