People before task: How to energise your team

A lot of people I’ve spoken with over the last couple of weeks have started to look forward to the end of the year. Focus has moved from the present moment to future planning. This has some benefits. However, …there’s a big risk.

It’s still 10 weeks until end of year…which is roughly a whooping 20% of the year.

Looking at these numbers and knowing the current levels of exhaustion all around, it makes sense to consider NOW how you can keep yourself and the people around you fully energised. If you don’t act now, exhaustion will only get worse and performance suffers. Overwhelmed and overworked humans don’t show up as their best selves. They don’t create the positive impact and results that we are after in the long run.

Social connection is an important energy source that makes us successful.

Connecting with other people is vital for all humans. Getting to know each other, fully understanding each other’s motivation and capabilities is key to creating change and positive impact.

We all know that online relationship building is different to meeting face-to-face. Online-meetings can be very draining. Given the sheer number of video calls we will still have to do until the end of the year (and beyond) it’s time to reflect on the following:

Do you always put people before task in every online meeting?

The longer we use ZOOM and Co, the more we just want to get tasks done. Naturally, we start to focus discussing work tasks and forget to check in properly with the people who will actually perform the tasks.

This week, in several coaching sessions, clients complained that they didn’t know all the people in a meeting, that their manager didn’t make them feel valued as a human being, they didn’t feel acknowledged, heard or were able to voice their personal concerns. One client mentioned they had noticed a change in their leadership style. Before they were very people oriented and now have become very task-oriented. It had happened slowly, and they had just noticed it -no wonder the client felt very drained!

The worst story someone shared with me was a briefing meeting for a new project: there wasn’t a clear agenda, participants didn’t introduce themselves, some had their camera turned off, there was no time to get to know each other, tasks were vaguely allocated. You can imagine that even in the offline world this project would face some tough times. I’m not sure how well this will work out in the online world.

I believe this is a good point in time to go back to some timeless wisdom and value Indigenous knowledge in new ways. Indigenous cultures around the world place a high focus on building relationships … before they start working together. Something, we seem to forget too easily in the online world.

For the next 10 weeks I encourage you to consistently check in with yourself:

How did I handle the principle of “people before tasks” today?

Did I create psychologically safe spaces where social energy can flow easily?

If you need a sounding board to explore how to do this in your specific situation, feel free to send me an email and I’ll be in touch to find a time to talk. Most likely via phone :).

Go well!

Naturally yours,

 Ingrid