Deepin Team’s Sharing Session of Reading—"Geeks and Team"

Recently, Deepin Team held a sharing session of reading. As the keynote speaker, Wang Yong, the leader of Deepin program, shared his book review of “Geeks and Team” with Deepin Team members. This was not only a sharing session of reading, but also an advocacy of corporate team spirit.

Team building is an art, for which there is no fixed format. It is not only a process which each one thinks about in his way, but also a gradual process of continuous correction. We often talk about team building. Ideally team cooperation largely depends on team spirit, but in reality the crisis of confidence affects the cooperation of the entire team. The core ideas of team building summed up in the book are: humility, respect and trust, the basis of all of which originates from one point— communication.

Firstly, to fail ASAP is better than to succeed ASAP.
You having not experienced failures indicates that your innovation was not enough or that the risk you assumed was still too small. If you show confidence, express your own ideas clearly and calmly and deal with doubts from other people calmly, you have more courage to face your own mistakes or failures. If you are unwilling to express your own ideas, how can you let others know what you think? If you are too afraid to try, why should you get others to believe in you or agree with you?

—If you follow me to do it, it will not...
—It should be noted long ago that...
—Originally I did not think so...
"If you follow me to do it, it will not..." afterwards is just an useless excuse.

Secondly, communicate frankly without a "sandwich".

Didactic conversation would make people feel bored and blaming blindly is easy to make people feel disgusted and frustrated. Find the very chord that can touch their hearts and fire the first shot to eliminate their psychological resistance. The lecturer shared an example with the listeners: Many leaders would use the conversation method of "sandwich" when they find employees to talk privately. For instance, they would say, "You are one of the smartest engineers." "The codes you write are too difficult to understand." "Ah, your beard looks handsome." Your conversation would be easier to be accepted when you mix encouragement, praise and criticism together, but it would also be easier to make people feel confused to the focus of the conversation.

—Approving, appreciation and care—You are great!
—Suggestion and criticism—You are not doing well.
—Encouragement, hope, trust and support—You can certainly do a good job.
How many meanings are there in your conversation?

Thirdly, don’t deviate from the core theme in the meeting. Hold purposes in the communication.
The lecturer shared a very typical example in his own experience with the listeners. When the engineers are immersed in their own world, maybe they have been studying for a few hours the writing of a line of codes or the composing of a particular design. Then at a certain moment, the precise calculation in their mind is interrupted. Can you taste their resignation that they want to break the table when their train of thought is interrupted by you after their whole mind is concentrated on something for a long time? Can you understand their agony when they find that what you say is actually of no significance after their train of thought is disrupted by you?

Fourthly, you are either “abused” to be a qualified employee or “Merry meet, merry part.”
After making clear the common goals and strategies, the leaders should respect the individual employees to play their technical and professional strengths, let everyone independently do jobs in their own way to the utmost extent, let the employees have opportunities to learn new skills and continue to improve on their existing basis and let the trustworthy people get full trust and the untrustworthy ones leave the company.

Conclusion: In the sharing session, Wang Yong shared his book review from the reader's point of view and his management experience from the perspective of a team leader. He also used this sharing opportunity to put forward a kind of incentives and requirements to the team members. The growth of a team is inseparable from the efforts of the players. Every sharing is a spiritual baptism. Let’s look forward to the next sharing!

Attachment: the lecture PPT of this sharing session—Reading "Geeks and Team" (Chinese)