Welcome to post 3 of 72 Airman’s Writings. 

I appreciate you taking the time to open up this article and reading the thoughts I’ve offered to share. I hope you find this entertaining, educational, relatable, or at least something to make you pause and think.

The topic for this post is Teamwork. I chose this topic primarily due to the events I observed throughout the month of August but especially because my perspective has been focused on how best to contribute to my organization.

This will be a bit of an exploration as to why Teamwork matters as I reflect on things. This will not be a ‘teamwork is obviously important’ sort of lecture.

I think it makes sense to start here: A lot of things have been affecting my team recently, COVID-19 far from the least significant one.

Crushing Sensations

I suppose I cannot gather this just from my own experience, but from discussions I had in my prior assignment and the general feeling I get from discussions with people in different professions, the biggest one is employee turnover.

An additional thing having negative impacts on us all is the breakdown in various supply chains. (COVID!) While supply chains are just a series of suppliers attempting to satisfy demanders, that series is a delicate team of sorts. Perhaps this sub-topic is better generalized as a domino effect.

Finally, I think a lot of people do not realize how important their interactions within their own team are. I can best speak to my own experience, but I know I am only now learning how substantial an impact my actions can have on my team members.

Teamwork itself is not clearly evident in these sub-topics so far, but hopefully I’ll get there. 

Entropic Balance

At this point, I’d also like to throw in a little reminder that I’m an acquisition officer. My perspective on teamwork is highly influenced by my profession.

Even the week I started working in the office, I learned that one of our military members was about to PCS out and one of our contractor members had been asked not to come back. Shortly thereafter, I learned that one of our big brain civilians had finally decided to retire. Myself and one other military member had just joined and we were basically instantly losing 3 members.

How timely.

We were also looking at paternity leave for another team member and outstanding vacancies of two other positions at this time. Useful bandwidth was — and frankly still is — at a premium. Asking around a bit as I wondered at the way manning worked (“worked”?) around here, this seemed to be more a comfortable norm than I thought it ought to be.

Even if the number of bodies and brains in the office were relatively stable, replacing the experience, knowledge, and skill of three people with the inexperience, ignorance, and mere ambition of three people is not a fair trade.

Dominoes

The cycle down of these impacts causes invisible strains.

Adding these enthusiastic personnel is a relatively good thing. There is an energy and desire to make the best of the circumstances — a positive outlook. But, in order for new people to pursue the requisite experience, knowledge, and skills to contribute more to the organization than what they demand be contributed to them from the organization.

(This is one of the ideas discussed in the book, The First 90 Days by the way…)

Using the supply chain as an analogy with the above example from work, each of us new members is a delayed product in the supply chain — the members that departed are the products that were expected to be delivered already. By removing these expected products and assuming that delivery timeline is not adjusted in any way despite the supply disruption, the entire supply chain has to experience increased stress to maintain that delivery schedule. Or, now that we are new to the workplace, we depend on others substantially to get up to speed and become productive team members.

This sounds perfectly reasonable for any work environment with new personnel, of course, but this becomes especially problematic under COVID-19’s recent reign. In-person interactions become more limited due to increased and recommended (if not mandated) telework or physical distance policies.

Furthermore, the workload does not shift to become more manageable despite manning or in-office adjustments. As we ask for help, we demand time that was likely already allocated to other tasks; but we cannot be ignored, and we can only be delayed for so long — what’s the return on investment or the trade-off or the effort-reward ratio…?

And what’s the impact on mental health? The retirement we suffered was due to a death in that person’s family — retiring truly appeared to be the best choice even from my seat, knowing I would need to take over that role without the turnover from that individual. 

This domino fell and broke, causing a ripple in the figurative supply chain.

I suppose I could go into the idea of the actual supply chains that are affecting everyone, too, but I don’t think I have the fortitude to push that topic at this time.

There’s very real burn out occurring, and organizations are suffering for it, often in ways invisible to most of us — especially if we’re too busy to try to see it all.

Influence

Something I’ve been learning more recently is how even our subtle, unintentional influences can have huge impacts on other people.

I know I have been asking for a lot of help in the office since I’ve arrived. “Who is in charge of this? Who do I talk to so I can set this up? Who is smart on this topic? Where are these files? Where are the updated versions of these files? Who’s in charge of updating these files? Why haven’t these files been updated? Why is this like this? Why? Why?”

I hope I come across as friendly and thankful, but I know I’m only intentionally thankful maybe 15% of the time. I know that people tend to appreciate when I am grateful. I know I appreciate it when people are grateful for my actions, even when I feel like something is just part of my job or that something I’ve done is not that big a deal.

That intentional thanks tends to be the most powerful. I actually took the time to write a note to someone, explicitly thanking them for taking their time to answer a set of questions I had and actually listening to a recommendation that I made during the discourse.

While my questions were the result of that person doing their job, they took the time to give a useful and strategically thought-provoking response. They felt that my note — which I took time from my day to write — was perhaps the nicest thing that anyone had ever done for them for the entire two years they had been working in that organization.

To me, that seems like a foul — anyone taking month after month to contribute to a mutual cause should be appreciated regularly and sincerely. Even if the interest is money to make a living, efforts — mental energy, tears, and time — should be celebrated or at the very least specifically acknowledged.

Pressure Relief

This is a difficult time. It’s been a difficult time for a long time, now. Things aren’t necessarily likely to get better within the same window of time we’ve all already endured.

But we can all still try to use this time to improve ourselves and our teams. I think the single best thing we can try to do with our teams is merely connect.

If we cannot make effective connections, we can anticipate and address needs.

Failing that, the absolute least we can do it be present.

Sustaining Energy

I think we best connect when we focus on respect and trying to give a damn. Take the time to ask how someone is doing. If you understand someone else’s workload, offer to help as you are able, keeping in mind your own capacity for stress. Maybe someone just needs to vent. Maybe someone actually needs help but can’t bear the thought of requesting it.

That all said, it isn’t your responsibility to make anyone do anything (parenting aside?), but you should make yourself a safe option or pathway to a safe option to your team. Your team can include your literal team, or be wider to include your communities…

Even if the connection you make with someone else is a thin line, I truly think that’s better than never providing someone an option to avoid isolation or other feelings of helplessness. You never know when someone’s last line of support might snap away.

Grace

If you can spare the energy to anticipate the needs of others, you can often get ahead of a falling domino.

Our team has demonstrated this decently with the temporary departure of one of our team members who has recently welcomed a new child to their family. His roles were considered prior to his departure and addressed proactively, leaving his responsibilities in good hands while he is able to focus on his spouse and child.

There is even space for deliberate inaction when demonstrating grace. If you can acknowledge that someone is experiencing a particularly difficult time, there is an opportunity to simple not press some non-urgent demand upon them.

Just be thoughtful.

Be Thoughtful

It honestly doesn’t take much effort besides making the decision to take time to think about someone else.

I highly recommend proactively taking time to truly appreciate someone else for a specific action. Identify that action, elaborate how it made you feel as their team member, and describe how you feel it was helpful, no matter the scale.

If you feel like it was a small personal help, express that! If you feel like it helped out the entire team, let them know! You can make someone’s entire day by demonstrating to them that what they do matters to someone to some extent, even if they did not feel like they were doing much.

They could have taken that time to do anything else, but they contributed to you or your team.

Wrapping Up

I know nothing I’ve mentioned above is ground-breaking or new stuff.

I do believe that what I’ve mentioned is worth repeating.

> Did any of this resonate with you?

> When was the last time you intentionally took time to address someone on your team for their contributions?

> What thoughts do you have to share with me?

Thanks again for giving me your time; I hope you feel like it was a valuable exchange.