My Team Is High Performing But Everyone Hates Us

What is the focus of your work today?

I'm VP of Engineering at Bloom & Wild. We’re redefining the flower delivery experience, making the giving and receiving of beautiful fresh flowers the joy it is meant to be. I run the Technology team and you could say that I'm accountable and responsible for all the technology there.

And what is the motivation for your talk?

I want to share a story about a period of my life where I was in what I think was a high performing team. It was all going great. And then it wasn't. I want to explain why that team was good and the things that we did to build a high performing team there. And then some of the things that, in hindsight, we should have looked out for, that caused the team and the product ultimately to fail.

What do you refer to when saying high performing team? KPI or happiness?

It was both. It was a team where we were building and bringing a new product to the market with a very tight deadline to do so, which we did very successfully. We did it in a way that was fun and was a nice thing to be a part of. This story is about how we did that, and what happened afterwards.

And how would you describe the persona and the level of the target audience?

I'd say this can apply to anybody. Most people are part of a team in one way or another. And I think a team performs well because of the team's members as much as anything else. Whether you are in a team or leading a team, you should be concerned about the culture in your teams and know what to look out for. And it’s not just within the team, but also how that team partners and interfaces to other areas of the company, particularly with its stakeholders. There's a part of the story that I'll tell, which is very much driven around how the team did and didn't manage particular stakeholders and the impact of that.

And what would you want this persona to walk away with from your presentation?

A couple of things. I think the first one is an understanding that sometimes what you read about high performing teams it's all great, but you shouldn't look at what you read and feel that it's your bad because your team does not feel like that. I’m sure your team does certain things brilliantly. It’s funny, but like many others I could write blog posts and give presentations about the good times. But hardly anyone seems to write or speak about those times when things aren’t great and I think it's really, really important for people to hear those sorts of stories. So firstly, I'd like people to come away with a feeling that actually "my team isn't that bad." But equally, I'd like them to come away with some things they can do, some techniques they could use or some exercises and changes they could make that might help their teams to become even better.