Conduct a team pulse checkup each week to maintain team health and team member well-being.
Remarkable teams have a team pulse. Team pulse is the key to sustaining effective collaboration.
A weekly team pulse checkup sustains the heartbeat, cadence, and rhythm of your remarkable team.
Now, most high functioning teams will check in with each other throughout the day, no matter where in the world they are located. Checking in is not the same as checking up.
Taking a weekly team pulse checkup involves more than going through a To-Do list and ticking off items you have completed.
Think emotionally as well as professionally. When your hearts and minds beat collaboratively, team pulse is a measure of workplace health and well-being.
Make sure your team remains healthy, focused and high-functioning at the end of each work week. I’ve started a simple checklist for you. Share your important additions on this site. A team pulse checkup assures that:
- All is well. Some teams are local. Some virtual and world-wide. The environment in which team members reside can impact their mindset and performance. Recently, I checked in with a friend whose country was undergoing a coup. Just to make sure all was well with him and his family. It was. He remains thankful for the emotional and professional commitment to his well-being. Show people you value them professionally, personally and emotionally. Demonstrate the strength of your team pulse.
- Perspective is stable. We reinforce our subject-matter expertise by attending meetings and reading articles pertinent to a particular project. The more one learns, the greater the chances that their perspective shifts. Conducting a team pulse checkup encourages members to voice how they “see” things. Often, the entire team is similarly impacted by new learning. Team pulse becomes stronger when you risk team disruption by healthy debate.
- Team members are not overwhelmed. The more healthy, productive and collaborative the team, the more desirable team members become. Team members are asked to inject their “magic” into other, sometimes lackluster teams. Additional assignments pull team members in different, sometimes conflicting directions. Members may feel they short-change the one remarkable team they value so highly. Reassure and reinforce their value.
Remarkable teams are, first and foremost, people. Your team pulse checkup keeps members centered and grounded in each other. It is a safe place to look forward to at the end of each week.
A team pulse checkup provides an energy boost to get through the weekly flotsam and jetsam that clutters thinking and presents barriers to creativity and innovation.
Remarkable teams are addicting: team members continuously strive to bring out the best in each other. We all prefer to spend professional time positively and productively. We all want to make a difference.
Sometimes, the “small things” you do, on each other’s behalf, create the greatest impact on team pulse. My advice: Conduct a weekly team pulse checkup. It doesn’t take long. The impact lasts throughout the week.
Babette Ten Haken is a management consultant, strategist, speaker and coach focused on customer success for customer retention. She traverses the interface between human capital strategy for hiring and developing collaborative technical and non-technical teams. She serves manufacturing, IT and engineering intensive companies. Babette’s playbook of technical / non-technical collaboration hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon. Visit the Free Resources section of her website for more tools.
Image source: Fotolia
Leave a Reply