Susan Engel
Principal Consultant & People Lead
For example, how can you create the optimal environment for collaboration when you’re working this closely with client teams? How can you ensure everyone is empowered to voice their ideas without fear of judgement? How can you create the smoothest pathway to the best outcomes?
To help answer these questions, we spoke to Višnja Đurović – a Team Leader and Project Manager, and Susan Engel – a Principal Business Consultant to get their perspective.
Višnja and Susan frequently work as part of blended teams and their advice on the subject could fill five articles. For this piece, we’ve distilled their thoughts into four key takeaways:
Learning #1: You have to really understand the client’s challenges
When working in a blended team, simply ‘learning’ about your client’s pain-points isn’t enough: you have to fully understand the specific challenges they face.
“Everything starts with immersing yourself in their problem space,” Susan explains. “The sooner you have that nuanced perspective of what their challenges and business drivers are, the easier it is to start addressing them.”
As the saying goes ‘they don’t care what you know, until they know that you care’. A nuanced view of the challenges (and opportunities) is the foundation for building mutual trust and respect.
This level of understanding also needs to encompass the individuals you have on the team and their stake in the project. Is everyone onboard with the goals of the project and the change the project will bring? Or will the successful completion of the technical project leave someone’s job on the line?
By getting a full picture of the challenges facing both the individual team members and the project overall, you’ll be in the best position to create a shared mission that everyone buys into.
Learning #2: Grow trust with early wins and transparent communication
To grow trust in a blended team you need to back up the understanding you’ve built with practical delivery – especially in the early days.
“It’s very important that you honour any promises you make to your client early on. From big things like deadlines to small things like when you’ll send an update. Trust is earned and maintaining it is an always-on process,” explains Susan.
Višnja is keen to add that this also goes for your communication with clients. Across the entire project you need to keep clients in the loop with as much transparency as possible.
“Sometimes with tech or innovation projects, things change. For example, you might uncover a new technical complexity that will need additional time, resources, or personnel to overcome. Your communication around these things needs to be proactive. If it isn’t, it can feel like an upsell or ‘land and expand’ attempt which will erode trust.”
Learning #3: Create a psychological safety net
The most effective collaboration happens when everyone is empowered to share their most innovative ideas or show vulnerability without fear of judgement.
Outside of Zühlke, we’ve seen some consultant-client relationships develop an ‘us vs. them’ dynamic. This doesn’t help people feel empowered with The Right to be Wrong – a big catalyst for intelligent risk taking.
“You can’t influence without trust. As a consultant I’ve had to deliver a new software product while simultaneously helping train the client's team with a new development methodology,” explains Susan. “For that learning to be effective, people need to be able to ask questions that might make them feel vulnerable. They won’t do that without psychological safety.”
Practically creating this safety net is a continuous process that requires you to consistently uphold a positive listening culture. But Višnja has a one very actionable tip to share:
“When you’re brought into a blended team, frame all of your communication around enriching the work of your client’s teams, rather than criticising it. All too often, people enter as an ‘external consultant’ and start telling the in-house team what they’ve done wrong. This immediately creates friction. In fact, if people feel they are being looked down on, friction points can quickly spiral into bigger problems.”
Learning #4: Bring everything back to the goals
Any complex technical project can encounter bumps in the road – regardless of how effectively the team has been collaborating. At times, this can mean your authority or expertise is challenged.
Some subject matter experts' (SMEs) reaction to this is to reassert their position in the project. It can often sound a little like “I want to remind you, I have a vast amount of experience in this field and think…”. Reasserting your authority in this way often backfires. Not only can it leave others feeling disempowered, it can often make people question your expertise even more.
But it’s also vitally important not to lose your voice in the project. So what can SMEs practically do when they face this kind of challenge?
Susan and Višnja’s advice is not to talk about your expertise but instead focus on the project outcomes. As Susan puts it:
“The best way to describe how that works is ‘If you want to achieve X outcome, then you need us to do thing Y’. Bringing it back to the mission alignment, and getting everyone to commit to their shared goal, is the best way to galvanise your team, and avoid division.”
By tying everything back to the project goals you established at the outset, you avoid these difficult conversations becoming personal. In fact, these conversations can even be used to strengthen the team’s alignment.
“This approach ensures you don’t just ‘survive’ any friction points. You can emerge from them stronger than before. They become a chance to realign, and strengthen, your working relationship,” explains Višnja.
