Tribal Know-How

Stop doing lists

This is a great activity for the end of the day and requires no preparations other than having some paper and pen or a computer handy, to create the list.

Ever found yourself thinking ‘we have to stop doing X’?

Finish the day on a high with a stop doing list. It gives everyone the opportunity to share their last thoughts on what needs to stop happening. Some team members just need a little vent and this works for them better than setting goals. The stop doing list is a way to say, we are past that, or this is really impinging on my work life, so let’s halt it.

Give everyone the opportunity share what they want to stop happening. It will give you great priorities for problem solving and sorting. It also shows you want is making your staff dissatisfied.

Want Kate Tribe to moderate your planning session? Contact Kate for a proposal.

Everyone operates differently, that impacts on how many people and how much you want to share at your planning day.

We get as much of our team as possible, off-site for a full day because we like to operate as flat an organisation as possible. If you involve as many people as possible in the feedback cycle, they’ll all be working towards the same goal. For more articles we’ve written on the feedback cycle download our booklet of articles.

From soloists to large organisations there is an inner trust circle that should be included

As a leader you have a perspective of your organisation, but so does your team – they have more interaction with your clients – involving them when you get off-site to plan will enable you to have a better overall view.  If your team isn’t your staff, there are still confidants in your organisation, that could help you with a different perspective that should include. Our perspective is that you need to include as many as possible when you have your planning session (within reason).

Driving change takes action from all members of your team. If others have emotional involvement with the direction being taken, there are benefits:

• You are accountable to others for the path you want to take
• You have others on board that will help you reach your aims
• You are leading not directing and that will empower others to help

We like flat platforms. They work for us, but understand they don’t work for everyone. That said, we don’t recall a quote from someone with a successful business saying they got there alone.

Want to have Kate Tribe moderate your planning session? Contact Tribe Research for a proposal.

There are 365 days in the year. When is it best for you to plan?

No matter what your job title is, or how big your team is, there are times you need to work in your organisation and others when you need to work on it. You need to choose the ‘work on it’ times in known down time periods – few businesses or organisations are always at a peak!

When are your down times in terms of month and day in the year?

The easiest way to establish the best time for your planning session or day is to look at your business cycle. When are you less likely to have priorities for clients, internal or external?

For Tribe Research, we started having our planning days in December. They felt like a great wrap up to the year, and a way to plan for the year ahead, but they can also be very busy times for us. Also, our CEO, Kate Tribe ended up spending the break thinking about all the ideas for the year ahead, instead of relaxing and renewing energy for the next year. However, in January we are often quieter and everyone is fresh after a break. Similarly, our mid year planning day moved from June to July.

When we looked at days of the week, we knew that Friday is best for us as that is when we are planning for the busy week ahead, which is similar to planning, so our mindset is suited to that.

The benefit of knowing when our planning days are is that we can now structure the year around them. We know that in:

• January we have a planning day
• February and March we are implementing
• April and May we are starting to assess and thinking about the next planning day
• June we are preparing for the next planning day
• July we have a planning day
• August and September we are implementing
• October and December we are starting to assess and thinking about the next planning day

The calendar of actions allows us to drive change.

What works best for your business or organisation?

Want to have Kate Tribe moderate your planning session? Contact Tribe Research for a proposal.

Photo courtesy of chatirygirl

SMART Goals miss emotions

The SMART has been known to stand for a few themes, but they follow the same tangent.

• S – specific, stretching, significant
• M – measurable, motivational, meaningful
• A – attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented
• R – realistic, relevant, results-oriented
• T – time-based, tangible, trackable

As quantitative researchers we like SMART goals, they resonate with our specific and measurable approach. As project managers we are also focused on actionable, realistic and tangible research.

With our entrepreneurial base, they miss one key thing, ‘E’ – emotions.

An alternative way to develop goals, is using the 3+/3- rule, that Kate Tribe has written about on her blog and for the Australian Businesswomen’s Network.

It is really simple:

1. What 3 things are frustrating you the most?
2. What 3 things do you most enjoy?
3. What actions can you take to minimise or remove the 3 in (1)?
4. What actions can you take to increase the 3 in (2)?

Your answers to (3) and (4) is what your goals are for the next year.

It gives team members the opportunity to say – “I’ll do that” rather than saying this is your role all the time. It also gives you an opportunity to find out what their out of “work” priorities are and you can customise their role to them better. Doing this improves their job satisfaction and therefore productivity.

You need to be realistic. It is easy to get fired up on a planning day and have people take on too much that is unrealistic and then the energy from the day won’t last. However, the 3+ / 3- Rule makes it more realistic than you probably are when you’re fired up on a planning day. It is also a great follow up activity after you’ve done SWOTs as you can use this list of ideas to develop priorities for the +3/-3 Rule.

Want to have Kate Tribe moderate your planning session? Contact Tribe Research for a proposal.

Photo courtesy of Gadl.