Teams Start with Human Connections | Matt Eng | TEDxSanAntonio

Summary

The speaker discusses the importance of building effective teams, drawing a parallel between golfers and designers who traditionally work individually. Highlighting Paul Azinger's strategy of pairing golfers by personality for the Ryder Cup, the speaker emphasizes the value of communication and connection over mere skill set. The narrative shifts to a design classroom where the teacher's initial focus on individual excellence led to low completion rates. By studying a successful student, Emma, who built a supportive team, the speaker illustrates how fostering human connection and collaboration can lead to better outcomes. The talk concludes with a call to educate students on the importance of teamwork and support networks for achieving lifelong goals.

Takeaways

• 🏌️‍♂️ Golfers and designers are traditionally individualistic, focusing on personal skill development rather than teamwork.
• 🤝 The 2008 Ryder Cup captain, Paul Azinger, demonstrated the importance of team dynamics by pairing golfers based on personality rather than skill set.
• 🏆 Paul Azinger's strategy led to a win, highlighting the impact of effective communication and connection on team success.
• 🤔 The speaker reflects on the traditional approach to team building in software design, questioning its effectiveness.
• 👩‍🏫 In a design portfolio class, only a few students completed their portfolios, indicating a failure in fostering a supportive team environment.
• 👩‍💼 Emma's success story shows the value of building a cohesive team with the right mix of skills, commitment, and connection.
• 💡 The speaker realized the need to shift focus from individual excellence to fostering team communication and collaboration in the classroom.
• 🗣️ Encouraging students to communicate and support each other can improve their performance and prepare them better for the job market.
• 📚 The education system often overlooks teaching students the importance of human connection and teamwork, which are crucial for success.
• 🌟 By teaching students to build cohesive teams, we can influence how they contribute to the workplace and the world.

Q & A

What commonality does the speaker draw between golfers and designers?

The speaker notes that both golfers and designers tend to work individually and are not naturally inclined to work together as a team.

What was the traditional approach to pairing golfers in the Ryder Cup before Paul Azinger's captaincy?

Traditionally, golfers were paired based on their skill sets, much like how teams are built in professional environments.

What innovative strategy did Paul Azinger implement for the 2008 Ryder Cup?

Paul Azinger paired golfers based on their personalities, believing that effective communication and connection could enhance their performance on the golf course.

How did Paul Azinger's strategy impact the outcome of the 2008 Ryder Cup?

Paul Azinger's strategy led to the US golf team winning the tournament, demonstrating the power of personality-based pairing and effective communication.

What lesson does the speaker take from Paul Azinger's approach to team building?

The speaker learns that fostering better connections and stronger communication among team members can lead to improved performance, even when individual skills are already high.

Why did the speaker initially struggle with building a cohesive team in their design portfolio class?

The speaker struggled because they emphasized individual excellence and the importance of having the best portfolio, which did not encourage teamwork or collaboration among students.

Who is Emma in the context of the speaker's story?

Emma is a student who successfully built a cohesive team to support her in job applications and portfolio completion, ultimately leading to her getting hired.

What was the key factor that allowed Emma to build a successful team?

Emma's team was built on a solid foundation of shared skills, commitment, and meaningful connections, which allowed them to support each other effectively.

How did the speaker change their teaching approach after learning from Emma's success?

The speaker began requiring students to communicate with each other by checking in with every class, encouraging them to ask for help and fostering a collaborative environment.

What is the main takeaway the speaker wants to impart about team building in educational and professional settings?

The main takeaway is the importance of teaching students to connect on a human level, be vulnerable, offer value, and build supportive groups to achieve their lifelong goals, emphasizing that they cannot and should not do it alone.

Outlines

00:00

🏌️‍♂️ Golf and Design: The Power of Teamwork

The speaker begins by drawing a parallel between golfers and designers, both of whom typically work individually. The speaker then recounts the story of the 2008 Ryder Cup, where US team captain Paul Azinger bucked tradition by pairing golfers based on personality rather than skill set. This innovative approach led to better communication and ultimately, victory. The speaker relates this to the challenges of building effective teams in the workplace, particularly in software design, where individuals with different skill sets must collaborate. The speaker's own experience in teaching design portfolio classes revealed that emphasizing individual excellence over teamwork led to poor outcomes. The speaker realized the importance of fostering connections and communication among students to build a cohesive team, which is crucial for success in the professional world.

05:01

👨‍🏫 Lessons from Education: Building Cohesive Teams

In the second paragraph, the speaker discusses the shortcomings of the education system in teaching students to connect on a human level and to build cohesive teams. The speaker highlights the examples of Paul Azinger and a student named Emma, who demonstrated the importance of human connection and teamwork. The speaker emphasizes the need to teach students to offer value, be vulnerable, and build supportive groups to achieve their lifelong goals. The speaker concludes by advocating for a change in educational approaches to better prepare students for the workplace and to positively impact the world through effective teamwork.

Keywords

💡Teamwork

Teamwork refers to the collaborative effort of a group to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way. In the video, the theme of teamwork is central, as it discusses how golfers and designers, typically seen as individual performers, can benefit from working together. The example of the 2008 Ryder Cup, where golfers were paired based on personality rather than skill set, illustrates the power of effective teamwork in achieving success.

💡Communication

Communication is the process of exchanging information, messages, or ideas through speech, signals, writing, or behavior. The video emphasizes the importance of communication in building effective teams, suggesting that even non-verbal cues like facial expressions can significantly impact team performance. This is exemplified by the story of Paul Azinger, who focused on pairing golfers with compatible personalities to enhance their communication during the Ryder Cup.

💡Portfolio

A portfolio is a collection of documents, projects, or other evidence that showcases one's skills, achievements, and experiences, often used in professional settings like job applications. In the context of the video, the speaker discusses how students are taught to focus on individual excellence in their portfolios, which contrasts with the idea of building a cohesive team. The speaker's realization about the importance of teamwork led to changes in their teaching approach to encourage better communication and collaboration among students.

💡Skill Set

A skill set refers to the collection of abilities, knowledge, and expertise that an individual possesses. The video script mentions that traditional team building often pairs individuals based on their skill sets, but the speaker argues for a more holistic approach that considers personality and communication. The example of the golfers and the classroom scenario both highlight the limitations of relying solely on skill sets when forming teams.

💡Connection

Connection refers to the relationship or link between people or things. In the video, the speaker discusses the importance of building connections in teams, suggesting that a strong human connection can enhance team performance. The story of Emma, a student who successfully built a cohesive team, demonstrates how personal connections can lead to better collaboration and support among team members.

💡Competition

Competition is a contest or struggle for superiority or success. The video contrasts individual competition, as seen in golf, with the need for collaboration in team settings. The speaker uses the Ryder Cup as an example of how competition can be transformed into a team effort, leading to greater success.

💡Design

Design refers to the process of creating a plan or layout for the construction of an object, building, or work of art. In the video, design is used as a metaphor for the process of creating effective teams. The speaker, a design teacher, reflects on how the principles of design can be applied to team building, emphasizing the importance of pairing individuals not just based on their design skills but also on their ability to communicate and connect.

💡Education System

The education system refers to the organized structure through which education is provided, typically including schools, colleges, and universities. The video critiques the education system for focusing too much on individual achievement and not enough on teaching students how to connect and collaborate in teams. The speaker suggests that by improving communication and teamwork skills, the education system can better prepare students for the collaborative nature of the workplace.

💡Vulnerability

Vulnerability refers to the state of being open to attack or damage, or the quality of being susceptible to harm or injury. In the context of the video, vulnerability is discussed as a necessary component of building strong teams. The speaker suggests that being open and vulnerable with team members can foster deeper connections and more effective collaboration.

💡Goals

Goals are the objects of aim or the end toward which effort is directed. The video emphasizes the importance of aligning team members' individual goals with the collective goals of the team. The speaker shares the story of Emma, who successfully built a team by focusing on shared goals and commitment, which ultimately led to her success in the job market.

Highlights

Golfers and designers are often individualists, not inclined to work as a team.

In 2008, the US golf team captain, Paul Azinger, faced the challenge of uniting individual golfers into a team.

Traditionally, golf teams were paired by skill set, but Azinger paired golfers by personality for better communication.

Azinger's strategy led to the US team's victory in the Ryders Cup, highlighting the importance of team dynamics beyond skill sets.

The speaker relates the story of golf team building to the challenge of teaching students to design software collaboratively.

In design education, the focus is often on individual skill development and portfolio creation.

Only three out of 15 students completed their portfolio in the speaker's class, indicating a failure in fostering a collaborative environment.

Emma, a successful student, built a supportive team to help her with job applications and portfolio completion.

Emma's team was characterized by the right skill set, commitment, and meaningful connections.

The speaker learned that fostering communication and connection among students is crucial for success in team settings.

Education systems often fail to teach students the importance of human connection and collaboration.

Paul Azinger and Emma's stories demonstrate the value of building cohesive teams for achieving goals.

The speaker implemented changes in the classroom, requiring students to communicate and support each other.

Students need to be taught how to connect on a human level and offer value to others.

Teaching students to build teams can change how they enter the workplace and impact the world.

The speaker concludes by emphasizing the importance of teaching teamwork and communication in educational settings.

Transcripts

[Music]

thank you I have a question for everyone

what do golfers and designers have in

common

neither are inclined to work together as

a team

golfers train and compete as individuals

except for the occasional tournament

like the riders cup designers believe

they can design it all except for when

they're making software and today I want

to talk to you about how we build

effective teams and how that affects our

output especially in situations we group

together people trained as individuals

and we expect them to become a

high-performing team like we do in our

work environments and I came across this

story about golf when I was dealing with

my own failures with building a cohesive

team and it taught me lessons about

teamwork connections and communication

that I want to share with you today but

first the story it starts in 2008 and

the riders cup US golf team captain was

a man named Paul Azinger Paul had this

problem he had to bring together golfers

to become a team but he only had one

week and traditionally the teams before

him

paired golfers by skill set much like

the way we build teams but Paul had a

different idea he wanted to pair

personalities and he believed if they

could communicate a well-placed comment

a subtle facial expression they could

propel each other across the green for

the win and he was right they finally

won that tournament what Paul figured

out and the teams before him missed was

that the golfers understood skill set

they knew the goal when the riders cut

but what he gave them was an opportunity

for better connection and stronger

communication now what does this have to

do with designing software and teaching

students to design software like I do in

my day job where I work where

traditionalists and we think in skill

sets

para this visual designer with this

design researcher point them towards the

right goal and you have the best team

ever we know this is not true yet we

perpetuate this idea every day and I

brought this idea into my classroom well

I teach design portfolio and this is

typically the last class students go

through before they enter the job market

and I unwittingly hammered home in every

class you have to be the best designer

with the best portfolio to get a hint at

a job interview so it's no wonder that

out of the 15 students in my class only

three completed their portfolio three

this was a huge failure for me and as a

teacher I needed to get better I needed

to improve the situation for my students

and I started to focus on one student

who was actually so successful in the

class and she got hired right out of

right out of the class and let's call

her Emma and was my case study analyst

approach was simple yet none of that

none any other teachers including me

were doing it and from Emma's

perspective the task of looking for jobs

applying interviewing in finishing her

portfolio these were all so daunting

that she couldn't do it by herself and

so she gathered together a group of

design students who can help her with

these skills and build and support her

with these goals and over time some of

the students left because they didn't

have the right skill set others couldn't

commit to the same goals and some could

not or did not want to connect in any

meaningful way with the rest of the

group but what this left there with was

a solid team right levels skills right

level of commitment right level of

connection with each other and I went

further and I asked their current team

where she works why they hired her and

they said there's no doubt we knew Emma

was awesome and we knew she'd fit in and

I realized at that moment and his

ability to build a cohesive team

and be effective in it set herself up

for success now some of this can be

attributed to Emma but I can still take

these lessons and bring it into my

portfolio class to improve the situation

and I started requiring or getting my

students to communicate with each other

by requiring them to check in with every

class and this gave them permission to

get up from their computers help the

person next to them and get more

comfortable with asking for help and I

learned that students understand skills

they know the goal but we have to teach

them how to communicate better and sadly

this is where education system falls

short what Paul and Emma have showed us

is that we have to teach our students to

connect more on a human level with to

teach them to offer value to be

vulnerable to build skills and build

groups to support them with their

lifelong goals we have to let them know

they can't do it by themselves and

that's okay we can change how our

students enter the workplace how they

affect the world around them if we just

teach them how to build cohesive teams

thank you

[Applause]