Thriving workplace

What does your team need to thrive? Discuss your culture, management style and action plan.

Steps
8
Last edited
Mar 15, 2024
Created by
Nova

About this process

😁Do team members openly and readily disclose their opinions and knowledge? 😊How often do they discuss opposite ideas? 🤔Are team meetings effective and productive? 🥳Does the team come to decisions quickly? 🧑‍🤝‍🧑Do team members sacrifice their own interest for the good of the team and organization? Even the best teams struggle with one or more of these dimensions. The first step toward a thriving team is to reduce politics, safety concerns and confusion. Once the organization have a more functional team they can focus on results. This framework was created understanding that each organization is different, and the actions you take may not be the same as those taken by my team to achieve this. Use this framework to discuss how YOUR team will be creating the right workspace for the team.

The process in detail

8 steps
  1. 1

    Which of these dimensions are dysfunctional?

  2. 2

    Dimensions. The short description.

  3. 3

    Discuss each dimension.

  4. 4

    3 Fundamentals: Trust, Conflict, and Enjoyment

  5. 5

    Sense of belonging, Commitment & Accountability.

  6. 6

    Productivity, Sense of purpose, Learning and Stress.

  7. 7

    Growth, guidance and Results.

  8. 8

    Discuss your 90 day action plan and team norms.

Read the full text
1. Which of these dimensions are dysfunctional?

This framework was created understanding that each organization is different, and the actions you take may not be the same as those taken by my team to achieve this.

👉Start the session by discussing with the team which of these dimensions are dysfunctional. You can even run one of our surveys.

For example, if a team finds that there is not enough trust between team members or between team members and managers, most of their efforts should start there as that is the first basic dimension.

Without that one being in a more mature stage, the other ones will suffer, and they won’t have enough weight in the team’s happiness.

2. Dimensions. The short description.
1.Trust is the ability of team members to show vulnerability, share their opinions, and discuss mistakes.
2.Conflict: Involves team members engaging in debates and discussing ideas and risks without fear of stepping on someone else's toes or being overruled by the highest paid person in the room.
3.Enjoyment is when team members feel excited about going to work, are generally happy, and enjoy most of the activities they do on a weekly basis.
4.Sense of belonging is when team members create a supportive and inclusive culture that contributes to each other's growth.
5.Commitment involves team members making decisions with clarity and getting buy-in from others.
6.Accountability means that team members hold each other accountable and have open discussions when things are not productive, say ‘no’ to meetings, and recognize when things are not done properly.
7.Productivity and performance require the team to identify what needs to be done, what is important, and have the skills and resources to be productive and perform at their best.
8.Sense of purpose and value involve team members identifying how they bring value to the team and how their work affects the overall results of the organization. Coaching and support from managers are essential to enable each team member to understand their roles and responsibilities fully.
9.Stress management is the ability of team members to know how to manage their tasks, stress levels, and the techniques and norms required to balance and manage their stress levels.
10.Learning involves team members spending some of their work hours learning, improving, being creative, innovating, or doing some challenging tasks.
11.Growth and guidance require team members to rely on their managers to get guidance and support.
12.Results require team members to leave their egos, career development, and recognition secondary to the collective goals of the team to ensure they never lose sight of their objectives and the success of the business. All of the above needs to be tackled first. If the team focuses on results, they will be able to focus on the collective success, and the team's accomplishments will be measured based on getting the expected results. This requires a change in culture, leadership, and approach from the management team. 👉If your organization and team is driven by results, metrics should serve as a guiding force. Rather than focusing solely on what needs to be delivered, encourage your team to shape their strategy around achieving specific results, rather than completing a list of tasks. While plans may change, the desired results should remain constant. This can help to ensure that efforts are focused on achieving meaningful outcomes, rather than simply completing actions.
3. Discuss each dimension.

Once you have agreed on which dimensions need to be improved and what your current state is, then you can start the discussion by going through each dimension.

🔥👉Begin with discussing dimension 1 — "trust "and add sticky notes to the board, and then continue with the other dimensions.

Steps:

1.Mark this step as complete.
2.Follow the steps and answer the questions. Add one sticky note per idea or suggestion.

🦾Dimension 1, 2, 3 ,4, 5, and 6 are considered part of the fundamentals and should be explored first.

Spend more time on the next three dimensions, as they will help you improve your culture and work environment, and will also provide managers with more tools and frameworks to support their teams.

4. 3 Fundamentals: Trust, Conflict, and Enjoyment

🔥Questions:

•How can we create a space where trust exists between team members and managers, and where vulnerability is not feared?
•How can we ensure that team members understand that decisions are made in the interest of overall company growth and employee well-being?
•How can we cultivate an environment where team members feel comfortable discussing opposing ideas without fear of conflict? How can we prevent the loudest voices from dominating discussions and ensure that the opinions of the highest-paid individual in the room don't carry more weight?
•How can we align job opportunities and work environments with individuals' passions and create a sense of overall enjoyment?
•How can we hire the right talent based on their passions, and goals and the actual "job" resposibilities?
5. Sense of belonging, Commitment & Accountability.

🔥🔥Questions:

•How can we ensure a culture of belonging exists, where team members are proud to identify with the company? How can we develop a culture where team members spend time getting to know and supporting each other? How can we ensure team members look at their peers and managers with admiration and respect (and this admiration is bidirectional)?
•How can we prevent a lack of commitment and ensure that all team members are committed to supporting each other and achieving their goals as a team, rather than merely completing assigned tasks?
•How can we encourage team members to hold themselves and each other accountable for their behaviors and performance?
6. Productivity, Sense of purpose, Learning and Stress.

🔥🔥🤩Questions:

•How can we promote collaboration and flexibility without sacrificing productivity or performance? How can we establish norms and a culture that teaches employees to manage their time, prioritize, and delegate tasks effectively? How can managers support such a culture and foster high-efficiency teams?
•How can we help team members understand the value they bring to the organization and feel a sense of purpose in their work? How can managers support them in this endeavor?
•How can we ensure that each team member has enough work to feel engaged and in the flow without experiencing excessive stress? How can we help team members manage their stress levels effectively?
•How can we align job opportunities and tasks with individual growth goals? How can we ensure employees have enough time to be creative, innovative, and explore better ways to perform their work? How can we ensure team members are tackling challenging and engaging tasks that help them learn and grow?
7. Growth, guidance and Results.

🔥🔥🤩💯Questions:

•How can managers provide enough guidance and clarity to team members without micromanaging them? How can managers be more clear? How can we make processes part of their daily work?
•Finally, how can we shift the mindset to a results-oriented approach, where the team is driven by achieving specific outcomes rather than just completing tasks?

🙃 Note for organizations trying to focus on results:

If your organization and team is driven by results, metrics should serve as a guiding force. Rather than focusing solely on what needs to be delivered, encourage your team to shape their strategy around achieving specific results, rather than completing a list of tasks. While plans may change, the desired results should remain constant. This can help to ensure that efforts are focused on achieving meaningful outcomes, rather than simply completing actions.

8. Discuss your 90 day action plan and team norms.
•What needs to be done?
•What actions need to be done in the next 90 days to help you achieve those objectives?

Statement: “I will [ACTION] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].”🤩

New Board
  • ✔ Perceive and don’t tolerate problems. Inventing and implementing solutions for them — move us forward. ✔ Be loyal to the common mission and not to anyone who is not operating consistently with it. ✔ Don’t let loyalty to people stand in the way of truth and the well-being of the organization. ✔ Be extremely open and use transparency to help enforce justice. ✔ Don’t worry about looking good- worry about achieving your goals. ✔ Think like an owner and expect the people you work with to do the same.
  • Honor expertise: Be aware of your strengths and defer and trust each other when the conversation turns to their expertise. 👉 Meeting agenda: All meetings should include an agenda. If the meeting doesn’t include an agenda people can choose to do something else with their time. Is that more work? Yes! That’s the point — We only have meetings if it is truly needed. ‘No Meetings [Friday] ‘ norm is designed to give people more control of their calendars and more time to work without interruptions.
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  • Add a new Idea/Suggestion
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  • 1:1 meetings to discuss growth, passion and self-confidence.
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  • Share templates and instructions (using Nova) with the team to clearly define expectations.
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  • Task identity: Team members feel ownership (emotionally) of the work they are doing
  • Task significance: Ensure at least 15% of the work each team member does creates meaning or impact
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  • I will.. at..in...
  • Name When
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  • Move 80% of informational, feedback and approval meetings to async meetings
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  • Add another idea or suggestion
  • Define your team’s culture using tools like "team culture discussion" or "Culture & Heroes"
  • Task identity - passion: Ensure at least 30% of tasks are related to things team members are passionate about
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  • Ensure there is a percentage of tasks that are not monotonous.
  • Team building and brainstorming sessions that promote debates. For example using the 6 thinking hats or the 3 rooms.
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  • Task autonomy. Ensure team members have freedom to make choices
  • Review all the ideas (sticky notes and select a few) Describe how your organization or team will create a space where people can trust each other.
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Created byNova·Official process
Last edited Mar 15, 2024·8 steps