We've all heard it by now. The low-pitched "ding" that comes through your speakers, usually accompanied by a concurrent purple pop-up window. It can mean lots of things - a response to a question that you have been needing to get answered, more work that you need to complete - or random chatter from a distribution list that you have never signed up for. But dig a little deeper, and things can start to get messy. There's a flurry of IMs coming through, and you can't keep up. Or you've been added to channels than you don’t even recognize, and you don’t know why. Or you get notified any time a file or tab gets added to a team, and you have no idea if you should ignore it or if you are suddenly missing something important that you need to be diligently checking.
So, the big question becomes: Is Microsoft Teams a productivity goldmine or a reactivity trap?
I've been coaching and working with Senior Leaders across many industries lately, and keep hearing the same concern when we talk about delivering on the strategies they have worked so hard to develop and communicate across their organizations. Lack of accountability is hurting our ability to execute.
If you've noticed this creeping into your team or organization, it may require some focused attention before it's too late. Let's review six techniques that can help stem the tide and turn your team into an executing machine!
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I was coaching a client last week and asked about his progress since he went to our WorkingSm@rt class. He said, "Well, I'm more organized and more focused but I haven't solved the one issue that takes up more time than almost anything else -- the people stuff!”.
I knew he was saying it tongue in cheek, but he winced a little as he said it and I knew there was more truth there than he was comfortable with. I wish I could say it was the first time I've heard this complaint, but it's not. It's impossible to focus on people's productivity without consistently running into the challenging people issues that can take up significant chunks of our day.
So, without ado, I thought I’d outline three people areas that waste significant time in our workplaces with a few solutions that can make a significant impact:
It happens all the time. Two people are using a word and believe they are aligned on its definition, but their different interpretations lead to big misses in execution. When this happens with a common word like coaching, the results fall short and leave people scratching their head. I was recently in New York teaching a Coaching for Peak Performance class with a group of front-line managers.
"How many of you actively coach your team members?" (80% of the hands went up)
"How many of you coach both proactively for development and reactively for "just-in-time" learning?" (60% of the hands went up)
It didn't make sense to me. I was missing something. How could they be coaching and still not getting the results?
Automate your repetitive processes.
Identifying all repetitive tasks in a process is a great way to quickly surface opportunities for automation.
Consider templates, checklists and rules in Outlook, Gmail, OneNote, Keep and other applications as a non-programmers option for automating. With increases in communications, an automated process for client contacts can save a team a bunch of time. Scheduling applications like Fullslate, AppointmentPlus, Acuity, TimeTap and Bookings (free in MS 365) can save everyone on the team countless hours playing phone tag and emailing people with new appointment options when you work with external clients or vendors whose schedules you can't see.
I was coaching a client last week and asked about his progress since he went to our WorkingSm@rt class. He said, "Well, I'm more organized and more focused but I haven't solved the one issue that takes up more time than almost anything else -- the people stuff!”.
I knew he was saying it tongue in cheek, but he winced a little as he said it and I knew there was more truth there than he was comfortable with. I wish I could say it was the first time I've heard this complaint, but it's not. It's impossible to focus on people's productivity without consistently running into the challenging people issues that can take up significant chunks of our day.
So, without ado, I thought I’d outline three people areas that waste significant time in our workplaces with a few solutions that can make a significant impact:
Last week, as I plugged into my computer and logged into my video conferencing software, I found myself asking this exact question. It was the end of a long week, and I was meeting with some industry colleagues to discuss a potential upcoming project. While the work was exciting and I was happy to connect with my colleagues, I found myself dreading this particular phone meeting. Why, you ask?
Raise your hand if this scenario sounds familiar: you’re 55 minutes into your one-hour team meeting to introduce a new change, you wanted your team to weigh in, and now you’re heading down a rabbit hole that you don’t think you can get out of. You know that one of two scenarios are inevitable: you risk running over and making people late for their next appointments, or someone is bound to leave feeling thoroughly unsatisfied. As managers, how do we get in front of this phenomenon while still giving people a voice?
One of our favorite ways to gauge buy-in is with an incredibly simple but effective tool: Fist to Five. If you’ve never heard of this, it’s based on a 0-5 scale, with the idea that you can take the temperature of the room simply by having people hold up one hand to display where they stand. Here is the scale that we recommend using: