***Continued from Chapter 01 (Covered previously: What Is Big Picture Thinking, Importance Of Big Picture Thinking, Detail Oriented Or A Big Picture Thinker- The Difference)
Identifying the Different Approaches – Approach Indicators
No matter which field we belong to – an aspiring entrepreneur, someone who’s putting together a dream team, or polishing our leadership skills, big picture thinking can help open up, innovative and unexpected creative paths, ideas and solutions.
Detail-Oriented Approach Indicators
We prefer tweaking an existing plan than creating one from scratch
We think over issues in such great detail that we sometimes miss the bigger picture
We end up putting down or highlighting almost all notes
We work towards high-quality work in most areas of our life and struggle with perfectionist tendencies
We’re organized and/or like routine
Big Picture Approach Indicators
We can easily spot patterns in problems
We have a low tolerance for busywork, tedious errands, and routine
We are good at figuring out an overview of strategies to get something done
We get bored when we have to deal with the tiny details of a project
People view us as incredibly creative and we like to come up with original ideas
We don’t obsess over little details and therefore, solve problems fairly quickly
The Balance: Big Picture & Detailed Orientation- Components in Business
Strategies Towards a Big Picture Focus
A) Identify habits that limit our big picture thinking ability:. . . Our natural preferences often prevent us from blue sky thinking. So, the first step: break bad habits. Here’s a 3-step framework:
B) See things from a different lens: . . . Diving into big picture questions helps us connect the dots from our actions/tasks to the big goal. In this book, The Magic of Thinking Big, David J. Schwartz calls this, “see what can be, not just what is.” A good starting point is to ask ourselves, ‘what am I trying to achieve?’ Some big picture questions may be:
C) Think big by looking up: . . . The super basic rundown is that whenever we are focusing on the big picture, look up. And look down when not seeing the big picture.
A nice example of chunking reasoning is to think of transport. We can start with a motor car. If We chunk down, We might go to wheel, then rim, then rubber, then tread and even road. If We chunk up, We might go to transport, then to travel, then to vacation, then to wellbeing, etc.”
D) Use bulleted lists to think big: . . . This is a trick many of use on a regular basis – making a bulleted list of the big picture and then adding sub-bullets to each pillar step. We can then step back and look at what can be added or removed from the sub-bullet pointers to keep the needle moving forward.
So why did this work? Because bullet points give us the visuals on the big picture. It’s challenging to connect the dots when we can’t see them. It’s also tough to translate the big picture if we don’t have it in front of us. What’s more, bullet points are easy to access and revise anytime. This, in turn, provides clarity.
E) Start journaling / mind mapping: . . . When we put our internal prattle on paper, we can easily spot where we are flailing or how it can be shaped to fit the bigger picture. To begin with, note down the big picture, followed by the small details pestering us. The trick is to make sure that it represents not only the big picture, but that it represents the detail, or actionable elements as well. Then record our thoughts to see if they deviate from the big picture plan.
F) Schedule in some thinking time: . . . Often, when we rush to make a decision, we end up feeling sorry about it. When this happens, it’s usually for one of three reasons:
If we find ourselves nodding yes to any or all of these points, pencil in some uninterrupted, thinking time to our schedule. This space is crucial to making better decisions that rely on the big picture. We will also be able to rate our priorities better – what matters in the big picture, how it contributes to the big picture and so on. This will help us to stop hustling so hard, and ditch the shiny object syndrome.
Self Reflection- The Key
If we pause and contemplate how we are doing, we can make small tweaks that help us stay consistently productive. Some pointers to reflect on may be:
When we are busy executing any tasks in our lives for far too long, it’s easy to forget the details or the big picture depending on the type of thinker we are. For instance, as a big picture thinker, we may be excited by how our old and new ideas are connecting and work on outlining them, forgetting that the ideas have to be structured by many crucial details to work in the long term. The details person on the other hand might be buried in unending to-do-lists, feeling secure in the routines only to be disrupted by an enormous transition they didn’t anticipate.
Most people fall under either of the two main types of thinking paradigms- big picture or detail-oriented. The big picture thinker usually keeps coming up with ideas of what the ideal world would look like. The detail-oriented thinker on the other hand mostly thinks pragmatically and is organized.
A Story:
Around 1959 or 1960, Dashrath Manjhi, a laborer in India’s Gehlaur village lost his injured wife because the nearest hospital was about 45 minutes away. 22 years later, the same man had carved a 10-meter long path through the rocky ridge – all with a hammer and chisel – that chopped the travel time to 15 minutes.
Manjhi is an extreme example of seeing the big picture — instead of getting overwhelmed by the details of how he was going to get it done, he focused on the broader issue at hand: he didn’t want anyone else to suffer his wife’s fate. So, he worked tirelessly for years to prevent that from happening again.
What Is Big Picture Thinking?
Big picture thinking is the ability to grasp abstract concepts, ideas and possibilities. Big picture thinkers emphasize the system in which they are operating. This includes looking into various stakeholders such as customers, employees and investors but also competitors, social trends and future technological disruptions.
A big picture thinker is someone who mostly thinks of issues from a broader, overview-type perspective. When dealing with any project, they focus on the overall importance of the project and the major steps required to execute it. When big picture thinkers focus on details, they get tired easily. It’s the big picture that energizes and keeps them going. These types of people are often called visionaries or dreamers. They’re usually full of ideas, great at outlining how things could change, and what needs to be done to make the world a better place. Most inventors are big picture thinkers.
Imagine driving on the Howrah bridge at Calcutta (or any bridge). Do we look at the left and the right only? Hopefully not. We would have trained ourselves to cover both our left and right sides, as well as look far ahead in front of us. (If we only focused on a tiny word on the bumper sticker of the vehicle directly in front of us, we risk getting into an accident.) That’s essentially what big picture thinking is — looking at the entirety of a plan or situation.
Seeing the big picture means seeing the whole. The ability to comprehend the context of the matter and the system that is at work. We get to grips with the scope and focus on it, strategizing what will work and what will not. Put another way, big picture thinking is the ability to envision something.
In contrast, a detailed oriented person delves into the specifics of a project or process. In doing so, they may lose sight of the plan or the big picture. But, this does not mean that one thinking modality is right and another wrong. Instead, they are both necessary to function effectively.
The Importance Of Big Picture Thinking
“Take a step back”, “Look at the big picture”, “Think about it in the grand scheme of things”. These snippets of advice tend to go in one ear and out the other if we are naturally a detail-oriented person. Often, they can feel like a waste of time – why invest in all that fluffy thinking when there’s just so much to actually get done?
But scientific research has revealed that big picture thinking is linked to venture success for entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs are 30-48% more likely to think in broad terms than the rest of us. It is not easy to encourage big picture thinking. It takes a ton of work and mental reminders such as, “how will this matter to me in 3 days, 3 years, 3 decades…”
We might be wondering, ‘what is the benefit of having a solid idea of the big picture?’ While both big picture vs detail-oriented thinking are crucial, they also complement each other. Zooming in on the details only can be a bit messy to deal with. By thinking big, we are less likely to fret over the details that won’t matter in the long run. Not to mention, a big picture person is likely to see how an obstacle impacts the big picture and how that can turn into an opportunity – a real plus if we are leading a team.
Both big picture thinking and detail thinking are important. Anyone who is prone to be in one or other mode by default will limit their ability to contribute to the whole picture.
Detail Oriented Or A Big Picture Thinker- The Difference
We can get a better understanding of big picture vs detail-oriented when we look at them as “universal versus specific thinking.” Some common words and phrases are:
One way to find out whether we are a big picture thinker or a specifics’ person is seeing what we tend to focus on naturally. Do we look at the detailed ins and outs of a project?
Perhaps we give so many details in our reports that our manager finds it annoying?
Or, do we tend to keep a bird’s eye view on things, and feel frustrated when working on projects where we can’t see how it connects to a broader plan? When we look closely, we see that both types of thinking are needed in a workplace.
***To be continued in Chapter 02 (Identifying the Different Approaches, The Balance: Big Picture & Detailed Orientation- Components in Business, Strategies Towards a Big Picture Focus, Self Reflection- The Key)Link to Chapter -02:
“Company vision” might be the fluffiest business term thrown around by nearly every business book and article, often used vaguely, without nuance or thoughtfulness.
Yet despite its watered-down usage, “vision” is the most important information for us to communicate across a team. Research indicates that vision was ranked as the number one information people need to share in a team. Given its significance, how to best share a company vision within a team? Before we can answer that, we must start with what company vision exactly is and why it is important.
What is company vision?
A vision is a picture of a better place. You see this picture in your head: It is what you want the world to look like because your product or team exists. In many ways, your team’s vision is your opinion on how you think the world ought to be. A vision answers the question, “What world do you want to create?”Vision is often misconstrued with other business terms, like “mission,” “purpose,” and “values.” But a vision is different from any of those things. A vision is what you want to create. The mission of your team is why you want to get to that vision. Your team’s values are how you want to get to that vision.
A company vision is a statement that outlines the long-term goals and aspirations of an organization. It is a powerful tool that helps define the direction of the company and provides guidance for decision-making. A strong vision statement can inspire and motivate employees, investors, and customers, and can help create a shared sense of purpose and identity.
Why does sharing a vision matter?
Sharing your company vision is important for four reasons:
Clarifies decisions.
Many leaders strongly emphasise the importance of sharing vision as the ultimate tool for decision making. When the vision is clear, we give our team something explicitly to point to in decision making. The vision is the compass that all decisions are oriented around.
Decentralizes decisions.
When the vision is shared across the team, each team member can have greater autonomy. Our team now has a shared destination on the map, so the manager doesn’t need to be ordering a series of coordinates instructing everyone how to get there. No more micromanaging. If we are clear about why we do what we do, our vision becomes a filter through which any employee can make decisions that align with who we are and what we’re about. But all of this is predicated on us as leaders regularly sharing this stuff.
Alignment through disagreements.
A shared vision also helps a team make decisions amidst disagreement. When people argue over how to grow the sales or whether to pursue a project, this shared vision is a uniting force that can override seemingly irreconcilable differences in opinion. It can also give our co-workers the courage to speak up and offer dissenting opinions since they know what the ultimate vision of the team is what they are trying to achieve.
The greatest motivator for our team.
When shared, a company vision is the most powerful way to motivate a group of people. It gives the team a common place to strive for. When each person clearly sees that same picture of a better place in their own minds’ eye, each person connects to it and feels that pull of motivation to want to create that place.
Here are three thoughts we can consider:
Over-communicate vision at all-team meetings
The most common way to share company vision is to utilize team meetings. All-team or all-company meetings are an ideal opportunity to have this discussion: Everyone is present, and you are carving out time to talk about broader team and company issues. Regardless of the frequency, the most important thing is that we hold some sort of regular all-staff meeting and that we make a discussion of vision a part of it. Specifically, at these meetings, the team’s vision can be discussed in the following ways:
What is most important is to not make these meetings a progress update. It is found that employees often feel they know what their co-workers are working on, for the most part. Make communicating the vision the focus.
Leverage theone-on-one meetings.
Communicating the vision isn’t just about broadcasting the vision: “This is the vision, and you must be on board…” Rather, sharing company vision should be a conversation. After all, a vision that is shared across a team is only built from the personal visions of everyone.
To do this, you will want to discuss the team’s vision during one-on-one meetings with the team members. For example, we can ask:
Do not just talk about vision — codify it.
Talking about company vision during team meetings is great — but we should go beyond that as well. Leaders often present the vision to be something that developed organically and is discussed when needed. Documenting (codifying) the vision is another method on how to share the company vision. In particular, most teams seem to use an internal wiki or Google Docs to document and share the company vision. This often takes the form of a “culture book” or a few pages of their employee handbook.
As fluffy as the word “vision” can be, it can also be powerful when used effectively.
The collaborative nature of teams means they are subject to pitfalls that individuals working alone do not face. Team members may not always work well together and focusing the efforts of individuals on shared goals presents challenges to completing tasks as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Three Barriers to Building a Team
Flimsy Leadership
Everything flows from leadership. And when there is a problem in the team, usually, it’s the leader’s fault. The wise king Solomon said, without a vision, the people perish. There could be several reasons that a team is not working, and most often, it starts with the leader.
Is there no vision for the team?
No one in the team knows where they are heading?
Is there favouritism being practiced by the leader?
Is the leader too critical of new ideas or suggestions?
Is the leader’s style too imposing on everyone?
It could be various reasons, but usually the problem has its roots with the leader.
Fragile Communication
Communication is key to the proper functioning of a team. And poor communication can lead to misunderstandings, resentment, offences within a team. Sometimes it’s because one person’s frankness or direct approach offences another person; and another responds in hurt. While conflict is normal in teams, without resolving them, this poor communication can lead to destructive conflict and cause a team to break down.
Vulnerable Team Dynamics
Teams can fail because some people just cannot work with others. For example, if we have two extremely opinionated team members, we will be seeing conflict all day in the team. Also, if we have team members that are ‘yes’ men; we won’t see a lot of participation and open discussion in the team. The thing is that, we must find the right mix of individuals to make a team; not just in terms of personalities, but also in terms of skills and abilities.
While these right individuals may have disagreements in approach and perspective, but that’s the idea behind a team, different individuals bringing different points of view so that synergy within the team can be achieved.
The Secrets of Great Teamwork
Today’s teams are different from the teams of the past: They are far more diverse, dispersed, digital, and dynamic (with frequent changes in membership). But while teams face new hurdles, their success still hinges on a core set of fundamentals for group collaboration.
The basics of team effectiveness were identified by J. Richard Hackman, a pioneer in the field of organizational behaviour. He uncovered a ground-breaking insight: What matters most to collaboration is not the personalities, attitudes, or behavioural styles of team members. Instead, what teams need to thrive are certain “enabling conditions.” These conditions—a compelling direction, a strong structure, and a supportive context—continue to be particularly critical to team success. Modern teams are also vulnerable to two corrosive problems— “us versus them” thinking and incomplete information. Overcoming those pitfalls requires a fourth critical condition: a shared mindset.
The Enabling Conditions
Compelling direction: . . . . . . . . .The foundation of every great team is a direction that energizes, orients, and engages its members. Teams cannot be inspired if they do not know what they are working toward and don’t have explicit goals. Those goals should be challenging (modest ones do not motivate) but not so difficult that the team becomes dispirited. They also must be consequential: People have to care about achieving a goal, whether because they stand to gain extrinsic rewards, like recognition, pay, and promotions; or intrinsic rewards, such as satisfaction and a sense of meaning. In remote teams, direction is especially crucial because it’s easy for far-flung members from dissimilar backgrounds to hold different views of the group’s purpose.
Strong structure: . . . . . . . . .Teams also need the right mix and number of members, optimally designed tasks and processes, and norms that discourage destructive behaviour and promote positive dynamics. High-performing teams include members with a balance of skills. Diversity in knowledge, views, and perspectives and demographics can help teams be more creative and avoid groupthink.
Team members from diverse backgrounds often interpret a group’s goals differently. This is one area where remote teams often have an advantage. Cosmopolitan members bring technical knowledge and skills and expertise that apply in many situations, while locals bring country knowledge and insight into an area’s politics, culture, and tastes. Larger teams are more vulnerable to poor communication, fragmentation, and free riding (due to a lack of accountability). With remote teams, people in different locations often handle different components of a task, which raises challenges. Repartitioning the work to give them ownership increases motivation and engagement and improves the quality, quantity, and efficiency of work.
Destructive dynamics can also undermine collaborative efforts. We’ve all seen team members withhold information, pressure people to conform, avoid responsibility, cast blame, and so on. Teams can reduce the potential for dysfunction by establishing clear norms—rules that spell out a small number of things members must always do (such as arrive at meetings on time and give everyone a turn to speak) and a small number they must never do (such as interrupt).
Supportive context: . . . . . . . . . . . This includes maintaining a reward system that reinforces good performance, an information system that provides access to the data needed for the work, and an educational system that offers training, and last—but not least—securing the material resources required to do the job, such as funding and technological assistance. Ensuring a supportive context is often difficult for teams that are geographically distributed and digitally dependent, because the resources available to members may vary a lot.
Shared mindset:. . . . . . . . . . . Distance and diversity, as well as digital communication and changing membership, make teams especially prone to the problems of “us versus them” thinking and incomplete information. The solution to both is developing a shared mindset among team members—something team leaders can do by fostering a common identity and common understanding. Teams now often perceive themselves not as one cohesive group but as several smaller subgroups. This is a natural human response: Our brains use cognitive shortcuts to make sense of our increasingly complicated world, and one way to deal with the complexity of a remote team is to lump people into categories. But we also are inclined to view our own subgroup—whether it’s our function, our unit, our region, or our culture—more positively than others, and that habit often creates tension and hinders collaboration.
Incomplete information is likewise more prevalent in remote teams. Shared knowledge is the cornerstone of effective collaboration; it gives a group a frame of reference, allows the group to interpret situations and decisions correctly, helps people understand one another better, and greatly increases efficiency. There are many ways team leaders can actively foster a shared identity and shared understanding and break down the barriers to cooperation and information exchange. One powerful approach is to ensure that each subgroup feels valued for its contributions toward the team’s overall goals.
Teamwork, in times of cloud computing and collaborative software, it’s one of those qualities that everyone wants to see in their company. But the truth is that for different types of work teams, different forms of integration and collaboration develop and allow them to function better. What type of team we have depends on its purpose, location, and organizational structure. Each type of team comes with its unique set of strengths and weaknesses. Some of them may be as follows:
Task Forces
A task force is a temporary team created to address a single piece of work, a problem, or a goal.
The term “task force” originated in the Army. An Army task force was designed to provide flexibility in operations since it could be formed without the reorganization or repurposing of the division. At the time, army operations were performed by formal groupings such as divisions or battalions, but wars created new challenges that demanded flexibility in how resources were used. Formation of a task force allowed officers and equipment that formally belonged to different groups to come together for a single specific purpose, without reassigning responsibility for those assets or requiring the reorganization or repurposing of the division. Task forces were temporary and easily disbanded after their work was complete.
Today, in business, government and other arenas, task forces are special ad-hoc committees created specially to deal with single problems or issues. Many organizations use task forces to bring together experts to assess, make recommendations, or take other actions to address a single issue or topic. The task force usually begins by assessing the factors that relate to its work. Next, the team typically identifies and analyses possible solutions and develops recommendations and plans for implementing them.
Generally, a task force will not have responsibility for implementing its recommendations once they are made, although individual team members may have a role in doing so. Task forces do not have the power to compel others to accept their recommendations. Indeed, the results of their work may be accepted in part, rejected in part, or even ignored altogether.
Cross-Functional Teams
A cross-functional team comprises people from different departments and with special areas of expertise working to achieve a common goal. The range of knowledge on cross-functional teams creates a broader perspective that can lead to new ideas and better solutions.
Cross-functional teams include members who bring different types of knowledge and experience from areas such as finance, engineering, human resources, and marketing. These teams occasionally may draw on subject-matter expertise from outside the organization by inviting external consultants or customers to join a team. By combining people with diverse task-related backgrounds, cross-functional teams can take a broader approach to addressing a problem or completing a set of activities. This can lead to new ideas and more creative solutions. It can also make a team’s efforts more efficient and effective by including information that can help avert risks or poor outcomes.
Example of a Cross-Functional Team: . . . . . . Many business activities require cross-functional collaboration to achieve successful outcomes. A common example is service improvement. To better meet customer expectations and achieve higher satisfaction rates, a company first needs to understand what customers are looking for. The marketing department is responsible for gathering that type of customer data. Operations staff members have expertise in how to design the process for delivering a service, so they would need to be involved in making any changes to that system. The human resources department oversees training, and employees may need new skills to succeed with the new process. If any information technology is involved in supporting the service improvement, then people from that department should be on the team. Finally, accountants may be needed to identify any new costs and additional savings.
Challenges of Cross-Functional Teams: . . . . . . Even though diversity of knowledge and perspective is the big advantage of cross-functional teams, it can also be a source of problems. People who work in the same discipline or area have a common understanding and a terminology for their work that is unknown to others. Shorthand expressions or common acronyms that are familiar to one person may be confusing to others. This can make communication between members of a cross-functional team difficult and subject to misunderstanding.
Cross-functional teams may be more likely than less complex teams to have members with divergent perspectives on how work gets done. For instance, engineers value precision and attention to detail, while those who come from more creative areas such as marketing may prefer a less rigid approach. These differences in styles may also be reflected in the personalities of team members. It can take extra effort to collaborate when you have to take into account the preferences and styles of widely dissimilar individuals.
In some organizations certain departments have more status than others. A common distinction is between those in areas that contribute directly to revenue, such as sales and manufacturing, and those that do not, including support departments like purchasing and IT. Perceived differences in relative importance or credibility can undermine the effectiveness of cross-functional collaboration.
Virtual Teams
A virtual team is a temporary group created to accomplish specific tasks by using technology to collaborate remotely. What sets them apart are:
Virtual teams rely upon computing and communications technology, especially Internet access.
Virtual teams can be cost- effective and take advantage of technology and the availability of distributed employees.
There are six common types of virtual teams: networked teams, parallel teams, project development teams, functional teams, service teams, and offshore information-systems development teams.
A virtual team is a group of individuals in different geographic locations who use technology to collaborate on work tasks and activities. The use of this kind of team has become prevalent in organizations due to the increased availability of collaborative technologies, the shift toward globalization in business, and greater use of outsourcing and temporary workers. Virtual teams require effective project management to facilitate communication and coordinate member activities.
Types of Virtual Teams: . . . . . . There are six common types of virtual teams.
Networked teams: . . . . . . are loosely organized; they are usually formed to address a short-term objective and are dissolved after they accomplish that objective. Similar to task forces and cross-functional teams, networked teams frequently bring together people with different expertise to bring broad perspectives to discussing an issue or problem.
Parallel teams: . . . . . . are highly task-focused and draw on individuals from different functional areas and locations. While they generally complete their work on a defined schedule, parallel teams may not be disbanded but may instead remain to take on a subsequent set of tasks.
Project development teams: . . . . . . work on complex sets of activities over a long time period. They may be formed to develop new products, deliver a new technology system, or redesign operational processes.
Functional teams: . . . . . . are comprised of people from the same department or area who collaborate on regular and ongoing activities, examples of which include providing training, executing marketing initiatives, and conducting research and development.
Service teams: . . . . . . work with customers to address their purchasing and post-purchase needs. These teams enable a company to provide consistent service, often 24/7, to support customers wherever they are.
Development teams: . . . . . . make use of lower cost labour, typically offshore, to develop software, conduct research, etc. They are typically created by dividing up the work of larger projects and assigning specific pieces to independent contractors or teams of developers.
Challenges of Virtual Teams: . . . . . . The geographic dispersion of team members and the lack of regular face-to-face meetings present three challenges to the success of virtual teams.
Coordination of tasks: . . . . . . A virtual team needs a clear set of objectives and a plan for how to achieve them in order to focus and direct collaboration among team members. They need clear guidelines and norms for how individuals will accomplish their work. Even more than traditional teams where individuals work in the same location and time zone, virtual teams require effective project managementto facilitate communication and coordination of tasks among members.
Team-member skills: . . . . . . Beyond their functional expertise and experience, virtual team members need to be effective users of technologies such as video conferencing and other collaboration tools. They must learn to communicate well in writing to avoid misinterpretations that might be more easily avoided in a face-to-face conversation. When virtual teams cross national boundaries, differences in language and culture require the ability to negotiate barriers to communication and collaboration.
Relationships: . . . . . . Virtual team members need to build relationships with colleagues through the use of technology, which can often seem impersonal. Distance and lack of regular personal interaction can make it difficult for trust and group cohesion to develop. When these are missing, team members can lose focus and collaboration can suffer, leading to delays, conflict, and other performance issues.
Self-Managing Teams
A self-managing team (or self-managed team) is a group of employees working together who are accountable for all or most aspects of their task. It is a group with a common purpose in which tasks and responsibilities are determined by the members.Self-managing teams share work tasks and supportive or managerial tasks.
A self-managing team has considerable discretion over how its work gets done. This means the majority of key decisions about activities are made by people with direct knowledge of, and who are most affected by, those choices. Self-managing teams are distinct from self-directed teams. Self-managing teams work toward goals that are set for them by outside leadership, whereas self-directed teams work toward a common goal that they define.
Advantages of Self-Managing Teams: . . . . . . Organizations in various fields use self-managing teams to boost productivity and motivate employees. Members of self-managing teams plan, coordinate, direct, and control their activities. For example, they set the work schedule and assign tasks. In this way they share both the managerial and technical tasks. Team members also share responsibility for their output as a whole, which can inspire pride in their accomplishments. Because they eliminate a level of management, the use of self-managing teams can better allocate resources and even lower costs.
Disadvantages of Self-Managing Teams: . . . . . . The lack of hierarchical authority means that personal relationships can overwhelm good judgment. It can also lead to conformity, which can inhibit creativity or make it difficult for team members to be critical of each other. Self-management adds a layer of responsibility that can be time-consuming and require skills that some team members may not have. Members of a self-managing team often need training to assist them in succeeding at jobs that have a broad scope of duties.
Daily stand-up meetings might be the quickest way to waste your time as a leader. As a manager, you’ve likely witnessed this first hand. Your daily stand-up meetings have become bloated and unengaging, the more time passes and the bigger your team grows. Should you be doing something different? And if so, what? The time to kill the daily stand-up meeting has come. Here’s exactly why and what we should do instead…
Why A Daily Stand-Up Meeting Doesn’t Work
Many oars, too many directions: . . . . . . . . . . . The original intention behind a daily stand-up meeting is extremely sound. Popularized by the Agile methodology of project management, daily stand-up meetings are meant to share progress and identify any blockers the team is facing. For the few teams who strictly adhere to only sharing status updates and blockers, a daily stand-up can serve them well.
However, for most of us in practice, it’s a different story. We get overly excited and cram other intentions into our daily stand-ups: We want them to be an energizing morale booster for the team, a time to reflect on what went well, an opportunity for team members who don’t regularly talk to each other to feel connected… No wonder daily stand-up meetings start to run over, with folks rambling, and people disengaging.
Try to do all three at the same time, and you end up having too many oars, rowing in too many directions. A bloated, ineffective meeting manifests.
Twenty hours down the drain per week: . . . . . . . . . . . Say you are able to miraculously, consistently hold 10 – 15 minute daily stand-up meetings with your team. But as you switch gears to dig back into your work, what you don’t realize is that it takes an average of 20/25 minutes to get back to the task at hand.
This means the time a team member needs to recoup from the daily stand-up is longer than the daily stand-up meeting itself. That’s an irreversible 25 minutes taken away from every single one of your team members every week. So if you have 10 team members, that’s 20 hours poured down the drain. Is the cost of the interruption worth it?
Lack of recorded history: . . . . . . . . . . . Someone calls in sick and cannot make the daily stand-up meeting. A remote employee can’t participate in the daily stand-up because it’s 1AM their local time when it’s 9AM for the rest of the team. How do you ensure that everyone is on the same page, especially as your team grows and becomes more spread out? With daily stand-up meetings being in-person or over Zoom, you lack a shared recorded history of the progress being made.
This particularly becomes apparent when someone new joins the team. You’d love to be able to share the week-to-week progress the team has made to give them full context on a project… But with daily stand-ups meetings, that history is scattered in a series of haphazard notes at best and doesn’t provide the new hire a complete picture.
So What To Do Instead?
There are a few options for either replacing your daily stand-up meeting and/or alternatives to holding them.
Automate status updates with a tool.
Status updates are a critical part of ensuring everyone on the team is on the same page. But they don’t need to happen during an in-person daily stand-up meeting. Instead, you can ask folks to take 30 seconds to write a few bullet points on what they worked on yesterday, what they plan to work on today, and any blockers they have. They can answer on their own. An email or Whatsapp/Slack message every day asking, “What are you working on today?”, will also work. It takes a minute to respond and it helps orient the team’s day without pulling their attention away from the work itself.
You can customize the questions to be more specifically geared toward your team (e.g., “What’s something that might be blocking you today?”) and change the frequency to be as often as you’d like. With this, you also have a complete recorded history of everyone’s progress over time.
Use a monthly all-hands or weekly staff meeting to focus on other functions.
You’ve likely realized that, although well-intended, you have too many varying purposes for your original daily stand-up meeting (e.g., you wanted to align the team around a vision and help build rapport in the team). Decide what specific functions are most important in your team to foster, and then devote other meetings, processes, or tools to fulfilling these functions. For example, here are functions you could incorporate into a monthly all-hands meeting or weekly staff meeting…
Reflection: Use a weekly staff meeting to encourage shared reflection about what could be better. For example, you could pose the question, “Knowing what we know now, what would you change about how we approached this project?”
Recognition: Take time during a monthly all-hands meeting to highlight positive progress that’s been made. You could ask, for instance, “What’s something you’ve been surprised or encouraged to see us accomplish?” or “When is a moment you’ve felt proud of working at XXX, and why?”
Connection: Carve out some time during the all-hands or staff meeting to enable people to connect with what they enjoy most about working on the team. You could ask fun non-work related questions like, “What’s the thing you bought with your own money?” or “Who’s the most famous person you’ve met?” You can also use our Social Questions Tool for this – we give you hundreds of questions just like this with our Social Questions.
Vision: Use an all-hands meeting to align folks in your team around vision and how each team member contributes to that vision. For example, you could ask your team: “If someone were to ask you what the vision of our company is, would a clear answer come to mind? How do you feel your individual work is contributing to that vision?”
The best process results from what is deliberate and thoughtful – not what is convenient and familiar. Daily stand-up meetings are an antiquated relic. It’s time to sunset them.
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