Getting & Keeping Everyone on the same page!
Team work is successful only when everyone is on the same page – all the time! Nothing new about this one! So what?
In our technology enabled virtual world, we have every possible solution to be in touch – real-time, all the time! But what has this done to the fine art of being on the same page?
Here is an interesting study result of a behavioral pattern analysis ran over last 14+ months.
- Over 70% of the time, people do not read the page they are ON! – blame it on browsing habit cultivated over a period of time!
- Over 85% of the time, people will have an average of 4 applications running on their system – attention span being reduced frequently – blame it on computing power of devices we use!
- Over 84% of the time, people keep open over 3 to 5 communication channels – Mobile phone (SMS, MMS, 2-3 E-mail accounts, Twitter, Face book, IM etc), Laptop (with similar sub-channels), Landline, open door, etc…. when they are in any meeting/discussion! either in a room or over a telephone bridge!! – guarantees poor attention span!
- Over 75% of the time people are part of over 4 critical projects that are not necessarily connected either in task relationship or outcome/result dependency – personal, official, family, society etc… included.! – blame it on multi-tasking, highly ambitious lifestyle? – guarantees mediocre contribution across projects!
- Over 60% of the time people have some emergency to battle – midst of a critical project cycle – own, family, friend or societal! – contributed by health, litigation, career, competition etc – blame it on work-life balance? – guarantees unpredictable attention/ availability issues between serious tasks!
So, what do we do to get and keep everyone on the same page – all the time?
One of the best practices voted by dreamer doers in the crowd as the blockbuster:
Believe in the power of three!
– Keep only three projects, communication channels and goals active at any point of time!
– Keep only three deliverables for a given period and kill all activities that do not relate to these deliverables.
– Keep status and planning review to a period of three. E.g: Weekly status should talk about previous, current and next week; Monthly should cover – last month, this month and next month, etc…
– Keep only three people accountable/working for any given deliverable.
– Keep any deliverable developed in three phases – owned by one of the member in rotation : ensures accountability to overall results, provides natural redundancy and risk protection.
– Keep only three messages in any communication/presentation/ writing – including restricting a project report & recommendation to just three items!
– Keep only three problems to solve for any given period.
– Always develop three independent, compelling solutions for every problem,,,, only three items in agenda for a meeting,,,,and so on!
This is simple and powerful. When made a habit, will be effective too…
Wise men say, every habit requires at least a continuous practice for “three” weeks to be effective!
Worth a serious try….