Have you ever been a part of a super high-performing team? It can be such a deeply satisfying experience when you get to work with people whose personalities, dedication to a common goal, and individual talents mesh in a way that seems like they were made for each other.
If you’ve experienced that kind of inspirational team spirit at work or with an actual sports team, you know it doesn’t happen by accident. Many of us have the exact opposite association with teamwork. It all starts with those ill-fated group projects in school where one person (probably you) did all the work, the rest of the group shared equal credit and it never really changed for any group project thereon.
High-performing teams, rather than talented individuals carrying the load for everyone else’s benefit, are created and nurtured by capable leaders. Those leaders know how to create an environment where each individual team member has the opportunity to thrive.
As a parent, you have probably noticed that your family is a team. You’re working on a group project that will last at least 18 years. Isn’t it worth your time to learn how to be a capable leader of your family team and share the load?
Without a doubt, the answer is yes!
When we as family leaders understand how to create the optimum environment for our family team, all of us benefit in incalculable ways mentally, physically, and emotionally. The good news is, it’s never too early to start implementing the family team concept and it’s never too late to turn things around if you’re headed in the wrong direction.
How do you make a family team?
Do you have a family? Surprise, you already have a family team! Maybe you don’t act like it yet. However, it is completely possible for all of you to work together as an organized unit. No promises that it’s easy though, let’s just be honest.
Many parents, especially moms, don’t feel like they’re part of a team. More often they feel like martyrs, destined to sacrifice everything that makes them feel good and strong and valuable as an individual for the sake of their occasionally grateful family.
It doesn’t have to be that way, though. Your children are absolutely capable of contributing to the family team in meaningful ways, even the toddlers! You need the tools that all capable leaders have in order to help them learn how to contribute and feel good about doing it.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking, “It takes too long to explain how things need to be done. It’s easier if I just do it.”
It may be easier now, but in the long run, you’re missing a huge opportunity to help your kids learn new skills, be responsible, and be accountable when things don’t work out as they had hoped and expected.
You, your kids, and your partner are a team. Let’s dive into how to bring them together as a family team and give you and your partner the leadership tools to keep things running smoothly.
1. Reflect On Your Family Team Environment
Great teamwork is the result of great leadership. So as the family leader, there are some key factors you must consider when thinking about the relationships and emotional environment in your home.
01 | Is there agreement on the value of becoming a team?
No matter how much you believe in it, just wanting your family to behave more like a team will not make them do it. They have to see the benefits and want to change just as much as you do.
What does “team” mean in your family? What exactly needs to change in order for your family team to thrive? Do you have a plan for how your team will adapt over time as children mature and take on more responsibilities? Are your children part of making that plan? A shared vision of success is something everyone needs to contribute to.
03 | Is there an environment of mutual trust and respect?
Trust and respect are fundamental parts of any long-term relationship. When we’re talking about your family team, every team member needs to make choices in good faith that their efforts will be rewarded, not in the sense of candy, stickers, or money.
Rewards come in the form of more independence, flexibility in schedules and rules, more choices offered, and whatever else you establish as appropriate in your family.
04 | Are there clear and reasonable expectations of each family member?
Expectations in general are not a bad thing. Every high-performing team expects that the other team members will carry their fair share of the load. That’s assuming though, they all understand what the load is and what part of it is theirs to carry.
Your success as a family team must include regular communication about what is needed from every member and what they are willing and able to give.
05 | Is open communication encouraged?
In a family, when communication is “open,” it allows for opinions, needs, mistakes, and successes all to be shared without fear of judgment, punishment, or any other negative response.
There are a number of skills involved, including active listening, repeating back what you’ve heard, using noninflammatory language, and such. But the most important piece is simply listening with the intent to connect and support, not respond. Regular family meetings are a great way to keep communication flowing.
06 | Do you possess strong conflict resolution skills?
There is no such thing as a family without conflict. Having the skills to resolve conflict peaceably and respectfully go a long way in maintaining overall satisfaction and joy.
07 | Are you able to appreciate each other’s differences?
Not every member of a sports team plays every position well. Likewise, not every member of your family team needs to be good at or responsible for all the same things.
Working together, maximizing our individual strengths with a common goal, results in the best outcome for the team overall.
08 | Are there many opportunities to learn together?
Besides the sheer value of learning something new, by participating in a wide variety of activities with our children, including things we’re not good at, we show them our weaknesses, so they might gain perspective about how we continue to learn new things over a lifetime.
In doing things we are good at already, we show them our strengths and talents, so they may be inspired to continue practicing and see us as more than just their parents. We are fallible and we are awesome. When our children see that and we remind ourselves, we are all more likely to feel that camaraderie we so desire.
Workbook + Video Guide
8 Secrets to Creating Your Ultimate Family Team
- 8 specific topics to address and establish the framework for your team;
- discussion of why each element matters and how to make it happen for your family team;
- prompts for conducting important conversations;
- reflection questions for you, your partner, and your children.
2. How to Manage the Storming That Occurs in All Family Teams as Your Kids Get Older
It’s all well and good to look at a list of concepts and say, “Yeah, my family can do that.” Then you actually try to put it into practice and the whole thing blows up in your face.
What you may not know is that all teams, whether work or family-related, go through stages:
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Forming
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Storming
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Norming
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Performing
The concept was first coined in 1965 by psychologist Bruce Tuckman in his paper “Developmental Sequence in Small Groups.” The stages of forming, storming, norming, and performing represent a cycle of how groups of people, including families, come together, struggle for a bit, adjust to each other’s needs and styles, and ultimately succeed.
Your family team started when you became a couple.
Forming Your Family Team:
Remember when you and your partner came together? It was pure bliss, at least we hope it was. You each came from a family team, call them Family Team A and Family Team B.
With your partner, you formed Family Team C with hopes, a shared view of the future, mutual trust for one another, and appreciation of your differences while looking forward to learning from each other. It was heaven … right? The wonders of the forming stage.
Your Team Starts Storming:
Then a few differences started to show up with simple things like where to put things, doing the dishes, appropriate levels of road rage, where to go on vacation, which couples to hang out with, how much money to spend or save, maybe politics or religion, and probably more.
Welcome to the storming stage. Frustration, differences in perspective, and sometimes wondering, did I make the right decision?
The Peace of Norming:
Then your heart and communication skills kicked in, and you began to sort through your real sense of the future as a couple, aligning around values, setting expectations, talking less and listening more to really understand, and sharing your innermost feelings. Ah, you were getting back to heaven on earth again … you were norming!
Finally, Your Family Team Starts Performing:
And then as a couple and as a team, while you still had differences, your focus was on the things that really made a difference and your common understandings.
You were in the performing stage. You had become a strong couple. You truly became Family Team C. And through the process, you changed and your partner changed.
Then you had a child and had to start the whole FSNP process over again!
Your child, we’ll call him Mr. Soggy Bottom, demanded food, attention, and a not soggy bottom. At that point, what was a blissful life as a couple changed. No more sleepy Sunday mornings; those quiet, intimate moments became few and far between.
The arrival of Mr. Soggy Bottom meant your new team had clearly formed, but along with him were new opportunities for storming. Eventually the new normal began to set in as you worked through each storming issue. You got into a new rhythm and reentered the performing stage. Maybe you’re still working on that, and that’s perfectly okay!
The thing about children is that because they are constantly changing, maturing, exploring, and growing into themselves, it can feel like your family team never stays in that performing stage for very long, if you reach it at all.
But that doesn’t have to be the case for you.
Prepared with the knowledge that building and sustaining your high-functioning team requires going through many cycles of FSNP is totally normal, you can approach those storming sessions with more clarity, patience, and a focus on the future (instead of frustration, anger, and irritation).
The storming phase is normal.
Respectful conflict resolution is a tough subject to deal with, especially when you’re in the fray, your emotions are running high, and one of the two people in the discussion has their mouth engaged and ears turned off.
When in the middle of a storm, whether the lightning is flashing and the thunder is booming, the tornado just touched down, the storm surge is rising, or tempers are flaring and voices are getting louder, it’s incredibly difficult to keep your cool.
It’s only natural, when the adrenaline starts pumping and our heart starts racing, we tend to lose control.
Storming is a normal part of the FSNP cycle. It’s a frustrating but important part of growth and development for any group of people, especially families.
Whether with your partner or your children, at some point (many points?), you are going to get into arguments where tempers will flare, and you as a mature adult are going to need to dig deep into your leadership tool kit to find a path forward.
Think about the last time you had an argument with your partner. While in the heat of the “discussion,” did either of you change the other’s mind? Probably not. Did you or your partner say things you later regretted? Probably.
How about arguing with your child? Have you ever pulled the “I’m the parent, so you’ll do what I say” card? It may have shut down the argument at the time, but I’m willing to bet it did very little to actually resolve the issue. If anything, you both likely felt more distant and frustrated afterward.
To get through the storm, you first have to get past the emotions of the moment.
There are two simple approaches, but both require some patience.
01 | Mute your mouth and engage your ears.
Really listen to what is being said. You can also take a few deep breaths to get the adrenaline levels back to normal. The key is to stop and listen. When you want to open your mouth, only ask questions aimed at better understanding … NOT about stating your position on the topic.
Think of using the word “why”:
- Why do you believe that?
- Why is that important to you?
- Why would that make a difference?
Remember when your kids were younger and they went through a phase of asking why about everything? They wanted to learn. Now it’s your turn to ask because you really want to know why.
02 | Take a walk to get things settled down.
If it’s too hard to mute your mouth and engage your ears, this is your best approach. Kids, particularly preteens and teens, don’t have brains developed enough to disengage. You do. So, take a walk.
While on the walk, focus on a simple question, “Why?” Why are they saying what they are saying or why do they want to do this or why do they believe what they do? When you get back home you’ll likely be relaxed, ready to listen, and ready to ask, “Why?”
Once you understand the why, then you’re ready for the discussion that gets you past the storming and you can focus on how to go forward.
You want your family to be a team, focused on taking care of each other, watching out for each other, doing things together, and making a difference wherever you are.
Muting your mouth, engaging your ears, sometimes taking a walk, and always remembering to ask why can truly make your family a loving and caring team.
3. Create an environment where your kids know they are heard and seek your advice.
An important fact to remember, particularly when tensions peak and frustrations flare, is that your kids will listen to you because you listen to them. You’re probably thinking, well of course I listen to my kids! And while we all want to believe that, the truth is, we think we listen better than we actually do.
Can you remember the last time you yelled at your child? I’m sure you can. Can you remember when your kids did something dumb? Most likely, but only if you knew about it.
Can you remember the last time your kids shared one of their most private secrets with you or something they were really embarrassed about or a wrong decision they made? Perhaps not.
As our kids get older, face pressures at school, get bullied, or see some of their friends abuse drugs or alcohol, the foundation we built and continue to build on provides the basis for them to know we will listen to them without judgement and that our advice is helpful.
The same skills you can use during conflict resolution are skills you can use all the time—active listening (mouth closed, brain engaged, and paying attention to them) and really working hard to understand and not judge, asking “why” questions, and trying to see the issues through their eyes.
All of these demonstrate that you are listening to them. As a result, the insights and personal experiences you share with them will play a big part in the solutions they come up with for handling their situations.
Moving Your Family Team Forward
Just like any professional team, your family team will go through periods of forming, storming, norming, and performing. Working through each phase as they come is the life-changing work of seeing your partner and children as an empowered and high-performing family team.
That team can fight against itself with each member constantly looking for ways to assert their independence and value. Or that team can thrive with each member knowing they are wanted, needed, and valued.
You are the leader of your family team! When you utilize the three fundamental techniques to building a strong family team, by nurturing the right mental and emotional environment, actively practicing how to turn storms into wins, and creating an environment where your kids want to listen to you because you listen to them, you will be a confident and capable parent and your kids will become capable and caring adults.
Our guide 8 Secrets to Creating Your Ultimate Family Team will walk you through the eight elements of your soon-to-be thriving team with detailed explanations of why each element matters, how to make it happen, and conversation prompts for your partner and your children, plus carefully crafted reflection questions to get everyone thinking about the costs of staying the same and the incredible benefits of moving forward.
Workbook + Video Guide
8 Secrets to Creating Your Ultimate Family Team
- 8 specific topics to address and establish the framework for your team;
- discussion of why each element matters and how to make it happen for your family team;
- prompts for conducting important conversations;
- reflection questions for you, your partner, and your children.
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Rick Stephens
Rick Stephens is a co-founder of Raising Families. With 33 years of experience as a top-level executive at The Boeing Company and having raised four children of his own, he is able to support parents and grandparents by incorporating his knowledge of business, leadership, and complex systems into the family setting.
In his free time Rick enjoys road biking, scuba diving, visiting his grandkids, and generally trying to figure out which time zone he’s in this week. Read full bio >>