Getting closer to the people on my team

Much of the day we work with other people but we don’t know each other. Learning a little about the life history of our colleagues can be of great help to generate greater empathy. The question is how do we do it?

A Personal Map is a tool created by Management 3.0 that derives from the traditional mind maps that were used to tell stories. This tool is easy to use a technique that allows us to share our personal information with other people in graphic form. It allows us to relate various topics and concepts such as family, education, work, hobbies, goals, values, friends, etc.

HOW DO I APPLY THIS PRACTICE?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we started a new software development project with members of the project team. This team had only been in the company for a short time and it was the first time that they would work together. One of the challenges that were identified was communication because new tools and recommendations were beginning to be used to make remote work more effective. This context required creating an environment of mutual collaboration and trust. It was important for people to get to know each other in greater depth to generate greater empathy and strengthen team communication. Previously, he had shared with the management team about the Personal Maps tool. Since I had used them before and it produced good results in the development of high-performance teams.

At the project planning meeting, we added an activity called “How well do you know me?” As the first activity on the meeting agenda. There was an expectation for this activity as it was out of what was commonly done in planning meetings. So with the attention of the people on the team, I introduced myself mentioning only my name and asked them if they knew what my 3-year-old daughter was called. When there was no response, I told them about how much we do not know about our team that may be important to them. This was where I introduced Personal Map. After this introduction, we carry out the following activities:

1. Presentation: I started by sharing my personal maps with the whole team, trying to keep the information personal and not so much about labor issues. Share the importance of using Personal Maps, leave it until the end so that each one of us can share their impressions.
2. Design of personal maps: To be all in equal conditions, I asked them to define a list of topics that they would like to share on their personal maps. Add in the difficulty of them trying to share relevant things about themselves that people usually don’t necessarily know about them. The challenge of this activity was for each person to design a partner’s personal maps. So we divide into small groups of two and start the designs. The next challenge was that each person who designed the personal map of a colleague, had to present it to another colleague, then two more colleagues would join the group (4 people in total) and the process would be repeated until reaching the main room again to share our experiences (we use the liberating structure 1–2–4 all with some variations).
3. Final: We returned to the main room and asked for volunteers to help us answer the question WHO IS…. and added the name of each person. Each person shared the topics that were discussed in the small groups about each of their classmates. As they talked about their teammates, the familiarity of the team grew. In the end ask: what were the personal maps used for? All the responses concluded that it was a tool that “brought people closer together”.

WHAT DID I LEARN WHEN USING PERSONAL MAP?

My biggest learnings in the use of this practice are:

• The staff maps must be published so that the team can review them after the session since sometimes we tend to forget the information of our colleagues.
• When designing the personal map of a colleague creates a connection with the person since we will need to better understand some personal details of our colleague.
• The fact that they answer the question WHO IS…? and after presenting everyone’s personal maps, it allowed us to talk about personal information and not create value judgments about what we think we know about the person. This helps us create a safe environment to communicate freely.
• As each one responded about what they heard from their classmates, it allowed me to realize who did pay attention to others and who did not. This behavior was important to note since in a remote work context it is important to pay attention to the details of the partner to be more empathetic.
• I think the team’s final phrase represents the value that a personal map represents … “it helps to bring people closer together”.

Bring people closer together, get to know them more!

Thank you!

For more information: https://management30.com/practice/personal-maps/