Riding the wave

Maximise team clarity and energy by supporting greater autonomy

One of the things about doing ONE THING deep with your teams and organisations is the desire to focus on something that engages your people. This means allowing the team to come up with the change or development they believe will make a difference in how they are performing. And this idea can be pretty challenging for some managers.

Managers become concerned that the team won't focus on the right or most important thing. And that might be true. But in many organisations, people are stressed and exhausted from the last couple of years. There is more work than they can possibly handle. So they're asking why the workplace is the way it is and whether it suits how they want to work and live. And many are taking the opportunity to leave for something they believe will be better.

So right now, following their energy for engagement could simply be more important.

As a leader, creating an opportunity to work on something that the team chooses can help them feel a sense of autonomy and certainty. And if they are responsible for building a change that improves how they work together, whether it's a process, skill or behaviour, it is more likely to be successful.

Work together on:

keeping it within their control - not something they really can't have an impact on

keeping it small - reap the benefits of multiple small successes over time instead of a big goal that will take forever to come to fruition

finding ways to keep everyone engaged - how will they create a sense of ownership across the team?

making it measurable on their terms - asking 'how will we know we have achieved this?' is a critical thing to decide upfront

being okay with failure - learning from small experiments is never a failure

The connection, learning and energy of doing ONE THING deep together, even if it's not the best-est, most important thing ever, beats struggling against the rip current of the perfect thing they don't care about right now.