Hello, good morning. Good evening. Good afternoon, depending on where you're journey from. Uh Thank you so much for joining this session. My name is Mazama Sahib. I'm a principal PM manager at Microsoft.And I'm really excited to share some of the frameworks and learnings from uh my own experience in different teams in different time zones. And the topic that I'm going to be talking about today is find your way to a higher performing team in terms of any questions throughout the session. Please feel free to use the chat or the Q and A feature in the chat uh to leave your questions here. I'm happy to uh take those afterwards as well or towards the end of the session a little bit about myself. Um I am as I mentioned, a P A manager in Microsoft, I've been in the data and A I space for a long time and really excited. This is my third year uh speaking at this conference and really excited to share this topic uh which is near and near to any team or any culture that you go or work for um in any organization. I am also very passionate about diversity, equity inclusion as I'm one of the co-chair of Home at Microsoft. Uh And then also uh and many other nonprofit uh work that I do uh in terms of mentoring and others.

So this is the, the link where you can find uh connect with me afterwards if there are anything uh any questions that you have and I will be happy to take any questions from all of you. So I would start off by uh this uh quote by Steve jobs which talks about great things in business are never done by one person. They are done by a team of people. It's very important for us to understand how to work well with teams, especially in this um new digital world where we are remote, most of the team members are remote. Uh And it's there are a lot of challenges that we all face working with different working styles, working with different time zones and all of that. And why I chose this topic is um I personally work with seven or eight different time zones. Uh I have worked in different countries um and continents. It's uh just a fun fact. Where was there on the previous flight? And to me, it's very important um uh to, to really work on innovative products. And to me, innovation is equal to a higher performing team. If your team is not happy, if the culture is not right, there's not going to be an improved business outcome for you and your work uh and how to do that.

So I'm going to talk about some of the learnings from my experience, what, what things that I have tried in different teams as a leader, as an individual contributor over the years, what have worked for me? And I would like to hear and chat from all of you, what has worked for you as well. So in terms of uh I, I'm a data person, so always look at different surveys and what different folks have uh shared in the past. Uh One of this uh survey that I look at uh on almost on a yearly basis. This is the same survey over the three years in the last three years of what are uh your biggest struggles while working remotely and why it's important is like when you have teams who are uh working from different time frames or different geographies, different cultures involved, there are different types of struggles that we all have and we must have seen all of us have seen that during uh the last few years uh during pandemic and it's still going on.

Uh If you see over the last three years, the trend is uh starting from collaboration and communication being the highest concern to now. Uh last year, it was more about not being able to unplug to really the boundaries between work life and, and personal life. This year, which I see is really promising. 31% of the folks actually said that I don't have any struggle working remotely, which is amazing. So that means that we finally figure it out to uh work uh along with that. But then there are 25% of uh folks who are saying similar things such as uh not being able to unplug and uh staying motivated, working hours, working across time zones and some of those. So all of these things are really um persistent that we see across different geographies, different people, teams of all sizes. Um And I wanted to share again some best practices with all of you here, of how you can change that for your team and your culture as a leader, as an individual contributor, as somebody who's part of the team, you might be new to the team as well and you can contribute. So at the end of the session, I would like to go away with some of the actionable steps that you can take in your organizations to improve the culture, to improve the per uh performance of your team and uh which should result in higher uh business outcomes as well.

So how to do that, right? Uh There is a four step formula that I call, it's, it's the four CS um which is care, communicate, collaborate, and continuous learning. So I will share what do I mean by care, what do I mean by communication? What do I mean by collaboration also, what do I mean by continuous learning? And again, in each of these, um I'm going to share some of the stuff that has worked for me and my teams. And I would like to, again, uh please use the chat here or ask any questions as you see, fit for your organization or things that you have tried that have worked uh to make sure everybody is um feeling part of the team, they're motivated to come and they are continuing to invest uh in their own careers as well as the business uh growth and values as well.

So the first and foremost is care. Uh I think that's one of the most important things. So at Microsoft, we have this culture uh for, for Microsoft uh for, for managers to have a model coach and care. That's one of the philosophy that we have for all managers where they need to model their behavior, they need to coach their team members and have the care for the team and care to me is the most important part uh where if you really don't uh understand what's going on in your team, uh you're not going to be uh uh that you're not, they're not going to be able to perform, they're not going to uh trust you.

And over time, you will see that the team performance will also decline some of the things that have worked for me again in the last few years, especially uh is the free time together. And it's really important that free time is not working time where um where you can actually have either coffee or working lunch, maybe a game. Uh Sometimes of online puzzles. We have done like um online games with my team in the past and those are some ways where we have bonded uh beyond the work and, and those connections that you build those relationships that you will go along with. The second uh on this light here is assume positive intent, especially in this remote world where folks are uh are, are uh are working from different geographies and different uh places they, they don't have uh some of some of those the new team members you've never met before.

So it's really important to actually assume positive intent and focus on the problem, not of the person that is very key. So if you have something that that is broken in production, some code review you're doing or uh it could be a big uh big issue with the customer, uh assume the positive intent in the folks. And you'll see that's how teams can come together, the care and trust is built doing those things. And then if you focus on the problem at hand, you try to solve the problem and not uh point blames that will take you longer. Again, this is a 20 minute very condensed session. So I'm gonna share some links here most of the stuff that is mentioned here is proven by research by many folks. So I have links here as well uh that you can go to and find more. The last one is the SN technique. So this is a very interesting technique that was built by uh by some folks, some scientists where when you go into a meeting instead of saying no to things you say yes and add to it. So yes. And uh basically add uh to that, that's a good way to actually um add on to other ideas, to uh to build trust, to build the care in the team. And this is one technique that I've used personally that has helped in my teams as well.

That's the first pillar, which is care and trust. Uh The second one is uh communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate as a leader, especially over communicate. Because um the, the more you communicate, the more you share, the more you share your way of thinking, your leadership uh leadership style, the more folks will trust you, the more uh team will have that trust on you. Um And, and, and the work that you do as well. Uh The, the, the, the other part of communication. And mostly when we talk about communication is usually folks think it's about sharing out to me as a leader as an empathetic leader. I truly believe it's active listening. So when you're in, you're on a one on one when you are meetings, uh spend 10 to 15% of the time talking and give the rest of the time for the rest of the folks to speak up and really to listen in, ask questions to really listen, not to answer. And that's a mindset change. A lot of us, a lot of us actually uh ask questions to really answer back right away. Right. So when somebody is answering, we're already thinking about the answer. Uh But if you really take a pause and listen to what they are trying to say, what's be uh sometimes in between their words, what they are trying to what, what they're going through, you will communicate much better with them and you, your trust and everything else that I'm going to share here is going to uh improve as well.

Uh The other thing that has worked for me in, in teams is is write down team norms, the shared values. So there is um type of workshops that we have done in our teams where we as a team come together, what is acceptable, what's not acceptable? For example, if it's not your working hours, sending a message on teams or zoom or whatever uh communication methods is, is not OK for most of the team members. For example, if this is, this is a team norm, you basically agree on it and, and publish it on some kind of sharepoint or Wiki page or whatever you have in your internal uh teams and then your team is um basically following those rules as well. The more you kind of practice those, the more it becomes a norm and the team will, becomes a culture and you as the leader of the team has to model those behaviors as uh more than other folks in the team as well. But it doesn't mean if, let's say you just join the team, you don't have to do that. I think it, it's every person has a responsibility and it's very important that, that you do that the last one, not least is level of your communication, which is really to think about um what is beyond the regular status updates and things like that uh considering your goal as the priority not to always be right?

Uh I, I will let you think about it for a second most of the time when we are in a work setting or any of our uh challenging projects or status meeting or it could be a daily Scrum call. We are trying to be the one who says, who's, who thinks that we are always right? So really when you think about from a perspective that uh when you have this mindset, a growth mindset where you think you could be wrong, you could be challenged and others could speak up is where the culture will start changing, where folks will feel like they, their ideas are heard and others can are really listening to them.

So, communication to me is not just you sharing stuff, it's about listening, it's about shared values in the team. And it's also about the communication thinking from a perspective uh from, from a feedback perspective, what others are thinking. So we talked about two principles.

First is care and trust. Second is communicate. I'm going to move on to the third principle and uh making sure that I'm on time here as well. The third is collaborate, right? So this is a term we use. Uh this is actually a skill, a lot of people mentioned in the resumes and linkedin and all of the places. Uh But what does it mean for you? Please use the chat to put it in and the chat. What does collaboration really mean for you? How do you collaborate across teams, different time zones, different working styles, different leadership styles, different uh priorities, all of the above, right? So one way to collaborate is to solve problems together, right? You might be the individual contributor, writing a code to solve a problem.

But if it's a design problem and you can get other ideas, a lot of these design thinking type sessions going into a session where you can do whiteboard or virtual whiteboard in some cases where folks can share their point of view. Um And then you can collect different ideas. You don't have to take all the ideas if they don't align with you. But but collecting those ideas, making sure you have good thinking in some of those processes helps and takes you a long way. Not every problem is a collaborative problem, some problems you can solve individually better than collaborations. So there is a fine line between that, but I strongly believe that solving problems together as a team. Um And thinking about ideas beyond that is a, is a, is a huge step forward for a higher performing team. Uh It also uh creates um by, by, by, by doing that, it also creates a clarity in terms of roles and responsibility and task ambiguity. So if for example, you have three or four people in a room, some of them are architects, some of them are uh some of them are the software developers or engineers or designers, whoever that is. So you, you can assign those particular roles in that discussion and they can bring in ideas to solve that one big problem together as well. Uh We are in a woman tech conference.

So I think it's, it goes beyond saying that but beyond this conference as well, um as diversity inclusion efforts, diversified teams and uh uh over and over data has shown that diversified teams are more innovative. They are the more high performing teams with different opinions are there.

So the more uh diverse, your teams are, the more uh chance you have, you will get to more innovative solutions faster last but not least. Modeling collaborative here is very important. So if you expect somebody to collaborate with you, you have to do the same thing um before you expect that from them. If you're not collaborative, you're very much um closed, you have that closed mindset where you don't actually collaborate, you don't reach out to others ideas or help or you don't say that uh you always think that you are the one who is always right, then others are not going to come and collaborate with you because they would uh they would have this, this boundary or wall or virtual wall thinking that you are not really open.

So it starts with growth mindset, it starts about modeling the behavior yourself, especially as a leader or um somebody who has more responsibility in the team. And again, there are some links here that you can read up on and uh collaboration is one of the keys last but not least. So we talked about care and trust as a first principle, we talked about um uh communication as the second principle. And now we're talking about collaboration. So the fourth one, which is the last one is continuous learning. And this is part of the, the growth mindset thing that we talk in Microsoft a lot. But all of the other companies, wherever I have been, they have maybe used different times to describe this. But over the years, you'll see your carrier today, you know XYZ Rules uh tools tomorrow, you will be learning a few more tools. But over the years, tools can change, the technology can change. Right now. We are at the verge of A I and whatnot. Um If you have the mindset of continuous learning. So there's a thing that we call uh we that, that I've seen uh folks say is it's not, it's about a culture of not know it all but learn it all.

So if you have that mindset where you can really go and learn it all if needed to be to switch teams or switch tools or switch carriers, um a transition or in the same team also to skill, skill up uh that takes your team as a whole uh to the next level and not just as as a person, but think about the ways where your team is learning together, think about, think about workshops, think about uh places where you can come together as a team and learn uh from some thought leaders and, and folks who, who are doing that work in that space.

One of the, how would you achieve that? Some of the things? Um uh Why not? Right. There's one method which is called, why not? So when somebody is suggesting the idea really, why not thinking from that mindset change again, that why not do you wanna try it? Right? And then use science experiment. So when we were kids, like in school, we used to uh take a problem and really use an experimental approach to see uh to come up with a hypothesis and see if that hypothesis are true or wrong. The similar methodology you can use to solve some of the more technical or some of the more challenging things with people across or to related problems in, in the real world as well. So um uh really having that continent and learning mindset, the growth mindset takes you and your team long way. And there is uh this quote on the right hand side where you can read uh if you really are determined to learn, no one can stop you. And I truly believe in, in that. And I've seen it through my um 1516 years plus experience that over the years. Um There's always learning, I'm still learning, I'm still uh learning every single day from my team members, from my peers, from my leaders, from everybody around me.

So uh this uh this is all the kind of four steps that I talk about. So care and trust is the first one, second is to co communicate. Third is to collaborate and last but not least is continuous learning. So these are, those are the four CS. Uh If you start practicing some of those in your teams today, please share. How did it go? What did you learn from it today? Is a good day to try uh care, communicate, collaborate and count this learning. Hopefully it, you remember this after this, uh this um this talk. And uh with that, I'm open for any questions, anybody has any questions, please feel free to put that in the chat. We have two more minutes.