Why this matters
Every team needs a kickstarter, but what’s just as important is to do relaunches (this playbook works for both) when you need them, or even better before you need them. A team relaunch is a long, focused moment taken to look intensely at where your team is at. Everything is on the table - purpose, vision, feelings, behaviours and ways of working.
Every team that wants to put learning right at the heart of team culture needs to keep doing health checks on where they are at and what they need from each other. Take this time to lean back into the team dynamic and make sure you are still greater than the sum of your parts.
How to run it
- 1
Ask the team to come to the session with one x ‘What they are happiest about right now’ and one x ‘What they are maddest about right now’, ready to share
- 2
Set the scene for a psychologically safe session, actively say that everything is on the table and this is too important for people to hold back
- 3
Role model vulnerability, start the Happiest/Maddest session and you go first as team leader. Be clear and honest. Then ask everyone in turn to share theirs, make sure everyone listens.
- 4
After each person speaks, make sure there is space to celebrate and to offer help to each person.
- 5
Purpose and Meaning - circle back to your original Purpose (if you never set one, now is the time!). Ask everyone to answer, “What is the big WHY of your team?” and “Who does your team create value for now and in the future?”
- 6
Do the answers to these questions still match your Team Purpose? If yes, great - reconnect with that purpose through the chat! If no - re shape your Team Purpose, it doesn’t have to be static!
- 7
Ways of working - time to check in on if collaboration is working. Walk through your baseline ways of working.
- 8
Ask two questions, “Do these best serve our ability to create value together?” and, “Do these best serve our lifestyles and needs inside and out of work?”
- 9
Agree team actions together to keep or change any parts that don’t serve those two goals.
- 10
Spend time to slice and dice what your work consists of, in particular a clear look at what tasks need “together time” versus “focused individual time”. This will help you see if all meetings are needed or tasks can be part of some other collaborative way of working and start to cut and reshape them to suit you best.
- 11
Reaffirm permissions - take 10-15 minutes of your relaunch time to write down your rules around permission to fail, openness to learn together, to be our real selves, to be human, to always speak up on having FUN.
What next
Keep an eye on improvement variation for 3 months then return if you have not achieved the desired result.