It is important for you to understand yourself, as you explored in the previous sections. Now I will help you to develop techniques to really ‘notice’ what is happening around you. This exercise, Reading the Room as a Bystander, by David Kantor, a specialist in group dynamics, helps you to develop an ‘outsider’s view’ that helps you to be more obective and to be able to speak up when you need to.¹ The point of this exercise is to learn how to avoid our own biases and expectations of what, how and why, but be able to step back and ‘see’ what is happening.

To help you, here are some of the typical actions that happen in teams! We call these the Action Stances.

These are actions that a team member makes to get things started. This is an invitation to do something, to react and respond. It can be a statement: Let’s review what we have to do today. OR: We should celebrate what we achieved today.

Movers are important in any team. We need them to get things started. They help teams and projects to survive. A note of caution however: a move isn’t necessarily positive; it just ‘is’.

A follow supports a move (action) that someone else has proposed. The support can be strong or weak, but a follow encourages others to also follow. This might be a ‘follow’ to agree, comment or make a commitment.

An oppose is a challenge to the action that has been proposed. Oppose behaviours can look very different: they might be in the form of caution: We need to think about that carefully; OR I don’t agree, I think we need to move in a different direction.

A bystand is a deliberate action to look and observe what is happening, what actions are being made, at first without any kind of response.

The important role of a bystander is to carefully decide what to do next! A bystand might be as simple as restating the Move, Follow, Oppose actions, without committing. It may be being silent. It can be entering as an opposer or a follower. It can be to link the various actions. It can be to propose a new move.

Now that you know more about the 4 actions, here is a short activity for you to conduct the next time you are observing a team interaction. It works really well to choose a team activity that you know well. That way, you can focus on the observations since you already know the process well.

There are two ways for you to complete this exercise, self-observation and team observation.

You can be a part of the team interaction and be mindful of the actions and notice your behaviour: what do you DO in the situation?

As the interaction progresses, observe yourself in your team. It works better if there are around 6 to 8 members overall.

1. How often do you Move [initiate action]? When and why?
2. How often do you Follow [agree or commit]? When and why?
3. How often do you Oppose [challenge or caution]? When and why?
4. How often do you stay back Bystand [observe, stay silent]? When and why?
5. How often do you actively Bystand [make comments]? When and why?

Estimate the percentage of time you use each of the action stances.  (Note your answers in your workbook or notebook.)

Notice the overall pattern. What is your ‘natural’ or typical pattern? What could you work on to enhance your effectiveness? What could you do more of, do less of?

Now this is the Team Observation version that you can complete. And of course you can do both if you wish.

This way to complete the exercise is to be able to remain purely as an observer. That is, you must be able to observe only and not have to participate in the interaction. You might want to tell your team what you are doing, or perhaps find a situation where you are able to just ‘watch’ without having to interact.

As the interaction progresses observe the members of the team. It works better if there are around 6 to 8 members overall.

1. How often does someone Move [initiate action]? When and why?
2. How often does someone Follow [agree or commit]? When and why?
3. How often does someone Oppose [challenge or caution]? When and why?
4. How often does someone stay back Bystand [observe, stay silent]? When and why?
5. How often does someone actively Bystand [make comments]? When and why?

Estimate the percentage of time you use each of the action stances.

To complete the exercise, it is best to share your observations with someone who also was able to observe the interaction. Ensure that you do this in a completely non-judgemental way. This is an exercise to observe your patterns and the patterns of the teams around you. It is not an exercise to be used to highlight ‘right and wrong’. It helps to show the way things work ‘around here’.

Here are observation questions for you to answer and complete in your reflective journal.

The four action stances are the foundations of communication and they show how teams interact, make decisions and ‘get on with things’ to get stuff done! Over time teams often naturally adapt and adopt ‘stances’ that are the most effective, for given situations and activities. Some teams also make this ‘stance’ a conscious discussion and allocate roles, or encourage team members to adopt particular roles according to the circumstance.

Now that you have learned some new tools and techniques, it is good to have some straight forward and fun ways that you and your teams can learn to turn the ‘new’ into everyday practice. The next section is about doing that, one step at a time, literally!

1. Kantor, D. (2012). Reading the Room: Group Dynamics for Coaches and Leaders. Wiley.