In a recent newsletter, we discussed the book "Team Habits: How Small Actions Can Lead to Extraordinary Results" by Charlie Gilkey.
In simple terms, Gilkey explains why teams get stuck in dysfunctional patterns, and he gives tactical advice about how to think about and change day-to-day behaviors, individually and as a team, so that we not only become more productive, we also become people who genuinely enjoy being with the people we work with.
In simple terms, Gilkey explains why teams get stuck in dysfunctional patterns, and he gives tactical advice about how to think about and change day-to-day behaviors, individually and as a team, so that we not only become more productive, we also become people who genuinely enjoy being with the people we work with.
Before providing any more book summary here, I would like to share what compelled me to read this book.
I lived the first 17 years of my career mostly in academia (with brief industry experiences sprinkled in), where I witnessed a smorgasbord of team and leadership behaviors. They were good, bad, and ugly. I participated in them, then I learned how to be better to my mentees and collaborators and how to cultivate functional team behaviors even when there wasn’t officially a team.
Not long into my post-academic career, I began following Gilkey’s regular newsletter, ‘Productive Flourishing’, which I’ve found rich with stories and guidance about managing oneself, working with others, and making sticky decisions. I’ve frequen wished that I had these insights about human dynamics in academia.
Thankfully, I still get to share them as a coach to anyone who wants more functional collaborations where they feel great about seeing their coworkers, trust that the team is capable of better solutions and execution than individuals, and experience joy in the process.
So, when Team Habits caught my eye in a bookshop recently, I thought “yeeessss”, I’ll buy it! (Seeing my enthusiasm, my partner offered to buy it for me as a present, and I said yes.)
The book opens with what Gilkey calls “broken printer” problems. Workplaces often cope with a broken printer for a long time. It might cost several hundred USD to fix or replace, and it doesn’t impede daily work – at least, there are workarounds, like expecting people to read on their screens instead.
Eventually though, the immediate, minor consequences add up. Streaked documents are distracting or look unprofessional to people with whom you want to make a good impression. It could cost you customers, or in the research world, grants or collaborations.
That’s thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars, lost instead of spending ~$500 USD to fix it.
I lived the first 17 years of my career mostly in academia (with brief industry experiences sprinkled in), where I witnessed a smorgasbord of team and leadership behaviors. They were good, bad, and ugly. I participated in them, then I learned how to be better to my mentees and collaborators and how to cultivate functional team behaviors even when there wasn’t officially a team.
Not long into my post-academic career, I began following Gilkey’s regular newsletter, ‘Productive Flourishing’, which I’ve found rich with stories and guidance about managing oneself, working with others, and making sticky decisions. I’ve frequen wished that I had these insights about human dynamics in academia.
Thankfully, I still get to share them as a coach to anyone who wants more functional collaborations where they feel great about seeing their coworkers, trust that the team is capable of better solutions and execution than individuals, and experience joy in the process.
So, when Team Habits caught my eye in a bookshop recently, I thought “yeeessss”, I’ll buy it! (Seeing my enthusiasm, my partner offered to buy it for me as a present, and I said yes.)
The book opens with what Gilkey calls “broken printer” problems. Workplaces often cope with a broken printer for a long time. It might cost several hundred USD to fix or replace, and it doesn’t impede daily work – at least, there are workarounds, like expecting people to read on their screens instead.
Eventually though, the immediate, minor consequences add up. Streaked documents are distracting or look unprofessional to people with whom you want to make a good impression. It could cost you customers, or in the research world, grants or collaborations.
That’s thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars, lost instead of spending ~$500 USD to fix it.
In the research world, this compromise often goes further as these tasks are delegated to junior staff and graduate students whose time is often undervalued.
Expecting staff or graduate students to make calls to IT because their time is less valuable than a $500 fix? What if that grad student time were channeled into focused research and collaboration, and the IT salary paid for the IT experts to support the institution with new technological capabilities and fluencies rather than fix printer problems they’re probably not excited to deal with.
Would that be worth the money to fix the printer?
That’s a metaphor for something seemingly small where everyone knows it is not working properly, everyone experiences the small frustrations that come with it, but somehow everyone has learned to live with it.
Teams can easily get riddled with small inconveniences which, when accepted for a long time, cost time, energy, and compounded negative emotions that kill motivation and creativity.
In the research world, that can mean:
Add these up over time, and we brew resentment, distrust, and exhaustion.
The cost to science? Questioned integrity, expensive experiments repeated, and longer and more painful roads to publication.
Expecting staff or graduate students to make calls to IT because their time is less valuable than a $500 fix? What if that grad student time were channeled into focused research and collaboration, and the IT salary paid for the IT experts to support the institution with new technological capabilities and fluencies rather than fix printer problems they’re probably not excited to deal with.
Would that be worth the money to fix the printer?
That’s a metaphor for something seemingly small where everyone knows it is not working properly, everyone experiences the small frustrations that come with it, but somehow everyone has learned to live with it.
Teams can easily get riddled with small inconveniences which, when accepted for a long time, cost time, energy, and compounded negative emotions that kill motivation and creativity.
In the research world, that can mean:
- Too many communication channels such that people don’t see your updates/requests because they’re not looking there;
- Discovering supplies that you thought were plentiful are now used up and you have to either spend unexpected effort replenishing them and/or delay your research plan;
- Meetings that people dread because they don’t know how long it will last or anticipate public embarrassment;
- Unclear expectations about what to prioritize;
- Data files lost, corrupted, or overwritten due to careless storage or naming practices, and more.
- Group members that hardly interact with each other outside of meetings with the professor, therefore hardly know each other
Add these up over time, and we brew resentment, distrust, and exhaustion.
The cost to science? Questioned integrity, expensive experiments repeated, and longer and more painful roads to publication.
Why focus on teams?
Now if you feel that your organization or institution is also riddled with challenges that need to transform, why start with your team?
Gilkey describes the way we work as a system he calls "workways". Our work is shaped by several interconnected parts: team habits, organizational policies, technology, regulatory compliance, and organizational structure.
Because these parts are interdependent, changing one influences the others.
Team habits are often the easiest part of the system to influence. Most of us cannot immediately change organizational policies or redesign the structure of our workplace, but we all participate in team habits. That means we all have some influence over them. Small changes in how we communicate, make decisions, or collaborate will gradually influence our own team, and when that builds positive traction, members of the wider system around us might take notice and care to shift.
Gilkey describes the way we work as a system he calls "workways". Our work is shaped by several interconnected parts: team habits, organizational policies, technology, regulatory compliance, and organizational structure.
Because these parts are interdependent, changing one influences the others.
Team habits are often the easiest part of the system to influence. Most of us cannot immediately change organizational policies or redesign the structure of our workplace, but we all participate in team habits. That means we all have some influence over them. Small changes in how we communicate, make decisions, or collaborate will gradually influence our own team, and when that builds positive traction, members of the wider system around us might take notice and care to shift.
Eight categories of team habits
Gilkey’s eight categories of team habits are directly applicable to academia:
When dysfunction appears across several categories, it can feel like there’s a mountain to move, but team habits only change with everyone’s participation, and changing too much at once can backfire.
Because these categories are interconnected, focusing on "moving stones" in one category can cause "stones" to shift in the others, thereby eventually influencing the size and shape of your mountain.
Belonging: The strongest predictor of team performance
Without belonging, even smart teams struggle. Members may protect themselves rather than support one another, avoid difficult conversations, and stay busy together without truly collaborating.
I learned this the hard way in academia. As a project leader in my postdoc, true collaboration began only when I got to know my mentees: what they cared about, why they came to research, what they wanted to learn, and what strengths they brought inside and outside work.
- Belonging
- Decision-making
- Goal-setting and prioritization
- Planning
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Meetings
- Core team habits
When dysfunction appears across several categories, it can feel like there’s a mountain to move, but team habits only change with everyone’s participation, and changing too much at once can backfire.
Because these categories are interconnected, focusing on "moving stones" in one category can cause "stones" to shift in the others, thereby eventually influencing the size and shape of your mountain.
Belonging: The strongest predictor of team performance
Without belonging, even smart teams struggle. Members may protect themselves rather than support one another, avoid difficult conversations, and stay busy together without truly collaborating.
I learned this the hard way in academia. As a project leader in my postdoc, true collaboration began only when I got to know my mentees: what they cared about, why they came to research, what they wanted to learn, and what strengths they brought inside and outside work.
What is essential in research teams?
In research, by definition, we work at the edge of what is known and unknown. We’re addressing questions that have never been addressed before.
No one has the best answer; therefore, this work flourishes in an atmosphere where people will share new ideas, challenge ideas, ask questions, make and discuss mistakes. Ideally, this is just as true for members who are senior, experienced, or have fancy degrees as it is for members working on their first degree with less experience.
That’s serious psychological safety.
Why go there?
Take decision-making, for example: asking for input from all members of a project team, no matter how junior, signals that their ideas matter. It fosters mutual respect as well as a stake in the project, which can in turn cultivate accountability for seeing it through.
One truth about academia must be acknowledged, though.
Everyone is trying to win in their own way. Undergraduates are trying to graduate and set themselves up for the next phase. Graduate students and postdocs are trying to get first-author publications and win fellowships and grants. PIs are fighting for ever bigger grants as well as publications. Success and job security hinge on contributing something unique, standing out in some way.
This is a different type of team than a football (soccer) team where team wins equate to personal wins. In academia, almost everyone needs a personal win; job security is competition, so the tension between acting in one’s own interest and in the interest of your group is very real.
That’s possibly why you hear “research groups” more than “research teams”.
The reality is still that collaborations achieve more, but the need for each individual to win in their unique way makes it more essential for project teams to actively identify alignment between individual interests and the project goals. The match will never be and shouldn’t be exact, but aligned enough for there to be genuine buy-in.
No one has the best answer; therefore, this work flourishes in an atmosphere where people will share new ideas, challenge ideas, ask questions, make and discuss mistakes. Ideally, this is just as true for members who are senior, experienced, or have fancy degrees as it is for members working on their first degree with less experience.
That’s serious psychological safety.
Why go there?
Take decision-making, for example: asking for input from all members of a project team, no matter how junior, signals that their ideas matter. It fosters mutual respect as well as a stake in the project, which can in turn cultivate accountability for seeing it through.
One truth about academia must be acknowledged, though.
Everyone is trying to win in their own way. Undergraduates are trying to graduate and set themselves up for the next phase. Graduate students and postdocs are trying to get first-author publications and win fellowships and grants. PIs are fighting for ever bigger grants as well as publications. Success and job security hinge on contributing something unique, standing out in some way.
This is a different type of team than a football (soccer) team where team wins equate to personal wins. In academia, almost everyone needs a personal win; job security is competition, so the tension between acting in one’s own interest and in the interest of your group is very real.
That’s possibly why you hear “research groups” more than “research teams”.
The reality is still that collaborations achieve more, but the need for each individual to win in their unique way makes it more essential for project teams to actively identify alignment between individual interests and the project goals. The match will never be and shouldn’t be exact, but aligned enough for there to be genuine buy-in.
What can great team habits look like in research and academia?
After reading Team Habits and reflecting on what I and many PhD students and researchers have lived through, here are a few behaviors I’ve seen for building happier, productive, and safe research teams:
1) Getting to know each other – At work and outside of work. Encouraging, in moderation, those coffee breaks, group lunches, and beer breaks, if applicable. Finding out what team members love to do outside of work. Having off-site activities where we do or solve something together, not just eat. Introducing new members the first time they visit a meeting.
2) Acknowledging achievements – A culture of celebrating successes big and small, including finally learning to align complex equipment by yourself or getting right a calibration that takes weeks to learn. Name these successes in meetings so that others can support and learn.
3) Giving credit where it’s due – Publicly acknowledging every author’s contribution to a publication even though the system tends to celebrate only first and corresponding authors, using the acknowledgements properly.
4) Caring for each other as humans – Checking in when someone is having a hard time (that does not mean baby-ing anyone), asking people what type of help or support they need. One day, you may need it too.
5) Realistic expectations about time and capacity – Adjusting expectations for research output when time is eaten by unavoidable commitments or surprises and vice versa.
6) Putting safety first – No matter how much pressure you are under, there is no excuse for creating avoidable chemical or physical risks to human health and life. Every member of the group is empowered to call out risks and violations, and it is clear to whom you communicate concerns and how.
7) Putting integrity and ethics first – No matter how much pressure you are under, you do not compromise the integrity of what you do or what you report. Again, every member is empowered to call out potential breaches or conflicts of interest, and this principle is communicated when members join the lab.
8) Setting up systems for collaboration and communicating them clearly – For example, here’s where we collect our data. Here’s how we name files and index them so that every one of them is unique and won’t be lost. Here are best practices for writing code and commenting on them.
2) Acknowledging achievements – A culture of celebrating successes big and small, including finally learning to align complex equipment by yourself or getting right a calibration that takes weeks to learn. Name these successes in meetings so that others can support and learn.
3) Giving credit where it’s due – Publicly acknowledging every author’s contribution to a publication even though the system tends to celebrate only first and corresponding authors, using the acknowledgements properly.
4) Caring for each other as humans – Checking in when someone is having a hard time (that does not mean baby-ing anyone), asking people what type of help or support they need. One day, you may need it too.
5) Realistic expectations about time and capacity – Adjusting expectations for research output when time is eaten by unavoidable commitments or surprises and vice versa.
6) Putting safety first – No matter how much pressure you are under, there is no excuse for creating avoidable chemical or physical risks to human health and life. Every member of the group is empowered to call out risks and violations, and it is clear to whom you communicate concerns and how.
7) Putting integrity and ethics first – No matter how much pressure you are under, you do not compromise the integrity of what you do or what you report. Again, every member is empowered to call out potential breaches or conflicts of interest, and this principle is communicated when members join the lab.
8) Setting up systems for collaboration and communicating them clearly – For example, here’s where we collect our data. Here’s how we name files and index them so that every one of them is unique and won’t be lost. Here are best practices for writing code and commenting on them.
The Welcome Letter: The best tool to get started on the right foot
You might have inferred, establishing great team habits takes a lot of reflection and then communication on the part of the project leader.
To start off on the right foot, companies tend to have onboarding processes, and ideally, they are clear.
Last month, I shared the best tool I know for doing this in research and academia: the Welcome Letter, a tool for setting clear expectations in research projects. If you haven't read it yet, you can find it here.
The Welcome Letter serves as a first step to creating belonging by saying, “Welcome to the lab. Let’s get you up to speed with what everybody else knows about our culture and how we work here.”
It also brings people into existing systems for communication, meetings, sharing resources, authorship, values and best practices including how to uphold ethics and integrity, and how to ask for help when something becomes difficult.
Of course, we cannot provide a Welcome Letter, walk away, and expect everything written to happen on its own. It is simply a solid first step on which to hold each other, including ourselves, accountable to better work and team habits.
To start off on the right foot, companies tend to have onboarding processes, and ideally, they are clear.
Last month, I shared the best tool I know for doing this in research and academia: the Welcome Letter, a tool for setting clear expectations in research projects. If you haven't read it yet, you can find it here.
The Welcome Letter serves as a first step to creating belonging by saying, “Welcome to the lab. Let’s get you up to speed with what everybody else knows about our culture and how we work here.”
It also brings people into existing systems for communication, meetings, sharing resources, authorship, values and best practices including how to uphold ethics and integrity, and how to ask for help when something becomes difficult.
Of course, we cannot provide a Welcome Letter, walk away, and expect everything written to happen on its own. It is simply a solid first step on which to hold each other, including ourselves, accountable to better work and team habits.
Let’s close this very long article
Research is already full of ambiguity, pressure, failure, and competition. The small habits we tolerate can quietly drain us, or they can make us braver, more creative, and happier working together.
So if you’ve noticed a “broken printer” in your group, start there. Name one recurring friction. Invite the people affected by it into the conversation. Propose one habit to practice differently, justify it well enough to veteran members and make it clear enough that a new member could understand it.
We cannot transform institutions overnight, but we can change how we meet, decide, communicate, give credit, handle mistakes, raise red flags, and care for one another. Over time, these habits become the working culture we feel every day and set the foundation for the quality of discoveries and innovations we make and communicate.
So if you’ve noticed a “broken printer” in your group, start there. Name one recurring friction. Invite the people affected by it into the conversation. Propose one habit to practice differently, justify it well enough to veteran members and make it clear enough that a new member could understand it.
We cannot transform institutions overnight, but we can change how we meet, decide, communicate, give credit, handle mistakes, raise red flags, and care for one another. Over time, these habits become the working culture we feel every day and set the foundation for the quality of discoveries and innovations we make and communicate.
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