One Simple Action will Guarantee Your Success with Teams

Enjoying success and long-term efficiency with Microsoft Teams is very easy and can be 100% guaranteed with one simple action.

I have worked to implement Teams in workgroups and organizations since it was introduced to the business world in 2017 and I can tell you that one simple action – or lack of it – determines if Teams will fully succeed or not.

That. Is. True. Always.

That one simple action is a leader communicating expectations.

Here is why.

Teams is a collaborative tool. It requires all members of the workgroup to actively use Teams chat for communications within the group. Teams chat is the backbone of Teams as a whole, and without that first step into using Teams, everything else underperforms at best.

For example, let’s say there is a workgroup of ten people. Nine of them are fully onboard and commit to using Teams chat. One person doesn’t see the value and avoids it.

The nine people can communicate all they want in Teams, but with one person left out, there is always one person who isn’t in on discussions, decisions, or important dialog. That means that to succeed, all ten people and their leader must straddle two platforms for internal communication.

I remember the early days of business email in the 1990s. Even though my company provided computers and email access to all employees, some refused to embrace it. Managers loved the simplicity and efficiency of sending email to all their direct reports, but since some refused to use it, managers had to also hand-deliver printed copies of the emails.

All because the company refused to back the managers who tried to require everyone to use email.

That is unimaginable today, after more than thirty years of email usage. Not requiring the use of email then, or the use of Teams today, is like UPS or FedEx not requiring their delivery drivers to use motor vehicles!

After nearly four years of helping organizations implement Teams, I can tell you that these two results are certain:

• Teams has a 100% chance of success if leaders communicate expectations, and
• Teams has a 100% chance of underperformance or failure if not