Ubuntu and working together to achieve a common goal

One of the significant lessons highlighted by the COVID pandemic is that, from time to time, workers will need to collaborate with other people on a project without interacting with them in the past.

The challenge then becomes finding the best way to roll out a project with minimum friction successfully. I recently read an article on the Harvard Business Review (HBR) website which discusses leadership in more detail.

**The Style Alignment Conversation**

the article points out that, when working with someone new, it is a good idea to be intentional about first taking time to talk about what’s important to you, what drives you and makes you operate at your best, and then create an open dialogue about how to best work together. When you explicitly talk about each other’s work styles and preferences before diving fully into the work, it is more likely that you will prevent misunderstandings and misalignments down the road. I like to call this type of upfront conversation the “style alignment” or “working together effectively” conversation.

Let’s first understand what style means. I’ve come to see style not just as your communication style and preferences, but as more all-encompassing: your personality and leadership style, your values and work preferences — all of which directly inform how you do the work and interact with others. Talking upfront about “style” should ideally invite an open and authentic reciprocal exchange: “What’s important to each of us in how we partner with each other and work together in order to operate at our best?”

The article adds that if your boss shares with you that she values transparency and consistency and works at her best when she feels informed, reassured, and receives adequate info and timely updates, that’s useful information. You, as her team member, value autonomy, innovation, and change and work best when operating at a fast pace, as this makes you feel motivated and energized.

Now, let’s talk about alignment. This requires having an explicit conversation about how you can best interact and work together and come out of that discussion with a few concrete work agreements. Let’s go back to the previous example where the manager values transparency and being in the known, but you value autonomy and spontaneity. A helpful agreement might be around when and how you check in with your manager and share updates and changes. The win-win intent is for her to feel informed and reassured, and for you to not feel micromanaged or dampened in your creativity. Clarity and alignment around style will help shape the early interactions and set both sides up for success.

South Africans are well adapted to collaborating with parties they have never met
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How to Have a “Style Alignment” Conversation

The article points out that, now that you understand the benefits of having a style alignment conversation, let’s look at how to have one.

Prep as you’d do for any important conversation

A good starting point is to reflect on yourself and your work preferences so that you’ll be able to concisely articulate some key features of your style to others. Here are some reflection questions:

What do I care about the most in terms of working with others and how work is getting done?
What’s a sensitivity or “hot button” of mine others should know about?
What supports me in being productive?

Give a heads-up to make time for this conversation

The article adds that it’s a good idea to give the other person a heads-up so that they can also reflect and prep.

Make it an agenda item and allot time for it in your next one-on-one meeting. Share your intention or the objective of this meeting in your request.

Share and listen

Start by having each of you share your individual reflections about your values, work preferences, “hot buttons,” etc., and their relevance for your collaboration.

But sharing is just one part of the equation. The other is listening well. Approach this conversation with a genuine curiosity and willingness to learn about the other person.

Make agreements

The article adds that while this type of open exchange is already helpful by itself and promotes shared understanding, take it one step further. Make your discussion actionable by creating some agreements — say, around communication, information sharing, or decision-making — that will guide your future behaviour and create practices for how you want to work together.

Here are some questions that can help you co-create agreements:

What values or principles are important to us in our partnership? What is important about how we want to work together?
How can we best support each other and create a sense of true collaboration while also achieving our goals?
What are specific actions or practices we want to commit to and hold each other accountable for?

What Could Get in the Way

Although you have hopefully gained more clarity on how to have a style alignment conversation, there are several things that could make you still shy away from having one. The article points out that there are two things that hold people back. First, they worry that these conversations require a ton of upfront time investment. Second, they fear that it might make style differences more obvious and aren’t sure how to bridge those.

Collaborative leadership can prove to be very fruitful
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Know that style alignment conversations don’t have to take long — 15 or maybe 30 minutes. Of course, if you already have a thousand other things on your to-do-list, you might feel tempted to skip it. Prioritize the importance of building strong relationships and aligning around some meaningful collaboration agreements to lay the foundation for a productive partnership.

The article adds that you should also understand that style differences won’t increase as a result of your conversation. But you will likely be able to see them more clearly. That’s a good thing. By having open and deep conversations about style and preferences, something beautiful and powerful can happen. If you better understand where someone is coming from, you don’t just react to their behaviour and feel annoyed by making potentially false assumptions about why someone is behaving a certain way. Instead, you can bring more compassion and less reactivity into your work relationships and maybe even pre-empt work conflict.

The article points out that, when you still feel yourself avoiding the conversation, reflect on one question and be honest: “Is it really a concern about losing time, or is it discomfort about having such a conversation?” If you realize it’s actually the latter, acknowledge it, and do it anyway. Discomfort shouldn’t be an excuse for having a more personal, vulnerable conversation to align around your styles. Your vulnerability will also enable psychological safety, trust, and openness in your relationships and lead to more productive outcomes.