Productivity vs. value @ work
This was originally posted on LinkedIn on Jan 30, 2023
I've been doing some reading (shocker) and thinking (shocker) about how organizations operate in their various realms: as individuals, as teams, as a combination of both in "the third entity," as leaders...all the permutations.
I have some very big thoughts that I have not distilled down into concrete language yet. So far they're just pages of handwritten notes with lots of underlines, question marks, and arrows.
There's a small practice, though, that's been mentioned in a bunch of different articles and academic papers about how to grow and nurture teams without performance reviews (which I am also incredibly curious about, but don't know enough about yet to make an official case.)
The practice is that every week, or in each 1:1, a manager asks his/her/their reportees two basic questions:
What do you want to accomplish this week?
What can I do to help you make that happen?
I also propose a 3rd:How do you want to feel this week?
Instead of 1:1s becoming about reviewing past outputs, performance, or tasks, they become about helping the individual set small but achievable future goals, and about giving the manager the opportunity to help remove any barriers that might be in the way.
The addition of the 3rd question takes the conversation out of strictly productivity mode into human mode, since we are not machines.
I'm interested to know what other ways y'all have experimented with, in terms of shifting our nation's corporate culture of productivity into one of intrinsic value? I know this is a complex and multi-faceted issue, as revenue and financial stability are real concerns, especially right now. I have to believe, though, there's a way of operating that advances both pieces of the puzzle.