Dear leaders, the title of this week’s newsletter is simple.
How do we work together to be successful?
It is something that is rarely discussed and I believe is often the one missing part of conversations between colleagues and mostly between managers and their direct reports.
In almost every working relationship I have had, there are a few questions I ask that enable you to build trust and understand each other quickly.
Three of my favourite questions I ask are:
- How do you like to communicate?
- What’s the best way for you to receive updates and how often?
- Are you about the macro or the micro?
These three questions will open up their working styles and help you to understand how you should communicate with them.
Don’t be surprised if some people like the ‘micro’ and micromanagement, it is the one area we all think we hate, however, many know this is how they are going to be successful in their job.
Following these questions, it is important to say how you like to work and how you will or should provide updates.
Common ground is essential, especially the more senior you become and work seems more politically charged.
Hybrid Complexities: In a hybrid work world, we are going to see face-to-face become a real challenge unless you have set days, however, it is important that face-to-face can be replaced with video or audio calls (and likely should be if calendar conflicts). Slack or teams channels are noise that should be cut down and you leverage decision documents and more asynchronous work styles.
Scale? An important note, communication styles and updates don’t scale very well if you have a direct reporting line of over 20 as it becomes a juggle versus being effective and making sure the comms lands as best as possible.
Shared To Win: This is where department principles will work great for you as a department lead.
Over the next week and if you are in a place where you are hiring and backfilling roles, ask these three questions and build out a better, more effective working style.
Thanks and have a great week.
Danny Denhard
Three Articles To Be Inspired By:
Should businesses remove chat apps like teams and slack?
Can you be inspired by Spotify’s fully remote working style?