Xeneta's Chief Product Officer, Erik Devetak discusses how to create a culture to empower your team

1. Building a successful, happy team
Erik Devetak, Chief Product Officer

2. How to hire/build a team?
Consider all current needs and all possible future needs
Make sure your team is equipped to satisfy said needs

3. Diversity

4. Diversity
A 2015 McKinsey report on 366 public companies found that those in the top quartile
for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial
returns above their industry mean, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity
were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean.

5. CognitiveBias
Affinity Bias - The tendency to like people who are similar to us or remind us of someone we like
The Halo Effect- This is the tendency to quickly like (or dislike) everything about a person
Egocentric bias - The tendency to consider one’s own characteristics more heavily
Blindspot Bias - This is when you fail to see the impact of your own personal biases on your judgement
Overvaluing Passion - There is a tendency in interviews to favor the charming
AND 10s of others

6. CognitiveBias
ERIK
ERIK’S TEAM
Affinity Bias - The tendency to like people who are similar to us or remind us of someone we like
The Halo Effect- This is the tendency to quickly like (or dislike) everything about a person
Egocentric bias - The tendency to consider one’s own characteristics more heavily
Blindspot Bias - This is when you fail to see the impact of your own personal biases on your judgement
Overvaluing Passion - There is a tendency in interviews to favor the charming
AND 10s of others

7. CognitiveBias whenhiring – whatto do?
Standardize the interview process
Give a work sample test
Perform blind CV Reviews
Involve a diverse set of people in the process
Perform Personality tests

8. ERIK’S NEW TEAM

9. And now they fight
Diversity is generally associated with:
• less effective group functioning
• higher turnover
• dissatisfaction

10. And now they fight
“Increased diversity typically has negative effects on the ability of the group to meet its members’ needs and to function effectively over time. …
The challenge is to develop ways to accommodate these tendencies so that their negative effects are attenuated and the positive benefits of
diversity can be realized.”
Williams and O’Reilly (1998)
Diversity is generally associated with:
• less effective group functioning
• higher turnover
• dissatisfaction

11. Conflictresolution
The natural tendency is to:
• Adjudicate
• Decide who is right
• Score points

12. Conflictresolution
The natural tendency is to:
• Adjudicate
• Decide who is right
• Score points
Only thing that matters is trust. Your job as team leader is to build trust between all involved
With trust also automatically comes: autonomy and collaboration

13. “Culture is the tacit social order of an organization: It shapes attitudes and behaviors in wide-ranging and durable
ways. Cultural norms define what is encouraged, discouraged, accepted, or rejected within a group. When properly
aligned with personal values, drives, and needs, culture can unleash tremendous amounts of energy toward a
shared purpose and foster an organization’s capacity to thrive.”
The Leader’s Guide to Corporate Culture, Boris Groysberg et al., HBR
Corporate culture:A tool for collaboration

14. Culture is:
A set of reasonable rules and believes that ideally allow the employees to
thrive
A limiting factor that allows different believes to coexist while partially
limiting their freedom
Culture is to Diversity what Law is to Individual freedoms
Laws protect our individual freedoms, yet they also curtails them
Diversity ends where oranizationalculture begins

15. If it is about trust – start with1-1
Trust is inherently built between two people
In order for the team to function you need the members to
collaborate
You need to foster 1-1 relationships

16. If it is about trust – start with1-1
Trust is inherently built between two people
In order for the team to function you need the members to
collaborate
You need to foster 1-1 relationships
Incidentally this also limits the size of effective teams

17. Build trust:Waste time…
Use sales technique:
make sure you know what is important for them and ask about it
pay full attention
listen

18. … thenbuild processes and foster autonomy
Use sales technique:
make sure you know what is important for them and ask about it
pay full attention
listen
Then introduce rigid processes: standups, agile/scrum, retrospectives…
processes are built to be fair-effective, to depersonalize
combined with trust they allow for teams to function autonomously

19. … thenbuild processes and foster autonomy
Use sales technique:
make sure you know what is important for them and ask about it
pay full attention
listen
Then introduce rigid processes: standups, agile/scrum, retrospectives…
processes are built to be fair-effective, to depersonalize
combined with trust they allow for teams to function autonomously
Similarlyfirstunderpromise and overdeliver then set stretch the team and set ambitious goals

20. And whenyou finallysucceed…