Pulling In the Same Direction

Let's talk about team dynamics, both in general and then specifically what Pythia Cyber can do to help you improve or maintain your cybersecurity team's performance.

We start with that tired cliche, the crew team. On the surface, what a metaphor! You are all literally strapped into the same structure and all doing basically the same thing. It seems as though it would be easy to see if everyone is doing their job. Teamwork makes the dream work! Furthermore the usual thing is to picture a great crew having a great row.

This image is, to say the least, skipping over an awful lot of reality.

I know because I rowed a little myself and was the worst part of a great team and the mediocre middle of a terrible team. Those experiences were very different from each other, although superficially similar.

In high school I was asked to fill for an absent team member for a coxed 4. I found the experience delightful, except for the extraordinary amount of effort and fatigue. We hummed along quietly on quiet waterways, mostly gliding along with a satisfying hiss. I pulled my little heart out. We went fast. It was great.

In college I was asked to fill in on a co-ed intramural team. Surely this would be a piece of cake for someone with my experience! It was not a piece of cake. It was pretty unpleasant. The boat rocked from side to side. Our forward motion was jerky and had weird pauses in it. We rowed out of time, which led to a debate entirely new to me: do you follow the rower designated as the stroke, or the rower in front of you? (Shouldn't those two be the same?) The answer is: if you are asking this question you are already in deep trouble. I followed the rower in front of me out of panic. The rower behind me followed the stroke. She and I got out of time. I impaled myself on the end of her oar. After the race  I was angry, she was defensive but unapologetic and suggested that I do a better job following the stroke. I considered throwing her off the dock. We laughed uneasily about it many years later a college reunion.

I offer these two experiences to illustrate a point: teams have dynamics and those dynamics go a long way toward determining performance. Slotted into an excellent crew I was an adequate substitute. I was blissfully unaware that the others were balancing the boat and maintaining the tempo and that the cox's steering was smoothing everything out. Being a part of a great team makes it easy to be part of a great team. Slotted into a ragtag crew I was unable to elevate those around me. I wasn't even good at fitting into the ragtag rhythm (no one else got an oar butt to the kidney). These experiences were close together in time. I was not a different person.  I was the same person in two different environments.

How well does your cybersecurity team perform? How is that performance achieved? How coherent is your team's understanding of your vision and your goals? How would you find out?

I am delighted to announce that Pythia Cyber's team now includes Emily, someone who can answer these questions for you: an expert in team dynamics who has real talent in conducting the kind of interviews you need to get at these answers and real experience in translating those interviews into practical management recommendations to tune teams. I can tell you how well your team is doing. She can tell you why and how to keep a great team at a high level or get an adequate team to a higher level.