Babs responds with wants are not rights and a bucket of dandelion wishes is not an agreement.
Hey Babs,
I consider myself a seasoned professional with solid emotional intelligence and excellent team skills and I’m feeling more than a little thrown by a situation on our executive team.
We are a team of eight directors that for the most part get on well together. Last year, at our leadership retreat, our CEO brought in a team development expert who worked with us on creating a team agreement that would augment our code of ethics and workplace policies. We each contributed to the agreement what we most wanted the team to aspire to and then we committed to making the agreement work.
My contribution to the agreement was that we would support each other’s projects not just with staffing and resource allocations, but by expressing interest and enthusiasm for those projects. I consider this a small ask and yet it is not being met, particularly by my colleague Max.
Whenever I provide updates on my projects Max looks bored, and while he is generous with tactical support, he never provides overt encouragement or congratulations. A few months ago I brought this up with our CEO who advised, as per our team agreement, that I bring it up with Max.
So I did. I told Max how his lack of enthusiasm made me feel and asked that he behave differently. He seemed perplexed by my needs and said that he would “try to understand better”. Then last week I went back to Max to remind him of the team agreement and his commitment to try to understand better. He again gave me a perplexed look and then made an excuse about needing to get to a meeting.
By our team agreement, I have a right to have my expectations met, but Max doesn’t seem interested in changing.
What should I do next?
Sophia
We cannot have all things to please us
No matter how we tryGillian Welch, “Annabelle”
Hey Sophia,
Thank you for sharing this. From what I’m hearing from others you are not alone in feeling disappointed by the behaviour of colleagues.
What should you do next?
I don’t have an answer to that as it all depends on what you want. But I can offer three directions for your contemplation.
Direction One
You can leave.
But know that wherever you go you will be disappointed by someone not meeting your expectations. It may not be immediate, but it will happen.
Why?
Because it is not up to others to ensure that all our expectations are met. The best we can ask for is that people be kind, respectful, and ethical. But this does not mean that they will, or that even if they do that their way of showing up is going to be a perfect match for our expectations.
Direction Two
Stay and keep doing what you are doing in hopes that somehow you will either wear Max down or lead him to an epiphany of doing things your way.
I’m thinking that you already know that this is a frustrating, exhausting, and all-round unhealthy direction.
Direction Three
Stay and accept that Max may not express interest or enthusiasm in your projects the way you want him to. Maybe he will one day, but perhaps right now his practical offers of staffing and resources are as much as he has to give.
As well, while I too might ask for enthusiasm and interest from my team mates, it isn’t a right that I deserve to have met, it is an emotional want.
Expectations of Others
It makes perfect sense to talk about team expectations, including those like expressing interest and enthusiasm. But here’s the kicker, work and team relationships are complex and once we layer on our emotional needs or gaps that we haven’t fully recognized or wrestled with yet, we are heading for heartache.
A team thrives where there is a combination of work knowledge, strategic thinking, emotional maturity, kindness, good humour, and an environment where ideas can grow, chances can be taken, and smart failures can be learned from. Once we romanticize, as in get unrealistic about our emotional wants in work (and home) relationships, we are most likely adding to a life pattern of being disappointed by people who are in turn perplexed by what we want.
Interest and Enthusiasm
Sophia, I want to be clear that there is nothing wrong with asking for interest and enthusiasm from our colleagues. An ideal work culture would have oodles of both. Being bothered by one person not showing up with interest and enthusiasm the way you want them to for your projects may be a hint that perhaps something else, something inside of you, is yelling for your attention.
I invite you to reach out to someone, such as a coach, counsellor, or mentor, who will fully listen to you and offer you some caring and wise guidance. We all need this every now and then and while it can be hard work, the resulting ease is worth it. Most importantly, you are worth it.
The Team Agreement
Meaningful and effective team agreements are not buckets of dandelion wishes to make us feel whole as individuals or as a group. Team agreement statements are a hard-earned melding of ideas, aspirations, norms, and practices. Sounds to me like this team development expert missed the mark.
Sophia, I’m in your corner and wishing you all the best as you work through this situation.
Babs
Thank you to the many honest and courageous people who share their stories with me to share with others. Some I share in “Hey Babs” and many are found in other posts. All stories are edited by me for brevity and anonymity. As with all my work, I hold dear your trust in my professional principles, including confidentiality.