How To Engage And Refocus Your Team
Recently, I met with the executive director of a research center who spoke honestly about the real challenges her organization is facing for the upcoming year.
She knows it’s something that she needs to address, and she wants to do good work for her colleagues, staff, and stakeholders.
She needs to refocus and re-energize the team, but it’s costing extra time, energy, and resources that her institution isn’t paying for.
If this sounds like your organization, rest assured knowing that taking a bit of time to set intentions and structure for your team this summer will pay off in collaboration down the line. Leadership is a blessing and a burden. As a coach, I’ve come across so many leaders who encounter the overwhelming responsibility of motivating themselves and their team, lab, institute, or department they manage. My best advice is to set intentions clearly and early on, then be consistent in following up and following through.
In conversation with Brene Brown, conflict resiloution facilitator Priya Parker shared the following advice on how to establish a creative and collaborative environment, from her book, The Art of Gathering:
Set clear purposes for gatherings.
Host gatherings with generous authority to nurture productivity.
Outside of organized gatherings, cultivate an invisible structure — your staff’s culture, motivations, and shared vision — to keep your team on track.
After a year exhausted by remote work, new beginnings matter. Don’t resort to the familiar foundation of the usual department potluck. Instead of just free food and quick catch-up conversations, the organizer should also set the tone for the gathering. What is the deeper purpose? What do you want to accomplish together? What should people be empowered to do, be, and feel from attending?
Realizing these answers now will ward off meaningless, time-consuming meetings with unfocused or disengaged team members for the next 10 months. Otherwise, you’ll be piling more work onto your plate, fielding complaints, and fighting fires throughout the academic year because you didn’t get ahead of it.
And be sure to follow up with your team consistently throughout the quarter and the year. Remind team members of the mission and vision you share. Energize them to see how their presence, participation, and talents matter to fulfilling the organization's mission and invite them to join you in the work.
So, how will you bring people together as the year begins? What concerns can we solve together as you prepare your team for the return to the office – whether virtual or in-person?
