Depending on where you live, your team has been working from home for 4-8 weeks (longer if they’re in NYC, New Jersey, or Seattle). The novelty of seeing everyone on camera and hearing one another’s dogs bark and children squeal has long worn off, and the real demands of WFH are sinking in. As a team leader, you too were probably caught up initially in the technical logistics and HR challenges associated with a rapid transition to WFH and may just be coming up for air, taking a good look at your productivity stats, and trying to sort out budget projections for the next quarter.
In short, this is a perfect time for a team check-in.
1. Is everyone okay?
I just learned that a member of my own team had been worried about her father who had contracted coronavirus. She hadn’t mentioned this before because? Who knows. Bottom line, some of your team members may be dealing with undisclosed challenges that are impacting their performance. Privacy law prevents you from asking about specific challenges, but you can certainly open the door for them to disclose to you by asking, “How are you doing? Are you okay? Do you need help?”
2. What’s working?
It’s always good to start with recognition of what’s going well. Our brain biology predisposes us to notice and attend to what’s not working – broken processes; failed communication; productivity deficits; product flaws. This often blinds us to all the things that are working.
Our brains also respond to questions, however, so ask your team, “What’s working?” This creates space to recognize and celebrate the wins, big and small. Your team’s resourcefulness, resiliency, and persistence will likely be high on the list. Also take time to notice and understand positive aspects of your team’s internal operations, their collaboration with other departments, and their contributions to the organization. Even something as simple as a checklist that keeps projects on track or developing new ways of coordinating across departments or collaborating with suppliers are worth noting and celebrating.
3. What’s not working?
Because of our brain’s natural tendencies, some of you may already be focusing 24/7 on what’s not working. Others of you who have been in “inspirational leader” overdrive may be reluctant to ask this question, fearful that acknowledging a single crack in the “can do!” armor will trigger an unraveling of the whole operation. It won’t – or at least it doesn’t have to.
Numerous strengths-based approaches built on the principles of positive psychology do encourage us to recognize and amplify positive aspects of both individuals and situations. At the same time, these approaches recognize that negative thoughts and feelings are a normal part of the human existence. Negative feelings that go unexpressed tend to fester and emerge later as a disproportionate response to something trivial. So expressing fears, concerns, hurt, and frustration is a good thing. It’s how we deal with these less-than-rosy realities that determines whether the dialogue veers onto a constructive or destructive path.
If this question is followed by “Whose fault is it?” or blaming a litany of external circumstances over which you have no control, the dialogue could very well deteriorate into either defensive finger-pointing or a pity party.
If, on the other hand, answers to the question are followed by a constructive line of questioning, such as “What’s the goal? What will it look like when it is working? How can we create that?”, you will be helping your team build capacity, not only for dealing with the current challenge but for responding to future disruptions as well.
4. What are we learning?
This is another capacity-building question. If you’re in a technical or science-based company, chances are that members of your team value learning. Asking this question helps them tap into their innate superpowers and translate their current experience into actionable insights for dealing with both current and future challenges. It also helps the brain recognize and encode these lessons as “useful information” for future reference rather than ignoring and discarding these experiences as transient aspects of the current circumstance.
5. What’s next?
Finally, you will want to close the check-in with some version of this future-oriented question. Depending on your team’s unique challenges – whether dealing with furloughs, onboarding hoards of new hires, or sorting out the IP implications of collaborating with government, commercial, and university-based scientists around the globe – their answers may range from ideas for getting through the day to ones about the company’s next-generation product. Try not to have preconceived notions of “good” or “correct” answers. Asking the question is enough to plant a future-thinking seed that will yield fruit in time.
Good luck and stay safe! (and Thank You to those of you who are keeping the rest of us safe and fed)
