This week is a very special week as we’re transitioning from one decade to the next so I’m doing a special solo episode to wrap up the year and decade.
This is a time of year where a lot of companies have strategy sessions or days to review what they’ve accomplished and where they’re headed in the next year. Now, I absolutely love doing these strategy sessions with my clients, but there’s one thing I’ve noticed these companies rarely do and I would like to see that changed.
In this episode, I’m explaining why it’s crucial for companies to do periodic check-ins during the year to get a 30,000-foot view of where your company is at that time, the four main benefits of doing these check-ins, how to know when it’s time to do a check-in, and the five questions you can ask during the check-in to help your team get back into a strategic flow.
Mentioned in this episode:
- Email Me: andrea@voiceofinfluence.net
- Contact Me
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Transcript
Hey, hey! It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast. It has been a long time since we have sat down just you and me. We’ve had a lot of interviews over the past few months, and it’s good to be back. Today is a pretty special day; this week is a very special week. We are transitioning from one decade to the next. This is the time of year that companies and teams take a step back and a lot of times will do a strategy day, or they’ll take a good hard look at what they’ve accomplished and where they’re headed. This is something that I love doing with clients.
But one of the things that is missing when people do strategy days is the follow-up. Strategy day or workshop, whatever kind of change you’re trying to encourage within your team, whatever kind of initiative you’re setting forth – every once in a while after that, you still need to take a step back away from all of the grind of the day to take that 30k foot view and say, “Where are we?” So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to talk about what I called the 30k Foot Check-in.
So, this team check-in is an opportunity for you to help your team to think more strategically again and to get back into the flow of why they’re doing what they’re doing and how you’re going to move forward. It’s a simple, simple meeting. So we’re not talking about the in-depth strategy day where you’re nailing out or hammering out a 90-day plan with all kinds of projects and things like that. Instead of that, we’re talking about a very quick check-in, maybe thirty to forty-five minutes. This is how you know that it’s time for your 30k Foot Team Check-in.
If your team is feeling disjointed or you’re sensing a lot of friction amongst the people that are on the team, this is a good time to take a step back and check in, and say, “How are we doing?” If you have recently had a workshop or a strategy day, you have been making some sort of change. You don’t want to neglect the fact that people get really annoyed if you start a project and then don’t finish it, if you start an initiative and don’t carry it through. So, if you have a workshop and there isn’t any follow-up that is built into the workshop then you definitely want to build it in for yourself. So how can you come back to the changes that you were trying to make, the conversation that you were trying to have? Well, this is one way to do it.
Another time that you might want to have a 30k Foot meeting is when a team is getting really lost in the weeds. They might be making minimal progress on their projects but the overall needle is not turning like you wanted it to. Then it’s time to take a step back and check in with the team.
There are lots of benefits of doing this, but we’re going to talk about four. The first one is that you’re giving your team a voice. By having a time to be able to step back and check in, you’re giving them the opportunity to say what is on their minds, to make a difference in the overall picture. And this is incredibly important when it comes to engagement and retention. People want to believe that their voice matters, that what they do and say matters. They want to have agency.
And when they do, when they can have agency within a dialogue – a respectful dialogue – on your team, they are going to be more likely to continue to collaborate and come to consensus on things more easily. So you want to be able to give them a voice.
But number two, there’s also the benefit of collecting actionable insights from people that you might not have already heard. So although you already have an idea of what’s going well and what’s not going well, this is a chance for them to share, and you’re going to end up finding out things that you didn’t even realize could be changed. Sometimes the smallest little things that can make the biggest difference that other people are seeing. This is a great opportunity for people to share that.
A third benefit would be that you get to develop rapport in the team and perhaps even come to consensus. Consensus isn’t always possible or necessary, but what you can come to consensus on is this idea that you are going to trust each other. So, even if you don’t have a meeting for every little thing to make sure that there is consensus on every little thing – which is, of course, impossible – if you could live under this consensus that you trust each other, and so you don’t need to have your hands in everything then that’s going to help people. And it’s going to mean a lot to them that they’re going to feel like they’re on the same team. They’re seeing the game plan. They are part of creating the game plan. It means a lot.
A fourth benefit would be to help your team think more strategically. So, a lot of us are born with personalities that are focused on the details. We like to get in there, get our hands in it, get it done, but every once in awhile, we all need to be able to step back and think more strategically which allows us to have a greater impact with what we’re doing as a team. So make adjustments where we need to make adjustments.
So, this is an opportunity for you to help teach your team how to think strategically. And if you build this into a regular rhythm in your team, you’re going to find that people are going to start thinking like this, and it is going to make a difference in how they respond to changes that need to take place, and how they respond to each other in the kind of dialogue and collaboration that they’re able to accomplish.
All right, so how do we set this meeting up? This is kind of a meeting that I would recommend that if… If you’re doing it as a follow-up to a strategy day or a workshop, I’d recommend doing it every month after that for a few months so that you have a chance to really nail the thing down – you really get it going. If not, if it’s something that’s not possible or if that’s just too much, every quarter or every half year is a great time to be able to sit down and just have this quick meeting that would be a check-in to help them to be able to see things from a bigger perspective.
So what are the questions? Here are five questions that you can use at this meeting. Question number one, what do we have to celebrate? Celebration is something that can often be neglected, especially depending on the personalities in your group. Sometimes, it just feels like we’re never quite there, and so there’s nothing to really celebrate because as soon as we make it over one hump there’s another one to shoot for. But it’s important in meetings like these to have the opportunity to sit back and say, “What do we have to celebrate? What did we really accomplish?” Sometimes, it could be an actual accomplishments or an award that sort of thing, or a goal that’s been met, or it could simply be bringing somebody else onto the team that’s been a good team member.
Question number two is what are we doing well that gets us there? So you have things to celebrate. What is it that you’ve done? What systems have you put in place? What’s the culture like that has made it that you can get to this point? What is the character of the people on a team that’s getting you there? These are important things to acknowledge.
Question number three, what challenges lie ahead? Now, it can be really tempting for some people to want to complain in a meeting like this. It is important that they understand that this is actually not an opportunity for them to complain. We’re not looking back so much as we’re looking forward when it comes to the challenges.
So, instead of looking back at the challenges that you’ve had… unless you’ve been able to accomplish something, like let’s say you’ve gotten over that challenge, you really tackled that challenge – that’s great. But if it’s something that is a complaint about somebody else, and it’s something that’s going to be a concern in the future then instead of looking back and hashing out these old arguments or old problems, instead look forward and say, “What is coming that could be a potential challenge for us?” When people start to look ahead then they can start to think about how they’re going to navigate that challenge instead of complaining about it and feeling like a victim.
So, the fourth question, in follow up to that, would be what adjustments can we make to meet these challenges?
And then finally question number five, who will do what by when? Now, we’re not really talking about project management here. But if something has come up that needs to be addressed, if there is a challenge that is coming up ahead, and you’re ready to meet that challenge with some sort of adjustment that you’re going to make, what is that adjustment? How are you going to make it? Who’s in charge? Who’s going to get the ball rolling? Do you need to have another meeting? Does somebody need to go talk to somebody? Is there some sort of document that needs to be created? Some small thing is what we’re talking about here, not that detailed 90-day plan that you might execute after a strategy day, but some small thing that you know to help you to move forward.
So these five questions are very simple, but they do take you out of the weeds. They help you bring the team out of the weeds so that instead of thinking about their day-to-day frustrations, their day-to-day tasks and activities, they’re looking at the bigger picture about why it matters. Why they matter. The mission and vision and values, you can always bring those kinds of things up on a meeting like this. How are we headed in that direction? It’s a great thing to be able to come together underneath of that and say, “Where are we, and how can we move forward with more intentionality?”
And if you come to one of these meetings and you realize that it’s time to start a new initiative, it is time for us to take a deeper dive, and you want to lead some sort of strategic planning day, shoot me an email, contact me on our contact form on voiceofinfluence.net. I would love to be able to sit down and give you some thoughts about best practices for strategy days.
Again, that’s voiceofinfluence.net. Your voice matters; now let’s make it matter more!