We had an off site team meeting last month. You know one of those sessions, where you chat about each others strengths and weaknesses, sing kumbaya and have a hug.

The day actually worked really well (I’m slightly sceptical of these things).

One realisation I had though — was that people are buggy. Each of us had a pretty profound “thing we know we needed to work on” that significantly impacted our ability to do our job effectively.

Start by focussing on strengths

Lots of HR wonks (who know way more about this stuff than me) — say to start by focussing on your strengths. Our day began by analysing our strengths and sharing them with each other. Starting like this is a clever technique as it gives the team a common language to talk about each other. It helps to understand when to engage different people on a task and how we can support each other better. People find it easier (and its more socially acceptable) to talk through each other’s strengths.

Getting into the sauna naked

Over time as trust builds in the group teams usually become more comfortable in talking about what’s traditionally known as each others “areas for development”. These are the places where they need the support of the team around them. These types of conversations, if done in the right environment, can help increase trust in the team. They can improve teams performance, as the team doesn’t need to hide or work around each others challenges, but can explicitly talk through how they can work better together.

Taavet described it as getting into the sauna naked — uncomfortable at first, but fun later. Thankfully, I’ve never experienced this — but I understand the sentiment.

People are buggy

As we started talking through each others areas for support it struck me how much support we all needed. The team I work with are incredible in every way, but each of us has our weaknesses and our demons. Sharing these was uncomfortable at first, but talking through them deepened the trust in the group. My realisation was that everyone was flawed in a significant way. What happened if we recognised that?

What happens if we declared bugs up front.

But that got me thinking what happens if we declared our bugs up front. So much time, we hide our frailties from the world, put on a brave face and spin around our areas for development. We create personas of people we aren’t with false bravado. Before you know it, we start lying to ourselves about our failings, and give ourselves excuses for our short comings.

In most environments I’ve worked, especially at the more senior levels, it feels like you are surrounded by supermen and women, who never make a mistake and are clearly in control of their domain. But all of these great people have weaknesses, they all have frailties. By not sharing them, they increased everyone’s fear of failure and fear of getting found out. It also starts getting in the way of a team functioning well, as information stops flowing freely and only stories that support your public image are shared.

But what happens if we declared our bugs up front?

What if we talked about these openly in our one to ones with our mentors, what happens if they shared their’s with us? And what happens if we went further and shared them with the world.

Like a health warning. I decided to update my slack profile pic with a visual warning for the team. What if we went further and openly talked about our failings with each other. What kind of teams, businesses and society would we build.

Customers > Team > Ego

Mine? I have many. I’ve been described as impatient and intense. I’m impulsive and tend to move very quickly. I over-communicate. I often operate without sufficient detail, and I’ve definitely been guilty of having an over large ego at times. At TransferWise we have a value that Customers are more important than the team, and the team are more important than your ego.

Its a great value and makes sure we keep putting customers first in our decision making. At TransferWise, I support part of the product team. Having an ego in product is pretty dangerous. Before you know it you are creating a product that makes you look good to your boss, rather than what matters to customers. I remember when I joined TransferWise thinking that I might have the largest ego here, over time I’ve managed to tame it a bit. Its an ongoing battle but I thought sharing it with the team may help them wrestle with their own demons.

What’s your demon ? Share with your team (or in the comments) and see what happens.