Working together is very much like learning to dance together. The more exposure to being close you have and the more practice you give it, the more smoothly you can read each other’s cues and signals. Soon your performance will be dynamic and in sync.

Interventions
• An employee who is shy with teammates should be placed in controlled, low-risk situations that require participation, starting
with a single partner. Many projects can be done with a partner. Pair the shy employee with a teammate whose personality and temperament would seem to be a good match. Avoid impatient or
perfectionist employees for this pairing. Start the pair with a very
brief (one day or less) project, if possible. That takes a lot of pressure off both employees. The first project should be low-stress
and may even seem like busywork. The point is to make the shy employee more comfortable interacting with teammates. Gradually build up to longer projects. Next, pair the employee with a different teammate, or even with two or more in a group.

• Conduct team-building exercises, play games together, do an outdoor retreat, or ask a consultant to lead you through trust-building or communication exercises. There are many things that you
and your team can do together to get to know one another so that
you will work in tandem more productively. One manager I know takes her team out to dinner and to a concert once a year. Her team
is not particularly athletic, and this works well for everyone on it.
Spouses are invited, which aids some of the shy employees in being more social.

• Employees who don’t bring up problems readily may need job aids
or structured avenues to encourage them to be candid. For example,
the old suggestion box is a job aid to encourage shy employees to offer ideas or suggestions. You can start an online suggestion list and discuss the topics placed on it at regular staff meetings.

Here is one stimulating exercise that works if you have a staff of at least five. Ask each person to name the person he or she is most dependent on in getting work out the door each week. The ensuing conversation may surprise you. The next question to the staff is, “What do you need from each person around this table?”

• Conduct 360° assessments of all teammates and identify areas of
need. These assessments ask an employee’s peers, subordinates, the employee himself and management to rate the employee on all
kinds of traits and performance issues. Although these should be done anonymously, you can open the floor in a meeting for people
to voluntarily state one or more strengths and weaknesses.
Fellow employees can then offer suggestions for developing areas
of weakness. There may be a little defensiveness, and maybe even
some fireworks, but this is better than allowing an employee to
keep resentments bottled up inside for too long.

• Assign the shy employee a mentor or peer coach. Ask another
employee to work with the shy employee on a skill, which doesn’t
have to be communication. Working with another employee on any
skill can begin to make the shy employee more comfortable, since
she feels that she has an ally or a friend on the team.

Taken From: 201 Ways to Turn Any Employee Into a STAR Performer