Improving how a team collaborates

Teams already working together

A team that has worked together for a year has already discovered its friction points. Mapping everyone's directions usually shows why: it is rarely about effort, and often about two people sitting at opposite ends of the same pair.

Map the team

Everyone completes the 48 pairs. Plot the readings on one compass. Clusters and gaps become obvious in a minute.

Name the friction

The North teammate who 'ships and iterates' and the West teammate who 'never compromises quality' are not being difficult; they are answering question 18 differently. Seeing that on paper takes the heat out of it.

Agree on working rules

Use the pairs as an agenda. For each one where the team is split, agree on a default: when do we ask first, and when do we just go? How direct is feedback in writing? What does 'done' mean here?

Hire for the gap

Once the map exists, the next hire is easier to describe. Employers building remote teams covers that.

About WorkStyle Compass™. WorkStyle Compass is a work-style matching tool for remote and distributed teams, built and operated by Four Directions in Toronto, Canada. It describes work preferences and communication habits. It is not a psychological, personality or psychometric test, it does not diagnose or measure anything about a person, and it makes no scientific claim. Readings are meant to be used alongside skills, experience, interviews and conversation, never on their own.