The Best Thing You Can Do As A Leader, Teammate and Colleague
“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” ~Ken Blanchard
As is widely researched by Patrick Lencioni in “The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team” and many others, Trust is the core and foundation of a high performing team. In order to build trust, as a leader, teammate and colleague: communicate expectations clearly and often. The key to a high performing team however, is to also provide specific and frequent feedback to guide towards success along the way. The consistency of both expectations and feedback will help overcome challenges, disagreements and misalignment. The continual sync of what’s ahead, what needs to be done and how performance is tracking towards these items will bring clarity and closure, allowing the focus on collective outcomes and success to be realized.
So, get back to basics with these regular tips to close the gaps in communication and trust building in your team:
Plan Organizational Check Ins so all expect the conversation. The goal of these are not to move any work or projects forward, they are to discuss what’s working, what’s not and how to clear the air to work through challenges and re-align. These can be weekly or monthly, depending on the cadence that works for your executive team, leader team, direct reports or organization.
Ask these questions during these Organizational Check Ins: 1) What’s Working Well? 2) What’s not working well? 3) What do we need to say to clear the air and realign? What do we need to say in order to win? 4) What can we do to improve how we are working together?
The more frequent, the more you’ll get accustomed to providing feedback, overcoming miscommunications, challenges and misalignments. So, overtime, don’t wait for these meetings. Think of the Organizational Check Ins as meeting to get laser focused on your communication and relationships so that you can get to even greater levels of high performance.
Make sure the feedback is clear and diverse. Focus on appreciative elements and challenging feedback. Make sure the feedback incorporates both so that you’re really looking at all things that can be improved - both to improve what’s already working and to address what’s not to stay agile and close the gaps. Mixing it up (and staying authentic, specific and clear in doing so) with guiding feedback on what’s working really well and how to continue to bolster those winning behaviors or performance areas will also help significantly to build on wins and scale.