The Power of Regular Check-Ins

 from Harvard Business Review email

Managing a hybrid team presents a paradox. On the one hand, you want to show trust in your team members. On the other, you want to remain a guiding presence in their lives. How can you do both at the same time—without micromanaging? It’s all about conducting frequent and effective check-ins. Whether you check in with your employees daily or weekly, be sure to focus the conversation around them and their needs. Start by asking them: What’s working well today? What barriers are standing in your way, and how can I help clear them? Do you need any information, data, or guidance that you’re not getting right now? Asking these simple questions at a regular frequency can help your employees feel seen, supported, and respected—and it will help keep you in the loop. Be sure to keep the conversations short, especially if you’re holding them daily. A few minutes of in-person conversation or a quick back-and-forth on Slack is more than enough. Finally, use check-ins to give honest feedback. If you need to address a specific problem with an employee’s work, raise it in an informal conversation. If you need to discuss a persistent performance problem, set up a more formal chat to unpack that, then use your regular check-ins as reference points to anchor the conversation.

Set Your Meetings Up for Success

 from HBR

There are three types of meetings: transactional (meeting to get things done); relational (meeting to strengthen connections); and adaptive (meeting to address complex or sensitive topics). Here’s how to set each one up for success. Transactional meetings. As the meeting host, it’s your responsibility to ensure everyone can participate—whether they’re in the same room or remote. Cloud-based tools like Google Docs, Miro, and FigJam are game-changers. Because multiple people can edit simultaneously, everyone sees updates in real time, and they far outweigh a whiteboard only a few can see. Relational meetings. Whether you’re convening two people or the whole organization, relational meetings should be intentionally designed. Set clear objectives at the top — for example, to learn about each other’s career goals or formative professional experiences. Structured activities can help grease the conversational wheels. Adaptive meetings. Whether your team is setting strategy, brainstorming, or talking through distressing news events, these meetings depend on psychological safety. Physical comfort is key, too; move the furniture around, loosen up, and emphasize that decision making and execution will come later.

Solicit Feedback from Your Team—Gracefully

 

from HBV

As a manager, it’s not enough to give feedback to your direct reports. It’s also part of your job to solicit feedback from them. Still, it can be awkward to ask your employees to evaluate you. Here’s how to do it gracefully. Start by telling your direct report that you’re not only open to feedback, but that you want it. Explain to them that by giving you feedback, they’ll be helping you meet your goal of improving as a leader. Next, diffuse any fear of retaliation by demonstrating humility and honesty. Try saying something like, “I know that it can feel uncomfortable to give feedback to your boss. I have the same hesitation when my boss asks me for feedback. Let me reassure you that I see your willingness to give me helpful feedback—even if it’s negative—as one of your professional assets.” Demonstrate self-awareness by giving yourself constructive feedback first, which can mitigate their fear of offending you or hurting your feelings. For example, you might say, “Others have shared with me that I can be slow and methodical in my work, often prioritizing accuracy over action.” Finally, tell your direct report what you plan to do with the feedback they give you. Laying out a plan of action will help them trust that you want to implement their input.

Nail this question: tell me about a time you failed

 Nail This Difficult (and Common) Interview Question

“Tell me about a time you failed” is an interview question job seekers dread. How can you be prepared to ace it? Here are some tips.

Focus on learning. What the interviewer ultimately wants (and they may even state this explicitly) is not so much your story of failure but what you learned from it and how you turned that insight into a productive approach.

Choose a miscalculation, not a mistake. Don’t draw attention to your character. When did something external not go as planned? When was a strategy ineffective? When did an approach miss the target?

Look for a we, not a me. A team failing as a group might seem more relatable (and excusable) than an individual failing because there was consensus behind the decision making.

Describe a low-consequence event, and keep it brief. Make sure the stakes of your story are relatively low, not catastrophic, and that you don’t linger on unnecessary details.

Be thoughtful about the words you use—and don’t defend yourself. Use words like learned, gleaned, grew, and overcame. Avoid defensive or regretful language.

Overcome January Doldrums

 For many of us, January and February are often the least-productive and dreariest months of the year. How can you help your team beat the new year doldrums? First, embrace experimentation. Where can you introduce new routines, tools, and habits into your team’s culture? Maybe you replace hour-long meetings with 15-minute, agile-inspired check-ins, or designate a “no-Slack” day of the week. Whatever your team’s experiment is, be sure to commit to it for at least a few weeks. Next, recognize your employees by expressing appreciation or gratitude. You might frame such gestures as a “thank you in advance” for work to come in the new year. Since the holiday season has just passed, your employees probably aren’t expecting this kind of gesture—which is exactly why it could provide the jolt they need right now. Finally, reconnect your team with what matters most, whether that’s your customers, clients, products, or users. Ask your employees to identify how their work will drive the team’s overall mission in the coming year. Taking a moment to reflect as the calendar turns will help your team ground itself in its purpose and meaning.