How To Align Your Team, Continuously Improve Work, And Make Everyone Stronger
Every morning, I ask my team to stand in a circle to have a 5 minute meeting.
Everyone answers 3 questions:
- What did I accomplish yesterday?
- What will I accomplish today?
- What is in my way?
At the end of the sprint (in our case, one week of work), we review how we did.
This is called the Sprint Retrospective.
We look at how much stuff we did and whether we did the right stuff by asking two questions:What went well? (So we might replicate those things in the next sprint)What could we improve?From there, we turn the most notable things into action items, sometimes requiring teams to assemble around them.
It sounds straightforward and easy, but do you know what the hardest part about this is?
Not skipping the meeting.It feels like it’s just this one time or that we don’t really need to have the meeting because not that much stuff happened this week . . .
I’ve never run a Sprint Retrospective that hasn’t generated meaningful action items.
It’s this discipline, early on in your work that is the compounding interest of your project.By staying the course, you will continuously be aligned as a team, you will be focused on the right work, and you will have a team that feels capable in the face of challenges.
2 Minute Action
Since it’s Saturday, chances are you just finished a work week.Take today’s 2 minutes to ask yourself “what went well?” and “what could be improved?”
3 Characteristics Of Rock Star Teammates
Stop hiring for specific skills.Hiring this way almost always overlooks the three most important traits of a strong candidate.There are 3 things that good managers hire for.Of course, sometimes, you really do need a highly trained skill set. There's just no amount of positivity that will substitute for an expertly-trained brain surgeon--but unless you need a super specific, high-stakes skill like this, you're much, much better off starting at these 3 traits:
Aptitude
Do they have the ability to learn and execute the skills they need to be successful?
Attitude
Do they make others around them feel confident, capable, and like excellence is possible? No one can sustain this all the time under all circumstances, that's just faking it. We're just looking at most of the time. What's their common thought habit?
Cultural fit
Culture is not the ping-pong table, the nerf guns, nor the Keurig. Culture is how you treat others when it's hard, when you're tired, and when you're frustrated. Cultural fit on a high-performance team is "do you believe what we believe?" "Do you have similar values as shown by your actions?"Finding these three traits will lead to capturing the right people. Training, mentoring, and supporting them are the things that will keep them with you.
2 Minute Action
Quickly list a few traits of your high-performers.What are the characteristics that make them successful? Pick 3-5.Now rank your other teammates on a 10 point scale for each of these 3-5 characteristics.If anyone is below a 6, you should schedule time to identify/discuss and solve this.Reviews do NOT need to be annual. Make it happen, today.
The Glue That Keeps High-Performance Teams Together
Culture is not the ping-pong table.Culture is not the Keurig.Culture is not the ability to hang out with the people on your team after work.
Somehow, this is what many people think.
Culture is “Do you believe what I believe?”Culture is the alignment of core values.Culture is how we treat each other when it gets hard.
This is the glue that makes great teams excel.
No team can withstand the barometric pressure at the altitude of high-performance without having the trust and support of good culture.People don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad managers.
2 Minute Action
Who is someone you haven’t connected with deeply in a while?Who is someone that maybe is on the outskirts of your team and is waiting to be included?Take 2 minutes to say “hi,” today. Ask them about something they are interested in. Make sure you don’t walk away without them knowing you care about them.That’s culture.Recognizing others and making people around you know that you value them.