🠺 Spend time on a regular basis connecting with each other without talking about work.

🠺 Acknowledge and embrace that everyone, regardless of gender, has emotions that influence their thoughts and decisions.

🠺 Acknowledge or express appreciation to each other frequently.

• CAUTION: Appreciation should be an everyday activity, not just at retrospectives and group meetings. Ideally, every interaction should start with appreciation for the other person.

• WARNING: Because of our brain biology, appreciation is not easy; it’s a lot easier to see what’s wrong with what another team member said or did; but beginning conversations with problems often creates more problems.

🠺 Beware of making assumptions and ask clarifying or confirming questions to ensure that what you think is happening is actually happening.

• CAUTION: If the other person says that your understanding is wrong, slow down and listen; they may be wrong but they may also be right.

🠺 Avoid dismissing others’ contributions and build on what has already been contributed.

• TIP: Address one piece of feedback at a time; avoid chaining multiple points of feedback together (e.g. “...and another thing…”).