When I look after a team and expect high performance, to me, it is about team engagement. And team engagement is mainly about communication – real communication. I have been battling with how to achieve this level of real communication with a team that is spread across the nation, and in different time zones. It is expected that we have regular team meetings and to date this has been fortnightly or even weekly. These regular team meetings have had some housekeeping and general business. The main focus for each meeting has been to investigate a soft skill that team members are expected to use in their daily tasks. This has created some great discussion and new learning for the team leader and team members. All team members show a high level of engagement at these meetings, and as a result of these meetings.
The team is now at a new level of maturity and the learning is on-going but less programmed. The team will now only have a formal learning session once a month. Instead, to increase the level of engagement, the team will have a short daily stand-up or huddle – online. Each team member will be encouraged to dial in and call out any urgent tasks, difficult tasks, overloads, special requests, upcoming events. Tasks that need to be, will be reassigned.
The protocol is that the stand up will be short – probably 5 minutes – daily, and business only.
We will see how it goes. The question in my mind – what time of the day?
