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The Importance of Quarterly Meetings for MSP and SMB Leadership Teams

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The Importance of Quarterly Meetings for MSP and SMB Leadership Teams

MSPs and SMBs face a lot of challenges. They have to compete with larger companies, attract and retain top talent(this one is hard), and stay up-to-date on the latest trends in their industry. One way that they can overcome these challenges is by holding regular quarterly meetings for their leadership team.

Quarterly meetings provide a forum for the leadership team to come together and discuss the company's overall goals, progress, and challenges. They also allow the team to make plans for the coming quarter and to address any issues that may be preventing the company from achieving its goals.

Here are some of the specific benefits of quarterly meetings for SMB leadership teams:

Improved communication and alignment: Quarterly meetings can help to improve communication and alignment within the leadership team. By regularly discussing the company's goals and progress, the team can stay on the same page and make sure that everyone is working towards the same objectives.
Increased decision-making speed: Quarterly meetings can help to increase the speed of decision-making. By bringing together the key decision-makers in one place, the team can quickly and efficiently make decisions that are in the best interests of the company.
Enhanced problem-solving: Quarterly meetings can help to enhance problem-solving. By discussing challenges and brainstorming solutions, the team can come up with creative and effective ways to overcome obstacles.
Fostered teamwork and collaboration: Quarterly meetings can help to foster teamwork and collaboration within the leadership team. By working together to achieve common goals, the team can build stronger relationships and create a more cohesive work environment.
Increased accountability: Quarterly meetings can help to increase accountability. By setting clear goals and expectations, the team can hold each other accountable for their performance.

If you are a leader of an MSP, I encourage you to consider holding quarterly meetings for your leadership team. They were integral to our success at BrightGauge and Compuquip.

Here are some tips for running effective quarterly meetings:

Set clear goals and objectives: Before the meeting, take some time to think about what you want to achieve. What are the most important topics that need to be discussed? What decisions need to be made?
Create an agenda: Once you know your goals, create an agenda for the meeting. This will help to keep the discussion on track and ensure that all of the important topics are covered.
Distribute the agenda in advance: Distribute the agenda to the participants in advance so that they can come prepared to discuss the topics.
Start and end on time: It is important to start and end the meeting on time. The only thing worse than not holding a quarterly meeting is hosting one that runs longer than it should
Encourage participation: Encourage everyone to participate in the discussion. This will help to ensure that everyone's ideas are heard and considered. Ask everyone to have at least one issue
Take action items: At the end of the meeting, make sure to take action items. This will help to ensure that the decisions that were made are implemented. This is the life pulse of a business.

By following these tips, you can run effective quarterly meetings that will help your leadership team to achieve its goals.

","rss_summary":"

The Importance of Quarterly Meetings for MSP and SMB Leadership Teams

\n","rss_body":"

The Importance of Quarterly Meetings for MSP and SMB Leadership Teams

Here are some of the specific benefits of quarterly meetings for SMB leadership teams:

Improved communication and alignment: Quarterly meetings can help to improve communication and alignment within the leadership team. By regularly discussing the company's goals and progress, the team can stay on the same page and make sure that everyone is working towards the same objectives.
Increased decision-making speed: Quarterly meetings can help to increase the speed of decision-making. By bringing together the key decision-makers in one place, the team can quickly and efficiently make decisions that are in the best interests of the company.
Enhanced problem-solving: Quarterly meetings can help to enhance problem-solving. By discussing challenges and brainstorming solutions, the team can come up with creative and effective ways to overcome obstacles.
Fostered teamwork and collaboration: Quarterly meetings can help to foster teamwork and collaboration within the leadership team. By working together to achieve common goals, the team can build stronger relationships and create a more cohesive work environment.
Increased accountability: Quarterly meetings can help to increase accountability. By setting clear goals and expectations, the team can hold each other accountable for their performance.

If you are a leader of an MSP, I encourage you to consider holding quarterly meetings for your leadership team. They were integral to our success at BrightGauge and Compuquip.

Here are some tips for running effective quarterly meetings:

Set clear goals and objectives: Before the meeting, take some time to think about what you want to achieve. What are the most important topics that need to be discussed? What decisions need to be made?
Create an agenda: Once you know your goals, create an agenda for the meeting. This will help to keep the discussion on track and ensure that all of the important topics are covered.
Distribute the agenda in advance: Distribute the agenda to the participants in advance so that they can come prepared to discuss the topics.
Start and end on time: It is important to start and end the meeting on time. The only thing worse than not holding a quarterly meeting is hosting one that runs longer than it should
Encourage participation: Encourage everyone to participate in the discussion. This will help to ensure that everyone's ideas are heard and considered. Ask everyone to have at least one issue
Take action items: At the end of the meeting, make sure to take action items. This will help to ensure that the decisions that were made are implemented. This is the life pulse of a business.

By following these tips, you can run effective quarterly meetings that will help your leadership team to achieve its goals.

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Meetings

Quarterly Meetings are Critical

The Importance of Quarterly Meetings for MSP and SMB Leadership Teams MSPs and SMBs face a lot of challenges. They have to compete with larger ...

Written By: Larry Garcia

September 1, 2023

{"html_title":"Authentic Leadership: Fostering a Positive Work Culture","use_featured_image":true,"tag_ids":[23667170488],"topic_ids":[23667170488],"enable_google_amp_output_override":false,"generate_json_ld_enabled":true,"post_body":"

As a manager, it's important to remember that you are not just a leader of a team, but a leader of individuals. Each person on your team has their own unique personality, strengths, and weaknesses, and it's your job as a manager to not only recognize but also utilize these qualities to drive the success of your business.

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Authentic leadership is a management style that emphasizes being true to one's self and leading in a way that reflects their individual values and beliefs. This type of leadership is not just about being yourself, but also about creating an environment where your team feels comfortable being themselves and bringing their own unique qualities to the table.

One of the biggest benefits of having an authentic leadership style is that it fosters a positive work culture. When team members feel like they can be their true selves, they are more likely to be engaged and invested in their work. This leads to higher levels of creativity and productivity, as well as a more cohesive team dynamic.

Authentic leadership also helps to build trust between you and your team. When you lead by example and show your team that you are willing to be transparent and open about your own beliefs and values, they are more likely to trust you and feel comfortable sharing their own thoughts and opinions. This, in turn, can lead to more effective collaboration and problem-solving.

Another benefit of having an authentic leadership style is that it can help you to better understand your team and their needs. When you get to know your team members on a personal level and understand what drives them, you are better equipped to make decisions that will support their growth and development. This, in turn, can help to retain top talent and ensure that your team continues to perform at a high level.

In conclusion, letting your personality shine through your management style is not just about being yourself, but about creating a work environment where everyone feels comfortable being themselves. By embracing an authentic leadership style, you can foster a positive work culture, build trust with your team, better understand your team's needs, and develop a strong personal brand. So go ahead, let your personality shine and lead with authenticity!

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Management Tips

Authentic Leadership: Fostering a Positive Work Culture

As a manager, it's important to remember that you are not just a leader of a team, but a leader of individuals. Each person on your team has their own ...

Written By: Brian Dosal

August 1, 2023

{"use_featured_image":true,"post_summary":"

Stepping into a brand new role as a first-time manager can feel like a daunting task 🤯. Nobody is perfect—even experienced team leaders—and as a new manager, you’ll definitely make your fair share of mistakes. Save yourself some time and trouble by uncovering some of the most common management mistakes here rather than having to learn through your own experiences!

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5 Most Common Management Mistakes of New Managers

One of the keys to avoiding management mistakes is simply being aware of some of the most common mistakes managers make 💭. Once you can identify management problems, you can start learning new skills and developing better habits in order to overcome them 💪! So without further ado, here are five of the most common leadership mistakes among new managers.

New Manager Mistake #1: Not Conducting Regular 1:1 Meetings 👫

1:1 meetings are a great way to track performance, build deeper relationships, and boost employee engagement. However, new managers often dread conducting these 1:1 meetings or avoid doing them all together. Why? When you're a leader, it's easy to get so wrapped up in your own workload or keeping track of all your employees that you forget to actually make yourself available to them. It can also be overwhelming for a single manager to schedule and follow up on 1:1 meetings with so many team members 😖.

It’s essential to avoid this management mistake if you want to be an effective leader and have a high-performing team. So, be sure to block off time for recurring 1:1 meetings with each member of your team for the same time on the same day. This creates consistency! Show up with a clear agenda, leverage data and concrete examples so you can give specific and constructive feedback, take notes, and assign action items—then actually follow up on them. These are just a few tips for running more effective 1:1 meetings 👏!

When done correctly, 1:1 meetings will empower your employees to be more informed, engaged, and comfortable speaking up to you about any concerns or obstacles they’re facing 🗣️. With these insights and information, you can actually make the changes your employees want to see and help each team member achieve their greatest potential. The result? Higher team morale, stronger manager/direct report relationships, and a sense of ownership and accountability that will lead to higher job satisfaction and boosted productivity!

New Manager Mistake #2: Micromanaging 📍

In 2018, an independent workplace survey on LinkedIn asked the question \"What is the ONE mistake leaders make more frequently than others?\" The number one response 🧐? Micromanaging. As a new manager, you likely want to prove yourself and make sure everyone on your team is meeting expectations and adhering to deadlines. However, you don’t want to make the mistake of micromanaging every little thing.

Micromanaging can derail your team's motivation and creativity, and make them feel like you don’t trust them enough to get things done on their own. So how can you strike ⚡ the right balance between keeping your teams on track and being a strong leader—without nitpicking every little thing? As a new manager, it’s important to take continuous steps to build accountability on your team!

When you hold your employees accountable for completing their tasks and having the right attitude in the workplace, trust is formed amongst coworkers. When you hold yourself accountable for doing what you say you’re going to do, it builds trust between you and your direct reports. Trust is the backbone of high-performing teams because it allows each team member to truly count on the others 🤝. When you can count on your direct reports to do what they should be doing, there’s no need to micromanage 😄!

New Manager Mistake #3: Not Gathering Employee Feedback 🗣️

It’s obvious that managers are supposed to give employee feedback—but what’s often overlooked is that getting employee feedback is just as important. As a manager, (especially a new manager who has a lot to learn!) receiving employee feedback can help you improve your leadership skills while making strides to improve the organization as a whole 👏!

The most common leadership mistake here is that many businesses rely on exit interviews to gain insight into how direct reports felt about their manager’s effectiveness. The problem with this approach 👎? You can’t apply those insights to improve an employee’s experience once they’ve already decided to leave the company.

On the flip side, if you have a way to receive regular employee feedback, you can identify issues and course correct in order to increase employee retention rates! So, ask for employee feedback during regular check-ins, team meetings, or 1:1 meetings. You may also want to consider sending out monthly or quarterly surveys so employees can voice their opinions anonymously 📝.

New Manager Mistake #4: Failing to Improve Their Leadership and Management Skills 📚

Upper management often invests in leadership development for middle and lower management —but might not invest in that same level of training for themselves. For this reason, one of the most common mistakes managers make is failing to grow as leaders. But once you land a management position, you shouldn’t stop learning 🤓!

If you want to be a good manager, it’s important to develop new skills, learn about new management techniques and methodologies, and grow personally and professionally 📖. As we just mentioned, this is often overlooked—in fact, leadership development is rated at \"below average or poor\" in over one-third of businesses. So, you may have to take the lead in reaching out for training and development yourself. Don’t be afraid to do this! It shows passion, initiative, and a willingness to learn that can help build trust and accountability between you and your direct reports.

As a manager, you set and track goals for your employees, and one of the biggest management mistakes is not doing the same for yourself. Identify a new skill you want to learn, leadership training workshop you want to attend, or book you want to finish reading this quarter. Then, hold yourself accountable (just like you would your employees) for doing so 🙌!

New Manager Mistake #5: Failure to Delegate ✍️

One of the most common weaknesses of a manager is the tendency to take on too much and not delegate 😕. This is especially true for new managers. After all, you were probably just another member of the team until recently, so taking care of all your own job tasks may still feel like second nature.

However, failing to delegate is often listed as the number one reason managers fail. It can cause huge problems as work bottlenecks around them, leading to higher stress and faster burn out. It’s important to keep in mind that being a leader doesn’t mean being able to do everything yourself! Unless you delegate tasks, you're never going to have time to focus on the \"big picture\"📸 that you’re responsible for.

Plus, you’re doing your team members a disservice by not allowing them to develop and learn how to hold themselves accountable. Leaders should be focused on helping their team members grow by giving them responsibilities and surrounding themselves with capable people who can do what is necessary to achieve the team’s goals 😍.

Avoid These Common Management Mistakes with the Right Tools!

We get it—even if you’re aware of common management mistakes to avoid, it can be difficult to get it right as a new manager. Don’t think you have to do it all on your own 👫!

Thanks to modern technology, there are lots of digital tools and resources you can use to minimize your mistakes as a new manager and become the best leader you can be to your teams 💻! Strety is one of those tools.

It offers practical features that new managers and experienced team leaders alike can actually use throughout the week to overcome the challenges of being in charge 👔. With Strety on your side, you'll be able to:

Conduct more effective team, leadership, and 1:1 meetings
Set and track employee, team, and company goals
Send and store team announcements for improved communication and team building
Ask recurring questions and set automated reminders to improve project management
And much more!

Are you ready to gain access to the tools you need to overcome the most common management mistakes of new managers? Contact us today 📞. We’re here to be your go-to tool and support system throughout all your management mistakes and successes!

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5 Most Common Management Mistakes of New Managers

New Manager Mistake #1: Not Conducting Regular 1:1 Meetings 👫

New Manager Mistake #2: Micromanaging 📍

New Manager Mistake #3: Not Gathering Employee Feedback 🗣️

New Manager Mistake #4: Failing to Improve Their Leadership and Management Skills 📚

New Manager Mistake #5: Failure to Delegate ✍️

Avoid These Common Management Mistakes with the Right Tools!

We get it—even if you’re aware of common management mistakes to avoid, it can be difficult to get it right as a new manager. Don’t think you have to do it all on your own 👫!

Conduct more effective team, leadership, and 1:1 meetings
Set and track employee, team, and company goals
Send and store team announcements for improved communication and team building
Ask recurring questions and set automated reminders to improve project management
And much more!

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Management Tips

What Are the Most Common Management Mistakes of New Managers?

Stepping into a brand new role as a first-time manager can feel like a daunting task 🤯. Nobody is perfect—even experienced team leaders—and as a new ...

Written By: Larry Garcia

December 12, 2022

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.27%. That’s the percentage that 1 day of a year signifies.

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.27%. That’s the percentage that 1 day of a year signifies.

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When thinking through things you do for your direct reports for their birthday, nothing is probably as valuable as giving them time. This is the one day where their world is a 100% more focused on them. Have them enjoy it.

At BrightGauge we gave people a half day off on their birthdays. I’d receive great feedback during Annual Reviews about how that little tiny perk was.

In some cases, people made plans with their significant others for a long lunch. In other cases, it gave them a head start for a weekend getaway, tackling that book they had been sitting in their night stand for most of the year. One person even treated themselves to four hours of prime beach time mid week with an empty South Beach. One that always stayed with me was a direct report who said it gave them an opportunity to visit a relative who couldn’t spend time with them later in the day.

In this world where we are all time starved, go to bat for your team and propose that next year you help people celebrate their birthdays with a small gesture from the company. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that when we needed our people to come to bat for the company, they were always willing and ready.

","rss_summary":"

.27%. That’s the percentage that 1 day of a year signifies.

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.27%. That’s the percentage that 1 day of a year signifies.

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At BrightGauge we gave people a half day off on their birthdays. I’d receive great feedback during Annual Reviews about how that little tiny perk was.

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Best ROI for a half day’s salary

.27%. That’s the percentage that 1 day of a year signifies. When thinking through things you do for your direct reports for their birthday, nothing is ...

Written By: Larry Garcia

January 28, 2021

{"use_featured_image":true,"post_summary":"

In this new age of information overload, passive job searching has been made so easy that it’s only a matter of time before it reaches parity with today’s dating apps. \"Job looks decent enough, sure, swipe right. Oh, I matched! Gotta go text my boss and let them know today is my last day.”

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To put that into context versus the past, job searching involved high effort exercises like actually preparing for and attending job fairs or searching through help wanted ads in newspapers. This provided so much friction, it made job searching a herculean effort. That’s all changed. I don’t know where to start getting milk delivered from the dairy directly nowadays. So face the facts. Most of your employees have visited a job search website in the past 24 hours. Probably from the company internet. Probably nothing serious, but it’s so easy, why wouldn’t they?

This brings me to the point of this post. You need to be transparent about job searching. You should be acting as a steward of your employee’s career and not just a passive participant. Embrace it. Encourage it.

This leads me to one of the favorite types of 1:1 meetings I would have when I was managing the sales team at BrightGauge. I’d ask the participants to bring me the job that they wanted to work towards from outside the company. I essentially asked them to job search. We would review what they brought back and have an honest discussion of how likely they would qualify for the job, try to find the compensation numbers, see if there were any cons... basically job search as a team for them. From there we would map out the skills they needed, what they had to work on, and where they truly stood now based on how they were compensated currently. This provided a great forum for open and honest communication about everything from job roles to compensation, without keeping either party guessing about .

I can honestly say that everyone who participated in this process has said it’s one of the best meetings the company would run. Think it through. Try it out with someone you’ve been meaning to get more clarity from. You might surprise them, and yourself.

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","tag_ids":[],"topic_ids":[],"enable_google_amp_output_override":false,"generate_json_ld_enabled":true,"blog_post_schedule_task_uid":null,"blog_publish_to_social_media_task":"DONE","blog_publish_instant_email_task_uid":"5256430-38700227669-1607979715684","blog_publish_instant_email_campaign_id":null,"blog_publish_instant_email_retry_count":null,"keywords":[],"public_access_rules_enabled":false,"public_access_rules":[],"html_title":"Tinder for Jobs: How to have a great discussion about job happiness with direct reports","composition_id":0,"published_at":1607965622929,"enable_layout_stylesheets":null,"tweet":null,"tweet_at":null,"campaign_name":null,"campaign_utm":null,"meta_keywords":null,"meta_description":"Step by step directions to help you run a career discussion","tweet_immediately":false,"publish_immediately":true,"security_state":"NONE","placement_guids":[],"property_for_dynamic_page_title":null,"property_for_dynamic_page_slug":null,"property_for_dynamic_page_meta_description":null,"property_for_dynamic_page_featured_image":null,"property_for_dynamic_page_canonical_url":null,"preview_image_src":null,"legacy_blog_tabid":null,"legacy_post_guid":null,"performable_variation_letter":null,"style_override_id":null,"has_user_changes":true,"css":{},"css_text":"","unpublished_at":0,"published_by_id":10609172,"allowed_slug_conflict":false,"ai_features":{"empty":true,"present":false},"link_rel_canonical_url":null,"page_redirected":false,"page_expiry_enabled":null,"page_expiry_date":null,"page_expiry_redirect_id":null,"page_expiry_redirect_url":null,"deleted_by":null,"state_when_deleted":null,"cloned_from":null,"staged_from":null,"personas":[],"compose_body":null,"featured_image":"https://f.hubspotusercontent30.net/hubfs/5256430/Blog%20Images/16b.png","featured_image_alt_text":"","featured_image_width":0,"featured_image_height":0,"publish_timezone_offset":null,"theme_settings_values":null,"layout_sections":{},"head_html":null,"footer_html":null,"attached_stylesheets":[],"enable_domain_stylesheets":null,"include_default_custom_css":null,"past_mab_experiment_ids":[],"password":null,"header":null,"last_edit_session_id":null,"last_edit_update_id":null}

Tinder for Jobs: How to have a great discussion about job happiness with direct reports

In this new age of information overload, passive job searching has been made so easy that it’s only a matter of time before it reaches parity with ...

Written By: Larry Garcia

December 14, 2020

{"html_title":"How to Manage Client Relationships for Long-Term Mutual Success","use_featured_image":true,"tag_ids":[23667170488],"topic_ids":[23667170488],"enable_google_amp_output_override":false,"generate_json_ld_enabled":true,"post_body":"

This may sound obvious but not everyone really gets it….

\n\n

Developing and maintaining client relationships is essential to growing and retaining your customer base.

Yes, you’re in the Managed Services/IT business and keeping their technology humming is priority #1... but you’re also very much in the business of customer service, and the foundation of any successful customer service effort is an honest understanding and genuine interest in the customer’s business and their success.

Are you genuinely interested in your customer’s success???

When was the last time you talked to your customer about their business and not just their tech? Some MSPs rely on QBRs or renewals to prompt these conversations, but you need to establish a more continuous conversation around this topic. Leverage every interaction with your client as an opportunity to build and strengthen your relationship, from the first touch with sales, to their implementation, and at every onsite visit to ask a simple question: How’s business treating you?

Priorities can change in an instant, and they’re often different from stakeholder to stakeholder, so unless you’re regularly asking what people are focused on, you’ll always be reacting to needs rather than getting out in front of them.

A quick conversation onsite can uncover an upcoming project or a knot of new hires that could have been hurled into the service desk, unannounced, with high priority leaving your team in react/panic-mode.

Once you’ve embraced the importance of the customer service mindset, it’ll set off a chain reaction of positive outcomes for your business.

A customer service mindset requires you to identify how you can add real value for the customer. Adding real value builds trust with the client. Once a degree of trust has been established, the client is more likely to see you as a strategic partner - not outsourced IT. At that point, clients become advocates, and in an industry where new business is still very much reliant on word-of-mouth, that trust you’ve built from operating with a customer service mindset will have a direct impact on your business’s growth.

Relationship building is more of an art than a science, and it all starts with how you communicate and educate your clients on working with you. There’s no one way to turn clients into advocates, but there are some best practices you can follow to ensure your doing your part:

Develop Relationships Early

Immerse yourself! Get to know the client inside and out. Dedicate time to know their culture and what they feel makes them unique. If you’re not sure how to bring the latter out, take time to share things about yourself and your team to open the communication beyond the confines of their tech and your offerings.

You can also stay current by following them and their industry leaders on social media & subscribing to their blogs. Give yourself every opportunity to understand what internal and external forces are influencing their business. Not only will this show the client you care about their success, but it will help you to cater your offerings around their needs.

Nail the Sales/Implementation Handoff

Client onboarding is the most critical phase of relationship building. To really nail onboarding, you must have an internal process in place that identifies the following:

What does the client really want? What is their Job to be Done?
Who are the decision makers, implementers, and key stakeholders?

Your implementation team needs this information before they begin working with the client so make sure your sales team (over)shares this information with the onboarding specialists.

And if you really want to execute, introduce the implementation team during the sales process. This will make for a smooth & effective transition for all parties.

Set Clear Expectations

Set clear expectations from the onset and not only will you be in a better position to serve your client, you'll also teach them how to work best with you.

Schedule out when and detail why you’ll be connecting with them during onboarding. Set timelines for how and when they’re going to get started with new products. Detail how to access and use company & product info. Be clear with how & who they should communicate with so when they need something, they’re not being passed around and feeling like your team is disorganized.

Establishing expectations early will go a long way in reducing any sort of miscommunication that could derail the relationship-building process during this critical period.

Establish Multiple Communication Channels

It’s important to keep lines of communication open as well as providing multiple options for the client, as preferred methods of communication may differ from company to company and even person to person.

Make sure your clients know all the ways they can reach you. Combine email, phone, communication software (MS Teams & Slack), support tickets, etc to make it as easy as possible for them while making it effective and efficient for you.

Be Proactive, Stay Proactive

Inform clients of occurrences of tech problems. Get out in front, control the message, and assure them that you’re doing everything you can to resolve the issue in a timely manner. Customers will appreciate the transparency, and it will help continue building trust.

Looking at the bigger picture, your customers decide to work with you because of your knowledge and expertise. This goes beyond providing IT/MS support. If there are emerging strategies, technologies, or tactics that would benefit your customers, it’s your responsibility to be aware of them and advise them on how they should be leveraged. If a client starts to bring these types of ideas to you, they will lose faith in your expertise and your relationship will take a hit.

Respond Promptly

Replying quickly shows respect. If a client reaches out, acknowledge it as quickly as possible, even if you can’t yet resolve their issue. Let them you’re looking into their inquiry and, if possible, give a timeline.

Use Every Interaction to Deliver Value

It’s your job to help them achieve their desired outcomes with your offerings. Speak to and think of their needs, not yours with every interaction. You want your client to see you as an extension of their team, not a vendor.

Use your tools to see where there’s room to expand then make a clear case why it will help their business. You can do this in lighter ways too, by sharing relevant resources such as blog posts or insights that could help them resolve problems and improve their processes.

To summarize, manage your client relationships like you run your own teams. Have regular conversations through onsites, emails, phone calls, and QBRs. Help educate your clients on how you intend to work together. In return you’ll have clearer, more effective communication and, most importantly, the foundation for a mutually beneficial relationship that will serve you both for years to come.

","post_summary":"

This may sound obvious but not everyone really gets it….

\n","blog_post_schedule_task_uid":null,"blog_publish_to_social_media_task":"DONE","blog_publish_instant_email_task_uid":"DONE","blog_publish_instant_email_campaign_id":null,"blog_publish_instant_email_retry_count":null,"rss_body":"

This may sound obvious but not everyone really gets it….

\n\n

Developing and maintaining client relationships is essential to growing and retaining your customer base.

Are you genuinely interested in your customer’s success???

Once you’ve embraced the importance of the customer service mindset, it’ll set off a chain reaction of positive outcomes for your business.

Develop Relationships Early

Nail the Sales/Implementation Handoff

Client onboarding is the most critical phase of relationship building. To really nail onboarding, you must have an internal process in place that identifies the following:

What does the client really want? What is their Job to be Done?
Who are the decision makers, implementers, and key stakeholders?

Your implementation team needs this information before they begin working with the client so make sure your sales team (over)shares this information with the onboarding specialists.

And if you really want to execute, introduce the implementation team during the sales process. This will make for a smooth & effective transition for all parties.

Set Clear Expectations

Set clear expectations from the onset and not only will you be in a better position to serve your client, you'll also teach them how to work best with you.

Establishing expectations early will go a long way in reducing any sort of miscommunication that could derail the relationship-building process during this critical period.

Establish Multiple Communication Channels

Be Proactive, Stay Proactive

Respond Promptly

Use Every Interaction to Deliver Value

","rss_summary":"

This may sound obvious but not everyone really gets it….

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Management Tips

How to Manage Client Relationships for Long-Term Mutual Success

This may sound obvious but not everyone really gets it…. Developing and maintaining client relationships is essential to growing and retaining your ...

Written By: Derek Weaver

September 23, 2020

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What does a productive manager look like?

Every company (heck, every team) has a slightly different answer to that question. Some measure a manager's productivity by their team's ability to meet deadlines, while others are focused on revenue from the projects a manager's team is working on.

True productivity for any manager requires a mix of the right systems, the right goals, and the right schedule.

\n\n

A Manager is Not an Individual Contributor

Transitioning to full-time management is tricky. Getting promoted to a managerial position often means you're in a brand new role, one that requires a skillset your prior role didn't necessarily prepare you to take on. All of a sudden, your entire job is to help someone else achieve their goals.

Contrary to popular belief, a manager's job is not figuring out how to do the work for their team. A manager's responsibilities are to connect with individual contributors on their team, direct those teammates by telling them where the organization is going and why, clear any obstacles in their way, and give feedback to help them improve. Taken together, the goal is to get better outcomes from a group of individuals working together by enabling individuals to figure out the right how for them and their unique set of skills and abilities.

If you've spent your entire career figuring out the \"how,\" giving that up to focus on team alignment can feel uncomfortable. The first step to improving productivity as a new manager is to recognize that discomfort, understand where it's coming from, and remember that your job is to help others achieve goals — not achieve them yourself.

If you're feeling unproductive, take a critical look at your workload and discuss it with your boss. Is your day spent on tasks that distract from your core role of people management? In a perfect world, managers would spend the vast majority of their time coaching, directing, mentoring, and giving feedback. While it's sometimes necessary to take on non-coaching tasks to help out your team, doing too many projects yourself will split your focus and therefore reduce your productivity. No productivity \"hack\" will solve a focus issue — those are helpful, but only after your focus is appropriately balanced.

Measure the Team's Entire Output

Coaching is a wholly different skillset and requires a different set of goals. Your work isn't about you, it's about the people you're supporting. Your success is measured by the entire team, not by one person's performance.

According to Andy Grove in High Output Management, a coach's output is equal to the output of their team and the output of neighboring organizations under their influence. Success looks like effective delegation, streamlined processes, and influencing direction with your unique knowledge. If decisions are delayed, projects are meddled with, or your team constantly feels frustrated, then there's room for improvement as a manager.

Remember: your highest impact work is helping others meet their goals. If everything's going smoothly on your team, that means you're doing your job well. That's your goal: a happy, well-functioning team. The metrics that measure your performance as a manager should directly relate to how well your team is functioning.

Once your focus is established and your goals are appropriate for your role, you're ready to tinker with systems and schedules to improve your productivity.

Build the Right Management Systems

Systems and processes are crucial for efficient management. Without automated systems for tracking your team, you will miss things. Sometimes, you'll miss important things. Automating aspects of people management like stand-ups/check ins and requests for feedback will help you catch small issues before they turn into big problems. A tool like Strety makes that process easy.

Your system for performance management should incorporate:

Collaborative meeting agendas to which your team contributes asynchronously
Customized goals with measurable success
Automatic check ins to understand how goals are progressing, what obstacles your team is facing, and how you can help
Feedback allowing you to praise in public and coach in private.

Strety users: Contact our success team for customized help using our employee engagement tools to build a system that works for you.

Schedule Your Day to Reduce Switching Costs

Do you ever feel like you need to take a walk (or maybe a nap) after a meeting before you start another task? Switching between two different tasks is difficult—especially when those tasks don't relate to each other. If you try to work on something completely different after finishing a project without taking a break, your brain will resist.

Managers who are responsible for individual contributor projects in addition to their coaching responsibilities will face switching costs all the time. People management requires a different headspace than heads-down work, and it's nearly impossible to multitask. Switching from one call to another is relatively easy, but trying to jump into a ticket escalation right after a call can feel like an uphill battle.

Pushing through switching costs might sound noble, but it isn't efficient. Instead, create a schedule that allows you to focus on one element of your job during a predetermined chunk of time.

Some ideas to try:

Block off \"meeting-free\" times in your calendar to focus on your heads-down work. If you're most productive in the mornings, ask your team not to schedule meetings or interrupt you with a non-urgent issue before 11am. Time blocking can be especially helpful if you're working remotely and a colleague can't physically see that you're in the middle of something.
Schedule all your meetings on certain days. A former colleague used to leave Mondays and Fridays completely open (no calls or meetings allowed) and met with his team Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The middle of his week was almost completely spent on Zoom, but he had two focused days a week to work on other things.
Create themes for your days. If you're working on a few big projects, make Project A your focus on Monday, Project B your focus on Wednesday, and Project C your focus on Friday. Tuesday and Thursday can be \"catchall\" days to work on whatever's needed.

Over to You

If you're ready to up your leadership game with a continuous performance management system, contact Strety for a demo of our tool. We'll make it easy!

","post_summary":"

What does a productive manager look like?

True productivity for any manager requires a mix of the right systems, the right goals, and the right schedule.

What does a productive manager look like?

True productivity for any manager requires a mix of the right systems, the right goals, and the right schedule.

\n\n

A Manager is Not an Individual Contributor

Measure the Team's Entire Output

Once your focus is established and your goals are appropriate for your role, you're ready to tinker with systems and schedules to improve your productivity.

Build the Right Management Systems

Your system for performance management should incorporate:

Collaborative meeting agendas to which your team contributes asynchronously
Customized goals with measurable success
Automatic check ins to understand how goals are progressing, what obstacles your team is facing, and how you can help
Feedback allowing you to praise in public and coach in private.

Strety users: Contact our success team for customized help using our employee engagement tools to build a system that works for you.

Schedule Your Day to Reduce Switching Costs

Pushing through switching costs might sound noble, but it isn't efficient. Instead, create a schedule that allows you to focus on one element of your job during a predetermined chunk of time.

Some ideas to try:

Block off \"meeting-free\" times in your calendar to focus on your heads-down work. If you're most productive in the mornings, ask your team not to schedule meetings or interrupt you with a non-urgent issue before 11am. Time blocking can be especially helpful if you're working remotely and a colleague can't physically see that you're in the middle of something.
Schedule all your meetings on certain days. A former colleague used to leave Mondays and Fridays completely open (no calls or meetings allowed) and met with his team Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The middle of his week was almost completely spent on Zoom, but he had two focused days a week to work on other things.
Create themes for your days. If you're working on a few big projects, make Project A your focus on Monday, Project B your focus on Wednesday, and Project C your focus on Friday. Tuesday and Thursday can be \"catchall\" days to work on whatever's needed.

Over to You

If you're ready to up your leadership game with a continuous performance management system, contact Strety for a demo of our tool. We'll make it easy!

","rss_summary":"

What does a productive manager look like?

True productivity for any manager requires a mix of the right systems, the right goals, and the right schedule.

\n","keywords":[],"composition_id":0,"public_access_rules_enabled":false,"public_access_rules":[],"head_html":null,"footer_html":null,"attached_stylesheets":[],"enable_domain_stylesheets":null,"include_default_custom_css":null,"layout_sections":{},"past_mab_experiment_ids":[],"featured_image_alt_text":"Businessman","enable_layout_stylesheets":null,"tweet":null,"tweet_at":null,"campaign_name":null,"campaign_utm":null,"meta_keywords":null,"meta_description":"Meaningful productivity for any manager requires a mix of the right systems, the right goals, and the right schedule. Here's how to get there in 2020.","tweet_immediately":false,"publish_immediately":true,"security_state":"NONE","placement_guids":[],"property_for_dynamic_page_title":null,"property_for_dynamic_page_slug":null,"property_for_dynamic_page_meta_description":null,"property_for_dynamic_page_featured_image":null,"property_for_dynamic_page_canonical_url":null,"preview_image_src":null,"legacy_blog_tabid":null,"legacy_post_guid":null,"performable_variation_letter":null,"style_override_id":null,"has_user_changes":true,"css":{},"css_text":"","unpublished_at":0,"published_by_id":9725277,"allowed_slug_conflict":false,"ai_features":{"empty":true,"present":false},"link_rel_canonical_url":null,"page_redirected":false,"page_expiry_enabled":null,"page_expiry_date":null,"page_expiry_redirect_id":null,"page_expiry_redirect_url":null,"deleted_by":null,"state_when_deleted":null,"cloned_from":null,"staged_from":null,"personas":[],"compose_body":null,"featured_image":"https://f.hubspotusercontent30.net/hubfs/5256430/Blog%20Images/22b.png","featured_image_width":0,"featured_image_height":0,"publish_timezone_offset":null,"theme_settings_values":null,"password":null,"header":null,"published_at":1599765419237,"last_edit_session_id":null,"last_edit_update_id":null}

Management Tips

How to Become a More Productive Manager in 2020

What does a productive manager look like? Every company (heck, every team) has a slightly different answer to that question. Some measure a manager's ...

Written By: Strety

September 10, 2020

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2020 has brought on a seismic shift towards working from home (WFH) that has increasingly blurred the line between work and personal time for many of us. This presents a unique opportunity for both employers and employees to embrace the gray area and prioritize professional skill development.

A 2018 Udemy Work Research Report shows us that 58% of respondent’s current employers DO NOT provide learning, development, and training opportunities. 42% of those same young professionals say career development opportunity is the MOST important factor in deciding where to work. Linkedin’s 2018 Workplace Learning Report backs that up in a big way revealing 94% of respondents would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career. The numbers don't lie, this is important to day's workforce.

The #1 reason employees feel held back from learning is a lack of time. Looking at this from an employee’s perspective, I’d expect my employer to value me enough as an individual to show a vested interest in my professional growth. In today’s demanding, and now more distributed workplace, employees should not be expected to develop their skill-sets completely separate from their work. Learning needs to be incorporated and promoted through the workplace and within the scope of one's role & responsibilities.

If you’re not focused on developing your talent you’re increasing the risk for sharp decline in organizational performance, engagement, and retention. For employers focussed on retaining the talent they have, your options are clear: make career development an active part of your manager-direct report relationships or lose them to companies who do.

Here's what you can do to ensure you're doing your part:

How to Lead Career Development Initiatives

1. Prioritize Professional Growth in One-on-One Meetings

You have to know the individual career goals of every person on your team. Make this priority #1. Your one-on-one meetings are the perfect place to begin and carry-on this conversation thread.

It’s equally important to get real answers, not the company-line. To facilitate honest insights, be authentic and proactively handle apprehension. Let your direct report know that it’s okay if their career goals don’t align with their current role or within the current structure of your organization, the focus is them and their development.

If you’re able to solicit their honest goals and/or motivations, you’ll be in a much more informed position as a manager, allowing you greater opportunity to offer relevant learning and development opportunities. The benefit(s here and shared, extending beyond the individual and into team performance.

2. Help to Identify Relevant Learning & Education Opportunities

Opportunities for continued learning and skillset development will vary based on your industry, but it is a manager's responsibility to help an employee know what options are available. Linkedin shows 56% of employees would take a course suggested by their manager. Other examples to seek out and share:

Online courses: Udemy, Coursera, Universities
Professional Training & Certification Programs
Conferences
Networking Events
Books & Blogs
Multimedia resources: videos, webinars, podcasts

Once opportunities are shared and the ball gets rolling, it’s a manager’s responsibility to hold employees accountable for pursuing any presented opportunities.

Strety Users: Use one of our 1:1 templates or set-up your own recurring Agenda Item around Learning & Development Opportunities so you can continually discuss any ongoing or upcoming opportunities with your direct report

$\"Career$

3. Share Your Professional Expertise

We’re huge proponents of feedback, but unlike performance feedback, this is where you get to share your experiential feedback. Take what you know and use it to help your direct report towards their goals.

Perhaps you’re a CTO and your first-line tech wants to become a service manager within the next 3 years, that's awesome! Lay out the steps and skills they’ll need to accomplish that! Or maybe you’re Founder/CEO of your MSP and your report would like to start their own business one day? Give them a real look at what they can expect from the GRIND that is starting a business!

Be candid in what you share and these conversations will help build trust that will carry-over into day-to-day operations.

4. Expand Their Network

Let me be clear, managers are busy people. It can be difficult to take time away from short and mid term organizational objectives to focus on long-term individual development. While you, as a manager, need to be active in the development of your team, you don’t have to do it alone.

Leverage your established network within your field to make introductions with those in positions to offer additional mentorship. We recommend sourcing individuals from within and from outside your organization to create a more diverse and well-rounded feedback loop.

5. Promote Cross Departmental Collaboration

People don’t know what they don’t know. Encourage your team to work beside and shadow other departments within your organization. Exposure may help them unearth new skills or interests they may have never otherwise pursued.

Basecamp famously has everyone in the organization work with Support. It’s a huge part of their ethos. So much so that when it began to fail its intended purpose, rather than scrap it, they re-worked it and now it’s adding more value for their employees AND customers than ever before.

Additionally, team members will gain more appreciation for their colleague’s work and the company will benefit from a more informed and well-rounded team

Lead and Manage

The modern manager gets results - but they also lead. It’s become a prerequisite. Embrace your opportunity to help guide your team in their work and in their career. The time, effort, and energy you invest - the value you add - will make its way back to you and will make a world of different to them. Be that leader.

","post_summary":"

Here's what you can do to ensure you're doing your part:

How to Lead Career Development Initiatives

1. Prioritize Professional Growth in One-on-One Meetings

You have to know the individual career goals of every person on your team. Make this priority #1. Your one-on-one meetings are the perfect place to begin and carry-on this conversation thread.

2. Help to Identify Relevant Learning & Education Opportunities

Online courses: Udemy, Coursera, Universities
Professional Training & Certification Programs
Conferences
Networking Events
Books & Blogs
Multimedia resources: videos, webinars, podcasts

Once opportunities are shared and the ball gets rolling, it’s a manager’s responsibility to hold employees accountable for pursuing any presented opportunities.

$\"Career$

3. Share Your Professional Expertise

Be candid in what you share and these conversations will help build trust that will carry-over into day-to-day operations.

4. Expand Their Network

5. Promote Cross Departmental Collaboration

Additionally, team members will gain more appreciation for their colleague’s work and the company will benefit from a more informed and well-rounded team

Lead and Manage

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Management Tips

Managers: 5 Ways You Can Promote Career Growth and Retain Talent

2020 has brought on a seismic shift towards working from home (WFH) that has increasingly blurred the line between work and personal time for many of ...

Written By: Derek Weaver

August 26, 2020

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When you're meeting in person, you can read a teammate's body language, make eye contact, and connect more effectively. Face-to-face meetings are always better, but they're not always possible.

\n","post_body":"

When you're meeting in person, you can read a teammate's body language, make eye contact, and connect more effectively. Face-to-face meetings are always better, but they're not always possible.

\n\n

When you have a distributed team, virtual meetings are a necessity. While meeting remotely provides a connection challenge (and not just because of spotty internet), it's still possible to have a great meeting -- from anywhere.

How to Run a Virtual Meeting

In a related post, we outlined a basic distributed team meeting template with principles on how to structure a virtual meeting. Here's the agenda we recommend:

Check in personally and professionally. If you're following the Level 10 Meeting methodology, this is known as the segue.
Discuss each item on the meeting agenda. Ideally, everyone will be looking at the same list in a tool like Strety. To move through talking points more efficiently, ask all team members to review and contribute to the agenda before the meeting starts.
When decisions are made and action items are assigned, check off the talking points and add tasks for the appropriate parties while still on the call.
When you've checked off all your agenda items, ask everyone to rate how the meeting went. You're shooting for 10s all around but all feedback is worth knowing. If someone gives a low rating, that might be a cue that your meeting processes could be run more smoothly.

Strety Users: If you're using our Meetings tool and your meetings don't feel as efficient as you'd like, email our Success Team - We'd love to give you some customized advice on how to spend less time on the phone with your team and more time doing high-impact work.

So: you have the structure down. You're tracking your goals, you're documenting action items, and you're taking notes in a centralized hub. That's a great start -- but if you're used to meeting in-person, it can still feel like something's missing. Using our template for virtual meetings will help you address existing pain points, but it can be trickier to read someone's body language to understand what's *not* being said.

The best meetings preempt issues before they turn into problems. To do that virtually, you need a blend of communication best practices and the right systems for automated team management.

How to Uncover Unspoken Issues in a Virtual Meeting

Structuring a meeting is pretty straightforward -- if you're using a tool like Strety and have a set agenda, the meeting almost runs itself. (Almost.)

Understanding team dynamics and preempting issues that employees haven't yet voiced is murky in any situation. Reading people can feel like a talent you either have or don't -- and, certainly, some are more naturally talented at it than others. Luckily, it's also a skill that can be learned. To have an effective remote meeting that preempts issues before they turn into problems, add some communication best practices to your software stack:

Default to Video

We'll get this out of the way: it can be annoying to hold a video call instead of a phone chat. If you're on the go, or multitasking, or just haven't showered (we won't judge), a video call can feel disruptive or frustrating.

Much of the way we communicate is non-verbal, and picking up on those cues is crucial to connecting effectively with teammates. Without video, it's impossible to read someone's body language. Make video calls the rule and an audio-only call the exception.

Listen With Your Eyes

Have you ever gotten halfway through a video call and realized you've been watching your own face the entire time? We all do it. While it's human nature to watch your own thumbnail on Zoom, try to resist the urge. Instead, watch other faces for reactions and nonverbal cues. That's the magic of defaulting to video: you have a way to see those nonverbal cues instead of just relying on tone (which can be misleading).

Watching to see how your employees' faces change when things are discussed will help you understand where friction lies, what people are really excited about, and what could turn into a big problem down the line. If you're using Zoom, try switching to the Gallery View instead of Active Speaker View. You'll see more faces at once and will be able to \"read the room\" more quickly.

Make Time to Check In

When you're meeting in-person, there's time in the margins to chat about your weekends, talk about your lives, and generally catch up. It happens when people are milling about or walking to the conference room. While idle chatter can sometimes feel like it's delaying the important stuff, idle chatter has a crucial purpose: it warms people up to meet.

If you're meeting virtually, make time for some idle chatter. We recommend allotting 5 minutes to catch up at the beginning fo a meeting. Some teams have success sharing personal good news one at a time, and others do well just chatting for a little while before moving onto action items. Try a few formats and see what works best for your team -- but don't skip it.

Follow Up Privately -- and Immediately

If you noticed a nonverbal reaction from a team member that hinted at a potential issue, follow up after the call. Asking a team member about their body language outright during a video call can derail the conversation and potentially bring up resentment that someone might prefer not to discuss in front of everyone. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't talk about it at all -- it's just more effective to do so privately.

Message your teammate privately after the call and leave it open ended. Vague is better; \"how are you feeling about X\" will go a long way.

$\"private$

Strety Users: if you're sensing unspoken issues during your virtual team meeting, add a private check in question for teammates to answer after every meeting. It'll prompt employees to answer automatically, saving you time and giving people a space to respond to top-of-mind issues they'd rather not discuss publicly.

How to Run a Virtual Meeting

In a related post, we outlined a basic distributed team meeting template with principles on how to structure a virtual meeting. Here's the agenda we recommend:

Check in personally and professionally. If you're following the Level 10 Meeting methodology, this is known as the segue.
Discuss each item on the meeting agenda. Ideally, everyone will be looking at the same list in a tool like Strety. To move through talking points more efficiently, ask all team members to review and contribute to the agenda before the meeting starts.
When decisions are made and action items are assigned, check off the talking points and add tasks for the appropriate parties while still on the call.
When you've checked off all your agenda items, ask everyone to rate how the meeting went. You're shooting for 10s all around but all feedback is worth knowing. If someone gives a low rating, that might be a cue that your meeting processes could be run more smoothly.

The best meetings preempt issues before they turn into problems. To do that virtually, you need a blend of communication best practices and the right systems for automated team management.

How to Uncover Unspoken Issues in a Virtual Meeting

Structuring a meeting is pretty straightforward -- if you're using a tool like Strety and have a set agenda, the meeting almost runs itself. (Almost.)

Default to Video

Listen With Your Eyes

Make Time to Check In

Follow Up Privately -- and Immediately

Message your teammate privately after the call and leave it open ended. Vague is better; \"how are you feeling about X\" will go a long way.

$\"private$

How Do You Conduct a Performance Review?

Some general principles:

Do it in cycles. The first step should be asynchronous and individual, and the second should be a meeting in real time (whether virtually or in-person)
Start with a template of questions that the employee fills out about themselves (a self-appraisal) and the manager fills out about the employee. If your team wants to try 360 performance reviews, add a set of questions for the employee to answer about their manager.
A manager and employee should both share their answers with each other prior to meeting. Springing information on an employee in the moment helps nobody. Give each other time to process and think about the information in the review, whether positive or negative.
Prepare questions and comments prior to your meeting. If you've done most of the work in advance, you're ready to have a productive discussion when you meet.

How Do You Start a Performance Review?

So you've written your self-appraisal, you've read the review from your boss, you've written your team's reviews, and you're about to log into a video chat or step into a one-on-one. What do you say? How do you start?

Whether you're the manager or the employee, we recommend starting with positivity. Beginning a review with meaningful praise and celebration creates an environment in which team members feel valued and in which constructive criticism can be heard. If you start with criticism, praise feels like a consolation prize. If you start with celebration, critique feels more fair and is more likely to be adopted.

At the beginning of the review, find a few specific things to celebrate from the last 6 months. If you're the employee, come prepared with notes of things you did that went well, specific people on the team that contributed to that success, and personal growth you've achieved. This is your time to brag about yourself; use it.

If you're the manager, come to the review with a few specific things to celebrate about your employee. Avoid being vague; instead of complementing someone's work ethic in general terms, for instance, praise their performance during one particular week when they really showed up.

How Do You Give Good Feedback in a Performance Review?

If you've started with meaningful praise (not empty celebration), then giving good feedback will probably flow naturally. To keep up the constructive, effective process, remove blame from negative feedback.

We recommend focusing constructive feedback on learnings, future changes, and growth. Don't waste time rehashing bad blood or scolding someone for a mistake that happened months ago. Instead, provide an opportunity for your team to talk about what they've learned, what didn't go well that they'd do differently, and what growth they hope to make before the next review. Criticism that feels like improvement and like cheering for each other, not blame or chastising, is more likely to be heard and implemented.

Often, this is a matter of a simple rephrasing. Reviews are vulnerable situations that call for thoughtful wording. This is particularly true when giving constructive feedback.

Strety Users: Drastically reduce prep time for reviews by filtering recent 360 feedback, 1:1 notes, and Check In responses for each person on your team.

How do Goals Come Into Play?

There are two types of goals to consider in the performance review process:

Company goals that an employee owns or contributes to, and
Goals the employee has for their own professional development.

When the two intersect, it's serendipity. They won't always intersect, so it's important to speak about both and prioritize both whenever possible. When speaking about company goals, document initiatives well in advance and ask your team what they want to impact and help them find role-appropriate ways to do so. Give your team time to think about it, solidify ownership or areas of impact in the review, and spend proceeding meetings checking in on that goal's progress.

Company goals are crucial to the business, and an employee's goals for their own development are crucial for employee retention. Make space to discuss both.

In Review: The Template

Create a list of 2-3 questions for each of the following categories:

Celebrating\n
- What went well?
- What are you proud of?
- Who else on the team do you want to celebrate? etc
\n
Learning\n
- What did we learn?
- What might we do differently in the future? etc
\n
Growth and Goals\n
- Which company initiatives do you want to own?
- What impact do you want to have on the company before your next review?
- What personal goals can I help you achieve? etc
\n

If you're ready to incorporate better reviews into your continuous performance management system, contact Strety for a demo of our tool. We'll make this easy!

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\n","rss_body":"

\n\n

How Do You Conduct a Performance Review?

Some general principles:

Do it in cycles. The first step should be asynchronous and individual, and the second should be a meeting in real time (whether virtually or in-person)
Start with a template of questions that the employee fills out about themselves (a self-appraisal) and the manager fills out about the employee. If your team wants to try 360 performance reviews, add a set of questions for the employee to answer about their manager.
A manager and employee should both share their answers with each other prior to meeting. Springing information on an employee in the moment helps nobody. Give each other time to process and think about the information in the review, whether positive or negative.
Prepare questions and comments prior to your meeting. If you've done most of the work in advance, you're ready to have a productive discussion when you meet.

How Do You Start a Performance Review?

How Do You Give Good Feedback in a Performance Review?

Often, this is a matter of a simple rephrasing. Reviews are vulnerable situations that call for thoughtful wording. This is particularly true when giving constructive feedback.

Strety Users: Drastically reduce prep time for reviews by filtering recent 360 feedback, 1:1 notes, and Check In responses for each person on your team.

How do Goals Come Into Play?

There are two types of goals to consider in the performance review process:

Company goals that an employee owns or contributes to, and
Goals the employee has for their own professional development.

Company goals are crucial to the business, and an employee's goals for their own development are crucial for employee retention. Make space to discuss both.

In Review: The Template

Create a list of 2-3 questions for each of the following categories:

Celebrating\n
- What went well?
- What are you proud of?
- Who else on the team do you want to celebrate? etc
\n
Learning\n
- What did we learn?
- What might we do differently in the future? etc
\n
Growth and Goals\n
- Which company initiatives do you want to own?
- What impact do you want to have on the company before your next review?
- What personal goals can I help you achieve? etc
\n

If you're ready to incorporate better reviews into your continuous performance management system, contact Strety for a demo of our tool. We'll make this easy!

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Management Tips

A Performance Review Template that Really Works

Performance reviews get a bad rap. Many of us have been in situations where a not-great manager used a review as an opportunity to parade failures and ...

Written By: Strety

July 28, 2020

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Unless you’re a sales rep for Zoom, it's pretty safe to say that whatever goals you had at the beginning of the year now look like a stretch. Now that the dust has settled from 2020’s rollercoaster first half, it’s time to climb up the tree to see if you’re still on the right path. It’s time for a midyear gut check.

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\n\n

This year more than ever, it’s vital to do a mid-year review with your direct report or manager. Reviewing the last 6 months worth of work and assessing what stays and what goes will yield one of the highest ROI's of any meeting on your Q3 calendar. It does not have to be a very long meeting, but it does have to be very intentional.

For starters it's a good time to check with your counterpart on how they're feeling about their progress this year. You may have done this more casually throughout the year already but it's important to give the discussion some structure, to record the meeting, and to assign and track any actions or to-dos that come out of it.

To kick it off, review what was planned at the beginning of the year: What were the numbers or outcomes that were agreed upon to signal success on your yearly goals? You should both ask yourselves “are these still appropriate goals considering how the year has gone”?. Adjusting goal-targets is a huge key to keeping employee morale and motivation high.

You should also ask yourself “Do we need to scrap any of these goals right here and now?”. Priorities change quickly and what was important or feasible in January may not be any longer. If a goal needs to be scrapped, mutually agree on new 2nd half goals that take the reality of 2020’s 2nd half expectations into consideration.

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Once you've agreed upon 2nd half numbers and/outcomes, put them in writing and break them down so they're more manageable. Plan out the next major steps (2-3) that will put you on the right track to hit that number or goal for the end of the year. The, most importantly, set a regular recurring time to check in with the goal owner and get updates on their progress towards the goal or KPI.

With less opportunity for in-office face-time, it’s important to get more frequent updates without taking up any additional time. We have personally used Strety's Goals & Check Ins to get more consistent reads on how everyone is doing, feeling, and progressing towards their goals and we haven’t missed a beat; effectively replacing our need for a Daily Stand Up.

Lastly, praise. Everyone has faced their own personal challenges and hardships adjusting their work around WFH and a global pandemic. Remember to use the meeting to also acknowledge and emphasize what’s been accomplished amidst such a tough year. Your team will thank you for it.

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$\"Goal$

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Meetings

Reset & Revitalize 2nd Half Performance: How to Run a Midyear Goal Review Meeting

Unless you’re a sales rep for Zoom, it's pretty safe to say that whatever goals you had at the beginning of the year now look like a stretch. Now that ...

Written By: Larry Garcia

July 22, 2020

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All too often, agendas are made up on the fly, added last minute, or left unchanged from week to week. This renders the agenda lazy and hollow and leaves your team likely uninspired, or worse, wondering “What was the point of that meeting?”

\n","post_body":"

\n\n

When we put so little effort going into a meeting, we grow accustomed to very little coming out. A Harvard Business Review study supports this sentiment, reporting only 17% of executives agree their meetings are productive uses of group and individual time.

This routine, err vicious cycle, perfectly sums up how & why (most) meetings are generally viewed as colossal wastes of time and disruptions to real work. There’s not enough time invested in pre-meeting prep work. No matter how familiar you are with leading meetings - whether you’re a first time manager or a seasoned pro - we want to make sure your meetings are set up for success, and that all starts with a meaningful agenda.

In The Surprising Science of Meetings, Steven Rogelberg likens an agenda to an event plan. When planning an event, we think about the details, the flow, the experience, and the approach. We should apply that same mindset and process when planning a meeting. In fact, once you factor in attendee time, salaries, and time away from equally essential solo work, meetings can become fairly expensive events in their own right, further justifying careful planning.

Think about showing up to a client without being ready to discuss their account, any services issues, or potential projects coming up. That should never happen right? That same focus should be brought to your internal meetings!

How to Prepare for Productive Meetings

\n\n

1. Know Why You’re Meeting

Meetings must have a purpose and a desired outcome. Before you begin creating an agenda, figure out if you need to meet by asking why. Do you need to solve a problem, make a decision, or do you just want to check in with a direct report? Meetings should be called to address issues that require genuine interaction and engagement amongst attendees. If the topic doesn’t require interaction, another communication medium, like an email or memo, will likely be more efficient.

Once you’ve decided a meeting is necessary, make the purpose known, even including it in the agenda, so everyone else explicitly knows why you’re meeting.

\n\n

2. Collaborate on the Agenda

For meetings to be transformative, they need to be a shared experience. Ideas for your meeting agenda should bubble up from team members. Rogelberg agrees; “When your employees are encouraged to bring their thoughts and ideas to the table and to have them be truly heard, they tend to feel a greater sense of commitment to and identification with the team and organization”. This lends itself to meetings where attendees are actively involved and invested in the meeting, while increasing the chances of hitting topics of critical importance to all who are present.

What employees propose should definitely be considered, but you, as the meeting facilitator have final say. Encourage attendees to submit topics for discussion 2-4 days in advance of the meeting. Ask them to include a 1-2 sentence reason for why they want a topic included in the meeting. If a topic doesn’t make the cut, privately give an explanation to the employee or move it to a more appropriate meeting, like your 1:1. Make sure to always close the loop, though. Your simple acknowledgement goes a long way.

$\"Collaborative$

Strety Users: Our agendas are shared and collaborative. No need to go back and forth about agenda construction. Encourage everyone to add leading up and you can be the gatekeeper for what makes it one. Just get more ideas on the table!

\n\n

3. Curate Your Agenda

Now that all the potential agenda items have been collected, it’s time to whittle the list down. Determine which topics will really add value to the meeting and drop any content that doesn’t contribute to the meeting’s purpose and desired outcome(s).

Studies from Rogelberg suggest that items early in an agenda receive a disproportionate amount of time and attention, so order your topics in order of importance. Know the difference between what’s essential to cover and what would be nice.

Next, look for agenda items that should be addressed in/around one another. This will help your agenda flow more smoothly. If all else is relatively equal, prioritize employee-generated agenda items. This sends a strong message around voice, inclusion, and shared ownership.

Lastly, meetings should always start and stop in the same way. Open with a short ice-breaker or segue. Close with a summation of key takeaways and clarifying ownership of next steps/action items

\n\n

4. Share Meeting Responsibilities

A meeting should always have a facilitator but that doesn’t mean they’re solely responsible for leading the discussion around every agenda item. Each agenda item should have it’s own clearly - and publicly - designated owner. If an engineer on your team wants to talk about a specific services issue, they need to prep that agenda item and own the discussion.

Sharing responsibility will also provide an opportunity to develop meeting leadership skills for other team members and it will get more people - and varied voices - involved in the meeting.

$\"assign$

Strety Users: Manage the work that results from your meetings with Action Items. We allow you to assign to-dos and manage their progress from meeting to meeting, so there’s accountability and nothing slips through the cracks.

\n\n

5. Plan For Process

Rogelberg says “planning a meeting is knowing not only what you want to cover but also how you want to go about doing it.” This final step in agenda creation is often ignored or assumed as obvious but it’s imperative you put some thought into the process to which you’ll address each agenda item.

There are plenty of tools and techniques to consider when discussing certain agenda items - we’ve even written about a few here. Consider the team, the task, and the desired outcome. For example, if your weekly team meeting has an agenda item to discuss KPIs (we love KPIs, we’re all BrightGauge alumni), the process would be “I’ll lead this topic off discussing my team’s KPIs and we’ll go around the room letting each team lead share theirs”..

Leaders are uniquely qualified to attach process to agenda items given their big-picture understanding and their responsibility in ensuring there’s a positive return on time spent in the meeting.

\n\n

Summary

An agenda alone will not make your meeting great but putting a little effort into it definitely will. By establishing a purpose, opening it up for collaboration, thinking through flow & process, and divvying out responsibility you’ll change the attitude towards meetings in your company and you’ll increase the return on everyone’s time investment.

If you want to see your meetings improve - and automate much of what you’ve read above - request a demo and let us show you the Strety solution!

","rss_summary":"

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\n\n

How to Prepare for Productive Meetings

\n\n

1. Know Why You’re Meeting

Once you’ve decided a meeting is necessary, make the purpose known, even including it in the agenda, so everyone else explicitly knows why you’re meeting.

\n\n

2. Collaborate on the Agenda

$\"Collaborative$

\n\n

3. Curate Your Agenda

Lastly, meetings should always start and stop in the same way. Open with a short ice-breaker or segue. Close with a summation of key takeaways and clarifying ownership of next steps/action items

\n\n

4. Share Meeting Responsibilities

Sharing responsibility will also provide an opportunity to develop meeting leadership skills for other team members and it will get more people - and varied voices - involved in the meeting.

$\"assign$

\n\n

5. Plan For Process

Leaders are uniquely qualified to attach process to agenda items given their big-picture understanding and their responsibility in ensuring there’s a positive return on time spent in the meeting.

\n\n

Summary

If you want to see your meetings improve - and automate much of what you’ve read above - request a demo and let us show you the Strety solution!

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Meetings

Prepare for Team Meetings: 5 Keys to Building Impactful Agendas

All too often, agendas are made up on the fly, added last minute, or left unchanged from week to week. This renders the agenda lazy and hollow and ...

Written By: Derek Weaver

July 14, 2020

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A growing company - or the sudden absence of an office - can make it difficult for a manager to keep a steady pulse on the health and performance of their team. Daily Stand-ups and status updates can tell the story during meetings but a good manager needs a process to collect and manage team sentiment between meetings.

\n","post_body":"

\n\n

At Strety, we call this process 'Check Ins'. Check-ins are recurring single-prompt questions managers and team leads ask to increase engagement and gain proactive insights. The right mix of questions will help surface issues and gauge the real-time health of their team between team and 1:1 meetings, effectively filling in all a manager's blind spots.

In their book Nine Lies About Work, Marcus Buckingham & Ashley Goodall say “A team with low check-in frequency is a team with low intelligence. Data reveals checking in with your team members once a month (during meetings) is literally worse than useless. While team leaders who check-in once a week see a 13% increase in team engagement, those in check-in once a month see a 5 percent decrease in engagement. There’s also a 2.7x increase in retention that accompanies frequent conversations. As if team members are saying “I’d rather you not waste my time if all we’re going to do is talk in generalities”.

Check-ins are not one-sided. You have to give to receive. The engagement boost only happens when team members regularly check in AND regularly get a reply. Buckingham & Goodall elevate this sentiment:

\n
“Checking in with each person on a team - listening, course correcting, adjusting, coaching, advising, paying attention to the intersection of the person and the real-world work - is not what you do in addition to the work of leading. This is the work of leading”
\n

The more frequent and predictable your check ins, the more real time attention you’ll be able to give to your team’s work, leading to more engagement and higher performance from your team. What we’re saying is: It Starts with You!

\n\n

Implementing Check Ins

We use check ins to keep our teams engaged and our managers informed; each one serving as its own asynchronous, one-question meeting. Buckingham and Goodall simplify their approach by recommending managers start by asking each team member two simple questions each week:

What are your priorities this week
How can I help

It’s less about a perfectly posed question and more about consistency, and these two check ins are a great place to start. They’re simple and they put the focus on the actual work your team is doing. This allows managers to know where they can have the most impact right now.

Don’t expect your questions to be uncovering gold right away. You’ll have to find what works best for you and your team. Test, learn, iterate, repeat. Here are a few things to think about as you roll-out check ins:

Cadence: How often do you want to ask certain questions
Day of the week: Ask the check in when you’ll get the best answer
Public/Private: Do you want answers to be shared with the entire team or only with you

At Strety, our check ins are a healthy balance of daily, weekly, and monthly work and non-work related prompts. We’ve set up questions that ensure we have a holistic view of how our people are doing while also reinforcing our company’s values & culture. Here are some examples of questions we’ve had success with to help you get going:

Implementing Check Ins

What are your priorities this week
How can I help

Cadence: How often do you want to ask certain questions
Day of the week: Ask the check in when you’ll get the best answer
Public/Private: Do you want answers to be shared with the entire team or only with you

Suggested Questions to Ask Your Team

\n\n

Daily Check Ins

1. What are you working on today?

$\"Daily$

2. How was your day?

\n\n

Weekly Check Ins

3. How are you feeling coming into this week?

Ask Monday morning. Can be open-ended or 1-10 scale. This is about understanding everyone’s headspace. Are they coming into the week refreshed and recharged or are they carrying stress?

4. What challenges are you facing?

5. What wins did you have this week?

6. How did you feel this week?

Strety Users: When a Check in response requires further discussion, easily add it to any upcoming meeting agenda

$\"Weekly$

\n\n

Monthly Check Ins

7. What part of your role are you most passionate about? Feels the most draining?

8. Have you been inspired or extra motivated by anything or anyone recently?

\n\n

Culture Building Check Ins

9. What did you do this weekend?

$\"Culture$

10. If you were to recommend one ___ what would it be?

movie/youtube video to watch
album or podcast to listen to
book or blog to read
Restaurant to eat at
Recipe to try

Use these questions - or come up with you own - and you’ll be well on your way to better understanding your team, increasing engagement, and achieving better business outcomes.

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Management Tips

10 Check In Questions to Keep Your Team On Track Between Meetings

A growing company - or the sudden absence of an office - can make it difficult for a manager to keep a steady pulse on the health and performance of ...

Written By: Derek Weaver

June 30, 2020

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Every company has issues. What separates an industry leader from its peers is their ability to effectively and efficiently solve them.

\n","post_body":"

Every company has issues. What separates an industry leader from its peers is their ability to effectively and efficiently solve them.

\n\n

According to the Issues Solving Track (IDS) laid out in Gino Wickman’s Traction, “When addressing issues, leadership teams spend most of their time discussing the heck out of everything, rarely identifying anything, and hardly ever solving something”.

If you find yourself continually punting problems down the road or solving issues you’d thought you’d already solved, it’s time to rethink how your organization approaches problem solving.

The first step to a better problem-solving process is creating an issue list. If you don’t have one already, create one. Ask your leadership team to be open and honest about the issues facing your business and write them down. This will be a transparent, running list that will add structure and organization to your problem solving process. Bring it with you to every leadership meeting.

With your list in place, you can begin to implement Gino’s simplistic & straightforward IDS (Identify, Discuss, Solve) process. When followed, it can transform your company into a well-oiled, problem solving machine where you tackle issues with little to no wasted effort. Here’s how it works:

Identify

Each meeting, examine your list and rank the issues in order of priority. Don’t jump in and immediately discuss solutions. Wickman says “the underlying issue is always a few layers down. Most of the time the stated problem is a symptom of the real issue, so you must find the root of the matter”.

Continue to pull the string: Is it a communication, process, or person issue? By investing time in the identification phase you’ll not only address your biggest issues but you’ll likely notice a few smaller problems will go away on their own, as they turn out to be symptoms of the root issues you’ve already solved.

Discuss

Once you’ve clearly identified an issue, this is everyone’s opportunity to offer thoughts on a resolution. Push to hear from everyone, open and honest discussion around issues will build trust amongst your team.

According to Wickman, everyone should say what they believe but should say it only once. Get everything out on the table. Offer solutions that contribute to the greater good, not what’s best for you or your department.

One more thing to keep top of mind as you discuss solutions: avoid tangents at all costs! Call them out to stay on track. If a tangent is a legitimate issue worth discussing, add it to your Issue List and continue discussing options, solutions, and concerns regarding the issue at hand.

Solve

The goal for solving any issue should be that once it’s solved, it’s gone away forever. To make that happen, you have to align the solution with the long term vision for your company.

Wickman likens it to driving a car, not having a destination, and making turns randomly. If you don’t know where you’re going, you can’t make decisions on which way to turn.

Issues may take longer to solve from this approach but the time spent clearly identifying and discussing the root issue will save you time and effort in the future.

Solving problems through IDS will provide structure to your process and force you to be intentional in tackling problems the right way, not the easiest way.

If you’d like to see how Strey can systemize IDS - or any other concepts from Wickman’s Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) - let us know, we love talking about this stuff!

","rss_summary":"

Every company has issues. What separates an industry leader from its peers is their ability to effectively and efficiently solve them.

\n","rss_body":"

Every company has issues. What separates an industry leader from its peers is their ability to effectively and efficiently solve them.

\n\n

If you find yourself continually punting problems down the road or solving issues you’d thought you’d already solved, it’s time to rethink how your organization approaches problem solving.

Identify

Discuss

Solve

The goal for solving any issue should be that once it’s solved, it’s gone away forever. To make that happen, you have to align the solution with the long term vision for your company.

Wickman likens it to driving a car, not having a destination, and making turns randomly. If you don’t know where you’re going, you can’t make decisions on which way to turn.

Issues may take longer to solve from this approach but the time spent clearly identifying and discussing the root issue will save you time and effort in the future.

Solving problems through IDS will provide structure to your process and force you to be intentional in tackling problems the right way, not the easiest way.

If you’d like to see how Strey can systemize IDS - or any other concepts from Wickman’s Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) - let us know, we love talking about this stuff!

","tag_ids":[23667170488],"topic_ids":[23667170488],"enable_google_amp_output_override":false,"generate_json_ld_enabled":true,"blog_post_schedule_task_uid":null,"blog_publish_to_social_media_task":"DONE","blog_publish_instant_email_task_uid":"DONE","blog_publish_instant_email_campaign_id":null,"blog_publish_instant_email_retry_count":null,"keywords":[],"composition_id":0,"password":null,"featured_image_alt_text":"Team work","layout_sections":{},"enable_layout_stylesheets":null,"tweet":null,"tweet_at":null,"campaign_name":"Management Tips & Skills","campaign_utm":"Management%20Tips%20%26%20Skills","meta_keywords":null,"meta_description":"Implement the EOS Issues Solving Track for a more structured and effective approach to addressing your company's important issues\n\n","tweet_immediately":false,"publish_immediately":true,"security_state":"NONE","placement_guids":[],"property_for_dynamic_page_title":null,"property_for_dynamic_page_slug":null,"property_for_dynamic_page_meta_description":null,"property_for_dynamic_page_featured_image":null,"property_for_dynamic_page_canonical_url":null,"preview_image_src":null,"legacy_blog_tabid":null,"legacy_post_guid":null,"performable_variation_letter":null,"style_override_id":null,"has_user_changes":true,"css":{},"css_text":"","unpublished_at":0,"published_by_id":9725277,"allowed_slug_conflict":false,"ai_features":{"empty":true,"present":false},"link_rel_canonical_url":null,"page_redirected":false,"page_expiry_enabled":null,"page_expiry_date":null,"page_expiry_redirect_id":null,"page_expiry_redirect_url":null,"deleted_by":null,"state_when_deleted":null,"cloned_from":null,"staged_from":null,"personas":[],"compose_body":null,"featured_image":"https://f.hubspotusercontent30.net/hubfs/5256430/Blog%20Images/16b.png","featured_image_width":0,"featured_image_height":0,"publish_timezone_offset":null,"theme_settings_values":null,"past_mab_experiment_ids":[],"head_html":null,"footer_html":null,"attached_stylesheets":[],"enable_domain_stylesheets":null,"include_default_custom_css":null,"header":null,"published_at":1591876975051,"last_edit_session_id":null,"last_edit_update_id":null}

Management Tips

How to Handle Company Issues with Less Stress and Mess

Every company has issues. What separates an industry leader from its peers is their ability to effectively and efficiently solve them. According to ...

Written By: Derek Weaver

June 10, 2020

{"public_access_rules_enabled":false,"public_access_rules":[],"use_featured_image":true,"html_title":"Tool Fatigue is Real: 5 Steps to Combat Adoption Issues","post_summary":"

The average IT worker uses 10.4 apps at work. What’s the harm in introducing one more, right? Wrong. If you’re using too many SaaS tools, it’s more exhausting than productive.

\n","post_body":"

The average IT worker uses 10.4 apps at work. What’s the harm in introducing one more, right? Wrong. If you’re using too many SaaS tools, it’s more exhausting than productive.

\n\n

That doesn’t mean you should stop searching for new tools to help your business grow. It means finding the RIGHT tools -- not MORE tools. You need implementation strategies that minimize tool fatigue and accelerate adoption so you can get more done.

Adoption is what delivers results from SaaS solutions. If a new technology isn’t used, it isn’t going to make a difference. I’m sure you can easily envision a more efficient and more effective version of your company. You know the changes that need to be made to realize your vision, that’s why you’re testing out new Saas in the first place. The largest obstacles in actualizing that vision are communicating through change and getting buy-in from key parties.

Buy-in is mandatory if you want to accurately assess whether a SaaS solution is right for you. You do not want to be the business leader who's unable to harvest transformative benefit potential from new SaaS because you can't get your team onboard.

Thankfully, there are plenty of things you can do to facilitate SaaS adoption from your team. Before you can overcome adoption issues, it’s best to understand where they’re rooted.

\n\n

Obstacles to Adoption

Tool Fatigue

Tool fatigue is real, it’s discouraging, and it isn’t going away. I’d be shocked if you’re a TSP and not dealing with tool fatigue in some capacity right now.

Tool fatigue is when you have:

Too many tools
Too much overlap between tools
Too much jumping between tools

As software management becomes increasingly decentralized, it’s common to find numerous SaaS tools with overlapping features. For example, most organizations use a combination of Google Docs, Slack/Teams bots, email, and employee surveys to collect feedback. What they choose is dependent on the team or use case, and in some instances, arbitrarily, without any thought to organizational cohesion. This can quickly spiral and create more trouble when trying to filter through threads to pull relevant feedback for 1:1 meetings or performance reviews.

As the work your team is doing spreads out across more and more apps, your team will struggle to find the data they need when they need it, adding complexity to their workflow. At that point, can you blame their reluctance in adding another tool to their stack?

Change in Mindset

No one looks forward to changing a well-worn workflow, not to mention the stress and the time commitment that comes with it. But adopting new software isn’t just about creating better, more user friendly processes. It’s also a mechanism to transition towards a new way of thinking.

For example, continuous feedback cultures require a totally different mindset. If your team isn’t prepared to receive feedback about themselves, feedback will come across as a top-down initiative rather than a company-wide culture shift. Instead, leaders must emphasize, communicate, and lead by example, demonstrating feedback and more regular conversations around performance are necessary to reach company objectives and a healthier work environment.

Be understanding that any approach intended to foster long term buy-in will likely take time to take hold.

Poor Communication

Deloitte reports that up to 70% of change initiatives fail because key stakeholders struggle to adapt. That struggle can begin before anyone even begins to use the product.

It’s one thing for you to see the value in a new tool, it’s another to effectively communicate that value to your team. Think about it through the lens of selling your clients on a new Managed Security Service that you use internally; you can’t position the solution as it benefits your security, you have to position the solution as they see it protecting their data.

Failure to frame your messaging towards your team could easily lead to misaligned expectations, and sets up your new SaaS tool for an uphill battle towards team-wide adoption.

Improper Training

Even if you perfectly prepare your team for a new SaaS tool, it won’t make a difference if they are unable to derive value from it early-on.

First impressions are huge and whatever early impression your SaaS tool makes will drive the motivation towards buy-in going forward. So, what are your options when you need every employee onboard with a new SaaS tool? How can you work with leadership and your vendor to accelerate the spread of a SaaS tool within your company? Most importantly, what’s the right approach when you’re faced with employees struggling with change?

The wrong answers to these questions could deliver a death blow for fast adoption, leaving you flat footed with a discouraged team and without a solution.

\n\n

How to Drive Widespread Adoption

Choose the Right Tools

For any problem you’re trying to solve with SaaS, there are probably multiple solutions for you to choose from. When comparing similar solutions, keep two things top of mind:

Is the tool industry specific
How quickly can your team use it

First, Is the tool built for you or is it built for the broad market? It’s almost always the right move to go for the industry-specific tool. Vendors in your industry speak your language, understand your business problems and desired outcomes, and will be more likely to act on your feedback and feature requests, giving you greater opportunity to shape the tool for your needs. If there are comparable tools with comparable features, going with the MSP-specific solution is a no brainer.

Second, be proactive in countering tool fatigue. Much of the software you truly need already exists: Office 365, GSuite, Teams, Slack. This is where users are already spending time.

Look for tools that embed or layer into your existing processes and systems. Make it easy for them to adapt.

Third, weigh their UX. If a tool does exactly what you need it to do but it feels clunky and poorly designed, you won’t see efficiency or effective deployment when your team ultimately hates working with it. Probably rings a bell, doesn’t it?

Lastly, how much time will it take to onboard the average employee? If it has extensive training programs and a lot of digital resources/tutorials, it will likely take more time and effort to learn the tool, making the tool susceptible to pushback. Additionally, look at what sort of support is available from the vendor. Will it be easy for your team to get help when, where, and how they need it?

Communicate Change Management

The role of management in any situation is that of motivation. It’s your duty to help your team cross new bridges despite their tendency to look back. Best way to get them moving forward? Ready them for the other side. Communicate how to get there and why it’s going to be better.

For adoption to spread you need an effective internal marketing plan that will help ingrain these habits into people’s workflows. This is where you address the how and why:

Why will using this product benefit them?
How can they be successful using this tool?
How is this going to make their job easier/better?
Why is this better than the old way?
What do they need to do to start using it?

Think about what triggered the need for the tool in the first place. Are you struggling to train new or inexperienced managers? Are you growing too fast and need more effective systems in place to scale? Are you experiencing low engagement levels? Be genuine in what you expect the new tool to do for the organization and for them, and don’t focus solely on the practical uses, find fun ways to get your people excited about using the tool and your adoption rate will increase.

For example, even if you know introducing continuous feedback will help solve several overarching problems, culture change is a long-term benefit that will take time to implement and be felt by the team. Instead of selling the idealized result, start by focusing on a couple more immediate and specific pain points and explain why it’s critical to address it now. For example, ask weekly employee surveys that will form the foundation for tomorrow’s continuous feedback culture.

Strety Users: Use our customizable email templates to internally communicate what Strety is, what it does, how everyone benefits, and next steps all before you launch and increase your odds for faster adoption.

Encourage Participation

One of the most important factors in getting widespread adoption is widespread participation. If the vendor allows it, encourage your team to participate in the demo/trial period. Collect their feedback and let them know their input will be a part of the evaluation process. Early ownership can go a long way towards adoption.

Once you have your team using the product, lean on your superstars to crank up usage. Contrary to logical opinion, don’t look to early adopters (more on them in a minute) to help usage spread, look to your company’s key influencers. Focus on your team members who get it, you know the ones, and encourage them to be more active within the tool to set an example for the rest of the team. Even the most reluctant employees are much more likely to adapt if a coworker they trust is supporting new software and processes.

Your team is also likely to adopt new tools more quickly with rewards in place. Reward early adopters with positive reinforcement; It's far more effective than enforcing penalties or discipline over a lack of adoption.

Though you have your team’s best helping you out, you’ll need to lead by example. It’s critical that you show enthusiasm for the tool. A leader’s level of usage and promotion is a great indication of the success a product will have across an organization.

Strety Users: Acknowledge when your team participates. Leave a comment whenever a team member responds to a Check in or updates their Goal. If your team doesn’t see your feedback in the early stages, they’ll be less inclined to respond to the next prompt.

Reinforce Usage

Once a tool is in place and you know you’re moving forward, force change away from existing tools or old behaviors. According to Charles Duhigg’s research on habit formation, “to change a habit, you must keep the old cue and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine”.

For example some employees just don’t feel as comfortable providing feedback or expressing themselves in written form. Changing to a more documented approach presents an extra barrier for them to adopt.

Help them through the transition by tailoring new processes to their individual needs. One size fits all will not apply. Be patient and flexible, but make sure incremental progress is being made; do not settle for a complete absence of participation or reverting back to old processes

You must encourage and reinforce usage until it becomes habitual. If there’s always the option of returning to the old way, you’ll continue to fight tool fatigue and fall short of actualizing full value from your new solution.

Strety Users: Start by setting up Check ins around what your team discusses during their Daily Huddle, i.e ‘What are your priorities for the day”. No need to reinvent the wheel. Your team will be more comfortable responding to what they’re familiar with. They’ll soon see their Daily Huddles become more productive and efficient, increasing adoption.

$\"Daily$

Set Milestones

Set SMART goals and milestones to measure success at each implementation phase for key stakeholders in your company. Be clear what you want to accomplish, for example, at 1 month, after 3, and in 12. Goals will vary depending on the pain you need to solve, so work with your CSM to help you come up with goals you can track with the tool.

Once you hit those goals, draw attention to the quick wins that come through early adopters. Celebrate any example of the product improving specifics; i.e “Jessica’s team has knocked 15 minutes from their daily stand-up as a result of enacting new processes”. It’s vital for the team to know how the new software is making an impact across the organization.

Strety Users: We want you to be successful using Strety. Schedule time with a CSM to discuss what success looks like for your organization and let’s work together to get you there

Finding new tools to unlock your business’s potential is hard work. Once you’ve found the right solution, it can be a real challenge to take those tools and implement them company-wide, especially when you’re working with teams of varying personalities and preferences.

In order to receive the full benefit of your new tool, an intentional, strategic adoption approach is a must. Be mindful of the technology you select and the way in which you implement it and make sure adoption is top of mind when deciding on new tools, and you’ll see ROI much more quickly.

","rss_summary":"

The average IT worker uses 10.4 apps at work. What’s the harm in introducing one more, right? Wrong. If you’re using too many SaaS tools, it’s more exhausting than productive.

\n","rss_body":"

The average IT worker uses 10.4 apps at work. What’s the harm in introducing one more, right? Wrong. If you’re using too many SaaS tools, it’s more exhausting than productive.

\n\n

Thankfully, there are plenty of things you can do to facilitate SaaS adoption from your team. Before you can overcome adoption issues, it’s best to understand where they’re rooted.

\n\n

Obstacles to Adoption

Tool Fatigue

Tool fatigue is real, it’s discouraging, and it isn’t going away. I’d be shocked if you’re a TSP and not dealing with tool fatigue in some capacity right now.

Tool fatigue is when you have:

Too many tools
Too much overlap between tools
Too much jumping between tools

Change in Mindset

Be understanding that any approach intended to foster long term buy-in will likely take time to take hold.

Poor Communication

Deloitte reports that up to 70% of change initiatives fail because key stakeholders struggle to adapt. That struggle can begin before anyone even begins to use the product.

Failure to frame your messaging towards your team could easily lead to misaligned expectations, and sets up your new SaaS tool for an uphill battle towards team-wide adoption.

Improper Training

Even if you perfectly prepare your team for a new SaaS tool, it won’t make a difference if they are unable to derive value from it early-on.

The wrong answers to these questions could deliver a death blow for fast adoption, leaving you flat footed with a discouraged team and without a solution.

\n\n

How to Drive Widespread Adoption

Choose the Right Tools

For any problem you’re trying to solve with SaaS, there are probably multiple solutions for you to choose from. When comparing similar solutions, keep two things top of mind:

Is the tool industry specific
How quickly can your team use it

Second, be proactive in countering tool fatigue. Much of the software you truly need already exists: Office 365, GSuite, Teams, Slack. This is where users are already spending time.

Look for tools that embed or layer into your existing processes and systems. Make it easy for them to adapt.

Communicate Change Management

For adoption to spread you need an effective internal marketing plan that will help ingrain these habits into people’s workflows. This is where you address the how and why:

Why will using this product benefit them?
How can they be successful using this tool?
How is this going to make their job easier/better?
Why is this better than the old way?
What do they need to do to start using it?

Encourage Participation

Reinforce Usage

$\"Daily$

Set Milestones

Strety Users: We want you to be successful using Strety. Schedule time with a CSM to discuss what success looks like for your organization and let’s work together to get you there

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Management Tips

Tool Fatigue is Real: 5 Steps to Combat Adoption Issues

The average IT worker uses 10.4 apps at work. What’s the harm in introducing one more, right? Wrong. If you’re using too many SaaS tools, it’s more ...

Written By: Derek Weaver

May 14, 2020

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Plateaus are invisible enemies.

\n","post_body":"

Plateaus are invisible enemies.

\n\n

Hitting a plateau feels like writer’s block, or hitting the wall midway through a tough workout, or like endless monotony with no clear path forward. If we’re not constantly achieving, we feel like we’re failing -- even when we might be able to progress with the right coaching. Since that failure feels embarrassing, we don’t talk about plateaus with our managers or teammates.

As a leader, your job is to identify when someone on your team is starting to plateau so that you can coach appropriately. But how do you know if someone’s plateaued if they won’t bring it up?

\n\n

Signs of a Plateau

People on your team could be feeling the beginnings of a plateau at any time, hidden in plain sight. While performance may not yet be visibly slipping, teams and individuals that plateau tend to exhibit signs of complacency:

Lower engagement with their teammates
Poorer standards of quality on their outputs
Rushed projects
Lack of focus
Lack of energy

Complacency quickly turns into a lost sense of purpose, and with it, a lack of motivation and engagement. Once you reach this point, performance issues are likely to surface. And If there is no attempt to adjust and correct once the wall has been hit, blame may be - fairly or unfairly - put on their environment, leading them to leave your organization.

Your goal: tackle the plateau before performance issues become problematic. And definitely before it leads to attrition.

\n\n

Why Plateaus Happen

Growth isn’t linear. From the outside, growth might look like a straight line up and to the right, but from the inside, it’s a jumbled tangle of ups and downs that (hopefully) eventually lead to growth.

Temporary plateaus can be part of a normal growth process. Short plateaus are nothing to fear -- in fact, they’re productive because they serve as a brief interlude to recharge for more growth. The leader’s role in a healthy plateau is to keep that interlude from turning into inertia. Give your employee space to take a breath, then help them run when they’re recharged.

Not all plateaus are productive, however. Sometimes an employee plateaus for less-than-helpful reasons, like:

Lack of variance, interest, or challenge in their day-to-day
Unresolved frustrations or resentment on the team
Lack of opportunities to grow within their role or within the company
Insufficient coaching
Uncertainty over the value of their work
Misalignment between the employee’s sense of purpose and the company’s vision

It could even be a conscious decision -- sometimes, advancing in career just isn’t someone’s top priority in life. An employee might decide they’re okay with how good they are at something, turn on autopilot, collect their paycheck, and stop improving. This is referred to as hitting the “OK plateau”, and it’s super common. In some fields, that’s not a huge problem. In others, a lack of progression is effectively regression and must be mitigated.

Regardless of why your team is plateauing, it’s in your best interest as a leader to try to empower your employee to push through in the right way at the right time.

\n\n

How to Coach Someone Through a Plateau

Managers and leaders can have a huge impact in shortening plateaus. With the right coaching, a plateau can be more productive and less frustrating for all involved.

While sustained plateauing is a cause for concern, more often than not it’ll serve as a wake-up call telling you to shake things up or try something new.

Here’s how to foster newfound motivation during a plateau:

Change their responsibilities
Rethink recognition
Improve cross-department collaboration
Create new opportunities for development
Introduce written reflections

Change Their Responsibilities

If your team isn’t feeling challenged, they’ll lack a connection to the work they’re doing. A lack of challenge happens when a job role becomes one-note, making it too easy to run on autopilot.

Changing an employee’s responsibilities gives them more (and different) opportunities to develop, avoiding a plateau. As a manager, one of the most effective ways you can overcome that is by dishing out the right responsibilities to the right people.

To do that, align someone’s areas of ownership with their zone of genius. In a 1:1, ask your employee which tasks give them energy and which tasks feel exhausting. Sometimes, a 5-hour task can be more invigorating than something that takes 10 minutes but saps your motivation. It’s not always about the amount of work, it’s about how that work feels to the employee.

To change responsibilities, you might have to involve multiple teammates. It’s best to address shifts in job roles in the setting of a performance review so that everyone has a chance to talk about what they love about their jobs and what they wish they could hand over to someone else. Chances are, one teammate might be dying to stop owning a project that another is excited to take over. This doesn’t have to be a major job shift -- it might be a simple project shuffle that makes all the difference.

When you’re shuffling responsibilities, make sure to give ownership of work-related goals to the right people. Ownership of goals shouldn’t live with the manager, it should live with the person responsible for the work. If someone has zero input to the work they’re doing, it’s unlikely they’re going to care about that work -- and they’ll eventually plateau. Employees perform best when they feel a strong connection to purpose, and ownership of goals helps foster that purpose.

You can also transfer responsibility by being less visible as a leader.

Refrain from unnecessary micromanagement, like dictating tasks step-by-step or asking to be cc’d on every email. Instead, open up non-invasive lines of communication. Ask for high-level check-ins like a weekly performance recap or a daily “What are you working on” and only course-correct when necessary. In giving your team member more autonomy, you create more autonomy for yourself.

Rethink Recognition

Recognition doesn’t have to be complicated. People thrive when they feel like they’re being heard, and sometimes, that’s all it takes. Elevating a plateaued employee’s voice can reignite motivation by reminding your team member that their work -- and voice -- have value.

To elevate more voices, encourage everyone on the team to contribute to meetings by opening your meeting agendas. Ask your team to suggest agenda topics. Let your employee drive their 1:1. Using shared, collaborative meeting agendas will get more varied ideas on the table while proving your commitment to making sure everyone has an opportunity to contribute to the discussion.

Sometimes, people plateau because they don’t know where they stand or how they’re doing. Everyone wants to know how their work contributes to team success, and once-annual performance feedback is not enough. Continuous feedback is key.

In order to provide continuous feedback, you need a system in place to collect valuable, actionable responses. Our team provides weekly updates to their goals and self-determine if we’re on-track. We provide context to those updates so that any team member can quickly see what’s going on with a project or initiative. This gives our leadership an opportunity to acknowledge great performance and realign the team whenever necessary. With continuous feedback, plateaus are spotted early and mitigated quickly.

Pull from performance recaps, daily or weekly check ins, goal updates, and 1:1 meetings to find opportunities for recognition. A simple acknowledgement that you read and appreciated an update or check in goes a long way.

If you want to take it a step further, positive feedback can be incredibly powerful when shared publicly. Systems like Teams and Slack make it easy to publicly recognize a team member for their accomplishments. Sharing successes with the entire organization leaves no doubt that someone’s work is valued.

Strety Users: Automate 360 feedback 2-4x/year so you’ll have a well-rounded read on your team’s performance when it comes time for annual reviews

$\"360$

Improve Cross-Department Collaboration

Cross-departmental collaboration adds newness and variety which are crucial to finding a new sense of motivation. But the real impact of collaboration comes from pushing people outside of their comfort zone.

Once someone gains exposure to the real work of other teams, they may identify new skills to develop or an interest in new responsibilities. An engineer might find themselves excited to help customers solve their problems, which could lead them to consider product management. Or a support agent might discover they enjoy leveraging their product knowledge to help sell the product’s benefit to future customers, leading to an interest in sales or marketing.

Working alongside other teams gives exposure to different ways of thinking and new approaches to problem solving. This is not a new concept.

Here’s a personal anecdote: I’m a Customer Success Manager. I once traveled to a conference with a front-end developer and got a lot of exposure to how he worked. His approach to solving a customer problem was vastly different than mine and seeing that gave us each a newfound understanding and respect for each other’s role. It also showed us how wildly ineffective and inefficient communication can be across departmental lines. That exposure and improvement in communication was directly responsible for quicker time to resolution for our customer’s problems.

Lastly, cross-departmental collaboration eliminates unnecessary siloes. In any organization, finding the time to assess whether there’s a better approach to a process can be very difficult. Getting fresh eyes on old processes could lead to asking, “is there a better way we can do that?” Giving individuals the opportunity to ask those questions and make changes that improve your processes decreases the risk of plateauing for employees and organizations alike.

How you implement cross-departmental collaboration will vary depending on your business, but it has enormous potential to help individual team members and the organization at-large avoid plateauing.

Create New Opportunities for Development

Stagnation will lead to a plateau. It’s your responsibility to help your people see the ways which they can develop to avoid stagnation in the first place.

As a leader, your role is to encourage employees to talk about their future. Start by discussing their career goals in your weekly 1:1s. If you aren’t having weekly 1:1s, start there! Once you know what an employee hopes to accomplish, you can coach them to achieve their goals.

To create new opportunities, expand their professional network by introducing them to professionals already doing what they’re interested in trying. Share resources that have helped you. Help them find quality training courses and create a budget to pay for it.

Once you’ve found opportunities together, hold them accountable; make sure they’re taking advantage of you as a resource. Collaborating on an employee’s development will build trust and, once again, prove to them that you are invested in their growth.

Strety Users: Set-up ‘Career Development Opportunities’ as a 1:1 Recurring Agenda Item so you can continually discuss any ongoing or upcoming opportunities with your direct report

Introduce Written Reflections

A performance recap is a written self-summary of one’s work. Recaps must be performed regularly, typically at the end of a workweek. They aren’t just about what an employee did and what they’re planning to tackle next -- recaps provide an opportunity to reflect on the work experience itself. Encourage your team to write openly and honestly about where they felt challenged, what they were proud of accomplishing, and what didn’t feel great. Invite them to share their recaps with you and, when appropriate, their teammates. Regular recaps have far-reaching benefits for both the leader and the employee.

For the employee, it provides an opportunity to see what they’ve accomplished. It’s easy to pass through a workweek without acknowledging growth. Slowing down, reflecting, and writing gives you a system to fuel a sense of purpose. An employee also has a chance to self-identify areas for improvement, which leads to more motivated action than if those areas for improvement were suggested by someone else.

As the manager, you’ll learn what motivates your team through their recaps. You’ll understand what type of work are they proud of accomplishing -- is it a company-led initiative or figuring something out on their own? Are they excited to learn and develop new skills? Do they love collaborating or are they happier working solo? Does the work they’re doing fall within their Zone of Genius, or are they constantly drained by simple tasks? What can you do to give them more of the work that gives them energy, and take exhausting tasks off their plate?

You’ll also learn what eats at your team. What types of issues linger? What causes toxic stress? Is there someone or something that’s in the way of their growth?

All these insights makes you a more informed manager and provide you an amazing opportunity to give better feedback. You can’t apply one size fits all approach to understanding the needs, motivations, and challenges your team is facing; you have to start by asking questions. Once you ask, you can begin to guide, but not before. A performance recap gives you actionable insights to move your team forward in a systematic way.

Strety Users: Set up a weekly private Check in to ask your team how their week went. Always comment to acknowledge the writing and provide a little feedback. If a response requires a deeper discussion, add it to your next 1:1 meeting.

$\"Performance$

Plateaus are inevitable, but they don’t have to be a problem. It’s up to you and your leadership team to find new ways to inspire and engage employees. The most important thing in helping your team through a plateau is communication and collaboration.

Your role is to help an employee feel secure in their challenges while suggesting solutions. And if you can do that, you’ll be accomplishing much more than just solving your team’s plateau problem. You’ll become a stronger leader in your own right!

","rss_summary":"

Plateaus are invisible enemies.

\n","rss_body":"

Plateaus are invisible enemies.

\n\n

As a leader, your job is to identify when someone on your team is starting to plateau so that you can coach appropriately. But how do you know if someone’s plateaued if they won’t bring it up?

\n\n

Signs of a Plateau

Lower engagement with their teammates
Poorer standards of quality on their outputs
Rushed projects
Lack of focus
Lack of energy

Your goal: tackle the plateau before performance issues become problematic. And definitely before it leads to attrition.

\n\n

Why Plateaus Happen

Not all plateaus are productive, however. Sometimes an employee plateaus for less-than-helpful reasons, like:

Lack of variance, interest, or challenge in their day-to-day
Unresolved frustrations or resentment on the team
Lack of opportunities to grow within their role or within the company
Insufficient coaching
Uncertainty over the value of their work
Misalignment between the employee’s sense of purpose and the company’s vision

Regardless of why your team is plateauing, it’s in your best interest as a leader to try to empower your employee to push through in the right way at the right time.

\n\n

How to Coach Someone Through a Plateau

Managers and leaders can have a huge impact in shortening plateaus. With the right coaching, a plateau can be more productive and less frustrating for all involved.

While sustained plateauing is a cause for concern, more often than not it’ll serve as a wake-up call telling you to shake things up or try something new.

Here’s how to foster newfound motivation during a plateau:

Change their responsibilities
Rethink recognition
Improve cross-department collaboration
Create new opportunities for development
Introduce written reflections

Change Their Responsibilities

If your team isn’t feeling challenged, they’ll lack a connection to the work they’re doing. A lack of challenge happens when a job role becomes one-note, making it too easy to run on autopilot.

You can also transfer responsibility by being less visible as a leader.

Rethink Recognition

Strety Users: Automate 360 feedback 2-4x/year so you’ll have a well-rounded read on your team’s performance when it comes time for annual reviews

$\"360$

Improve Cross-Department Collaboration

Working alongside other teams gives exposure to different ways of thinking and new approaches to problem solving. This is not a new concept.

How you implement cross-departmental collaboration will vary depending on your business, but it has enormous potential to help individual team members and the organization at-large avoid plateauing.

Create New Opportunities for Development

Stagnation will lead to a plateau. It’s your responsibility to help your people see the ways which they can develop to avoid stagnation in the first place.

Strety Users: Set-up ‘Career Development Opportunities’ as a 1:1 Recurring Agenda Item so you can continually discuss any ongoing or upcoming opportunities with your direct report

Introduce Written Reflections

You’ll also learn what eats at your team. What types of issues linger? What causes toxic stress? Is there someone or something that’s in the way of their growth?

$\"Performance$

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Management Tips

What To Do When Your Team Has Plateaued

Plateaus are invisible enemies. Hitting a plateau feels like writer’s block, or hitting the wall midway through a tough workout, or like endless ...

Written By: Derek Weaver

May 6, 2020

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One-on-one (1:1) meetings are an opportunity to discuss real-time performance, your career development opportunities, and to receive feedback and coaching from your manager. It’s also a way for you and your boss to build or strengthen your professional relationship.

\n","post_body":"

\n\n

Your one on one is one of the few moments where you, the direct report, are the main subject of the meeting. The responsibility to bring relevant issues to the table and to make these an effective use of your time rests squarely on your shoulders. If you remain passive and allow your boss to drive the agenda, it’s unlikely all your needs will be met.

“So, what do you want to talk about?” is the last thing you ever want to be asked during a one on one meeting. If you’re not invested in yourself and your performance, how can you expect your manager to be? If there was ever a time to selfishly prepare, it’s for your 1:1s…

Own the Agenda

To hammer this home: Effective 1:1s happen when you determine what you want to discuss. This is your one-on-one. Own the agenda! Throughout your week and between meetings, write down topics for discussion as they come to you. Potential topics include:

Career development
Personal growth and self improvement
Suggestions for team improvement
Communicating your contributions
Aligning priorities
Personal issues that could impact work performance
Interpersonal issues with coworkers (the good and bad)

By the time your next 1:1 rolls around you should have a formidable list of topics to choose from. From there you should prioritize your list, create an agenda, and share it with your manager a couple days before meeting; giving your manager an opportunity to prepare and add their own topics.

Strety Users: Our meeting agendas are collaborative. Leverage the agenda as an active list of topic ideas. This gives your manager an opportunity to offer guidance and advance the conversation within the comment thread, leading to more dialed-in discussion during the actual meeting.

12 Questions to Ask Your Manager

So now you have a rough outline of what to do - what about actionables? I don’t want to provide you a list of uninspired suggestions or contextless questions to ask your manager; you can find those anywhere. I’d like to share with you a list of malleable starting points, with context, that you can bank-up and pull-out whenever you need more from your 1:1s…

\n\n

Team & Organizational Alignment

1. What’s holding our team back from accomplishing [x] ?

Identify the main problem or bottleneck in your team’s performance and get a better sense as to what management thinks will help overcome it. Gaining insight to how management looks to solve performance issues is valuable knowledge for you to possess.

2. What is one thing I can do to help improve our team’s performance?

The exhibits your commitment to the team or organizational effort and can segue into a discussion about your own skill set.

3. What’s one thing you think we should stop doing?

Knowing which processes or projects that are failing to produce is valuable intel. You can re-prioritize your workload and/or see it as an opportunity to help improve inefficiencies.

4. What factors led to us deciding [x]?

You may not feel comfortable or be in a position to dig too deep as to why certain decisions are made but if you disagree with a decision or want to better understand why your team went a certain direction, it’s important to ask your superior. Conversely, maybe you simply want insights to what goes into a decision making process within positions you aspire to be in one day. Both are perfectly valid and insightful reasons to ask for more.

\n\n

Professional Growth

5. Do you have any recommendations for how I can improve [x] ?

This question is about you and specific skill development. Managers have experience and connections and this is your opportunity to leverage those resources. Ask for recommendations for educational courses, training programs, reading material, or to make introductions to people in their network that can offer additional insights.

6. What do you see as gaps in my skill set?

Learning where you have holes - or perceived holes - is critical knowledge for you to possess. You can either acquire the skill or, if it’s only a perceived gap, begin to more visibly show it off. Don’t run from this question. Ask it. Learn from it. Grow because of it!

7. How do you see my role evolving over the next 12 months?

You have your own ideas for what you want to accomplish - find out where your manager sees you going. Are your visions for you in alignment? If not, you have a lot to talk about in your next 1:1…

8. What can I be doing now to put me in a position to be [x] in [y] time?

Talk to your manager about where you want to go professionally. This does not have to be specific to the opportunities available within your current organization. These are your long-term professional goals. Have them help you lay out the steps, short and long term, to achieve your goals. DO NOT let your annual review be the only time you talk about your career aspirations.

Strety Users: Make this a recurring meeting agenda item so that this remains at the forefront of your 1:1 Meetings. Use action items to hold you and your manager accountable for any to-dos (make a professional introduction, sign up for a training course, etc) that come from your discussion.

\n\n

Building Professional Rapport

9. What do you want to know about my work?

Have empathy for your managers. It’s difficult for managers, especially first-time managers and managers of larger teams, to track the daily activity of each of their direct reports. In asking this question, you’re being proactive in helping them fill-in their blind spots while giving you the opportunity to expound on work - progress & successes - that could be going unnoticed. Managers will appreciate this.

10. How would you like to receive information/deliverables from me?

Every organization has a process and structure for how information is disseminated, but each manager likely has their own personal preference for how they receive info, feedback, updates, or questions. Learn their style. Adapting your deliverables to fit their personal preferences will make their job a little easier and is a simple yet effective way to build rapport.

11. What wins do you need?

1:1s are a two-way street. Don’t shy away about asking your manager about their job. Their focus affects you directly or indirectly. Learning what a manager’s priorities are is another valuable insight. It can also help you frame your work around larger team or organizational objectives.

12, If I need something, what’s the best way to ask for your input?

All managers manage and provide feedback differently. Learning how and where they feel most comfortable providing support - over email, in person, screen share - will increase the likelihood you get the help you need

Own the Agenda

Career development
Personal growth and self improvement
Suggestions for team improvement
Communicating your contributions
Aligning priorities
Personal issues that could impact work performance
Interpersonal issues with coworkers (the good and bad)

12 Questions to Ask Your Manager

\n\n

Team & Organizational Alignment

1. What’s holding our team back from accomplishing [x] ?

2. What is one thing I can do to help improve our team’s performance?

The exhibits your commitment to the team or organizational effort and can segue into a discussion about your own skill set.

3. What’s one thing you think we should stop doing?

Knowing which processes or projects that are failing to produce is valuable intel. You can re-prioritize your workload and/or see it as an opportunity to help improve inefficiencies.

4. What factors led to us deciding [x]?

\n\n

Professional Growth

5. Do you have any recommendations for how I can improve [x] ?

6. What do you see as gaps in my skill set?

7. How do you see my role evolving over the next 12 months?

You have your own ideas for what you want to accomplish - find out where your manager sees you going. Are your visions for you in alignment? If not, you have a lot to talk about in your next 1:1…

8. What can I be doing now to put me in a position to be [x] in [y] time?

\n\n

Building Professional Rapport

9. What do you want to know about my work?

10. How would you like to receive information/deliverables from me?

11. What wins do you need?

12, If I need something, what’s the best way to ask for your input?

Questions to Ask for Magic One-on-One Meetings

One-on-one (1:1) meetings are an opportunity to discuss real-time performance, your career development opportunities, and to receive feedback and ...

Written By: Derek Weaver

April 14, 2020

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The way teams work and collaborate has changed, and not just in response to COVID-19. A study released by Zug in 2018 found that 70% of professionals worked remotely at least one day per week. An Owl Labs study from last year shows 20% of respondents would take a pay cut of more than 10% to work remotely. We all know it, distributed teams are the new norm, even beyond the post COVID-19 world.

\n","post_body":"

\n\n

Jason Fried, cofounder/CEO of Basecamp, has been advocating on behalf of remote work for 20+ years. “The beauty of remote working is the opportunity to improve the way you work, to cut way back on meetings”. Though we know Jason Fried and his company really, really dislike meetings, you notice he doesn’t say “eliminate all meetings”...

Team meetings are vital for all teams, but especially for distributed teams. Weekly team meetings are one of the few opportunities managers have to communicate with everyone all together and ensure alignment. Plus they’re great for a little [awkward] virtual bonding! Therefore these meetings need to be effective, efficient, and well thought through ahead of time. And realize it’s okay if you’re not there yet. Jason Fried said it best:

\n
“If you threw a guitar at me, and I’ve never played a guitar before, everyone would understand that I’m going to suck,” Fried says. “It’s the same thing for remote work. If people haven’t practiced before, they’re going to suck for a little bit.”
\n

So you may be asking yourself how you can make your remote meetings more efficient. What do you need in your tech stack? How should you prepare for a remote meeting versus an in-person one? How do you ensure attendee participation and engagement?

We’ve learned that the distributed teams that are most successful at running their team meetings remotely are those that:

Are intentional about why they’re meeting
Put extra effort into meeting preparation
Understand how to apply tools to maximize the effectiveness of the remote meeting

We’ve pulled from our collective past experiences leading and working on distributed teams to run Strety as a 100% remote company. We’ve learned what works for us through trial, error, and iteration - It will be the same for you. Use our experience as guide rails and start learning what works for you and your distributed team

Pre-Meeting Preparation

Establish Meeting Guidelines

Team meetings can drastically differ in size and scope. Whether it’s a decision-making meeting, a problem-solving meeting, a standup, or an information-sharing meeting, some universally understood decorum is necessary to ensure your meeting operates smoothly.

Some questions to think about: What is the protocol for speaking out? Can anyone speak? Should they wait to be called on by the meeting leader? Does everyone need to have their camera on? Do you want non-speakers to be muted?

Write these guidelines up and disperse them to your team ahead of any remote meetings so everyone is on the page and you’re not using up valuable time to address breaches of etiquette.

Find a Time

I worked from Lisbon last year and had meetings with teams and accounts scattered throughout the US, Europe, and Australia. If your team is distributed throughout different time zones, you’ll have to put some thought into the best time for everyone to attend.

There are plenty of tools to help you speed up the process of finding acceptable time zones for your team. I loved worldtimebuddy, which lets you add the locations of multiple team members and quickly compare what time it is - or will become meeting time - in any part of the world.

Tech Stack

Lifted straight from Slack’s Ultimate Guide to Digital Meetings: First ask yourself: What is the key functionality you need for your remote team meeting to be successful? Do you need to be able to see everyone’s reactions as you share new product ideas?. Do you need everyone to be able to work on a press release collaboratively? Do you need everyone to watch a demo in real time?

The key here is what are your needs. While each team within an organization is different, every remote team meeting needs to leverage, at the very least, an online meeting tool with both audio and video.

Now that you know what you need, do your research! Find tools that fill your conferencing, communication, project management, meeting agenda, and documentation gaps. We mostly use Zoom, but here’s a list of Owl Labs 10 Best Video Meetings Apps so you can see what may work best for you.

One last thing: Everyone should arrive a few minutes early just to make sure their tech is set up and functioning correctly. Trust us :)

Shared Meeting Agendas

You know that universally applicable, but often misattributed, Abe quote “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe”? Well, I love it. I apply it to everything, and it applies to meeting preparation, too.

Preparedness doesn’t pertain solely to the meeting organizer, it applies to the entire team. How do you control the preparedness of your meeting attendees? Shared, collaborative meeting agendas - that’s how! If your meeting doesn’t have one, you can easily spend 5-10 minutes on each topic catching everyone up to speed.

By creating a shared, collaborative meeting agenda and giving everyone access in the days leading up to the meeting, you give all attendees time to:

Contribute to the agenda
Ask for additional context or resources
Organize and prepare their own thoughts around agenda items

A shared meeting agenda gives an opportunity for all attendees to be heard and to be fully prepared for an effective meeting. Zero downsides to that!

Running a Distributed Team Meeting

Agenda Must-Haves

I say must but I really mean should - you run your own show - but from our experience, these are must-haves for any remote team meeting:

Key talking points\n
- List in order of importance. Items near the top of the list usually receive more floor time
\n
Quick check-in\n
- Open the meeting by asking how everyone is feeling. Extra important for distributed teams
\n
Responsibilities\n
- Don’t let people check out. Construct your agenda so everyone has something they’re responsible for
\n
Relevant Resources \n
- Docs, links, etc that support agenda items
\n

The Meeting Itself

You and your team have curated a collaborative agenda, now follow it! Throw the agenda up on a screen-share and run through each item, one by one. Running through the agenda together ensures everyone stays on point and gives you a re-centering point if you veer off on tangents. If you find your meetings are routinely running long, we suggest including a timer for each agenda item to help you stay on track.

Notes

Take notes as you go. Designate a primary note taker for the meeting and have them summarize any key takeaways or decisions made from each agenda item. Before you close out the item, have the note-taker read the summary to the group to ensure everyone is on the same page. If you aren’t, this gives people an opportunity to voice that NOW. Now is better than later.

Action items

Meetings often lead to more work. Hold people accountable by assigning follow-ups, deliverables, and next steps including due dates during the meeting. If it’s a multi-person effort, assign ownership of the follow-up to one person. Make it clear who is responsible. This will reduce the likelihood of someone saying “I thought you were gonna do it”.

Strety Users: Assign an Action Item with a due date within your Meeting Agenda and all the context around the topic will be visible for the Action Item owner. You'll be reminded of your Action Items from your Strety homepage

$\"Agenda$

Post Meeting

Share Notes

Those notes you took? Hopefully you have an effective way to share them! If you can attach the notes to the meeting agenda itself, even better. Again, that context will be critical for anyone who wants to look back at the meeting, allowing them to self-serve themselves the answer versus distracting someone with a, “Hey, what did we decide to do about the overdue accounts?”.

Feedback & Adjustment

We believe you should always ask for meeting feedback, but doubly so if you’re running remote meetings. Ask open ended, guided questions. You need continuous feedback to learn whether a meeting was viewed as effective/productive and if attendees saw it as a valuable use of their time.

It’s okay if you get negative feedback, that can lead to open discussion about how you can improve. A few sample questions you can ask to get quality feedback:

Are there any improvements we need to make around the tools we use (tech stack) for our meetings?
Do you think any changes need to be made around the structure of our team meetings?
Are we meeting enough/not enough?

Pre-Meeting Preparation

Establish Meeting Guidelines

Write these guidelines up and disperse them to your team ahead of any remote meetings so everyone is on the page and you’re not using up valuable time to address breaches of etiquette.

Find a Time

Tech Stack

One last thing: Everyone should arrive a few minutes early just to make sure their tech is set up and functioning correctly. Trust us :)

Shared Meeting Agendas

By creating a shared, collaborative meeting agenda and giving everyone access in the days leading up to the meeting, you give all attendees time to:

Contribute to the agenda
Ask for additional context or resources
Organize and prepare their own thoughts around agenda items

A shared meeting agenda gives an opportunity for all attendees to be heard and to be fully prepared for an effective meeting. Zero downsides to that!

Running a Distributed Team Meeting

Agenda Must-Haves

I say must but I really mean should - you run your own show - but from our experience, these are must-haves for any remote team meeting:

Key talking points\n
- List in order of importance. Items near the top of the list usually receive more floor time
\n
Quick check-in\n
- Open the meeting by asking how everyone is feeling. Extra important for distributed teams
\n
Responsibilities\n
- Don’t let people check out. Construct your agenda so everyone has something they’re responsible for
\n
Relevant Resources \n
- Docs, links, etc that support agenda items
\n

The Meeting Itself

Notes

Action items

$\"Agenda$

Post Meeting

Share Notes

Feedback & Adjustment

It’s okay if you get negative feedback, that can lead to open discussion about how you can improve. A few sample questions you can ask to get quality feedback:

Are there any improvements we need to make around the tools we use (tech stack) for our meetings?
Do you think any changes need to be made around the structure of our team meetings?
Are we meeting enough/not enough?

5 Ways to Avoid Groupthink

1. Pairing

Pairing is a concept from Steven Rogelberg’s The Surprising Science of Meetings where you split your team into pairs to discuss meeting ideas/topics for a few minutes before moving to the all-attendee discussion.

Pairing gets everyone involved; creating a more inviting environment for those new or introverted team members to express their opinions. Rogelberg’s studies show that partners of less vocal employees tend to advocate for their partner’s ideas, ensuring their voice is still heard.

The key to Pairing, Rogelberg believes, is to make it clear that everything said in the breakout conversations is tentative and that you aren’t looking for definitive resolutions.

2. Brainwriting

Straight from Wikipedia, Brainwriting is a group-structured brainstorming technique aimed at aiding innovation by stimulating creativity. It can take a variety of forms, but the general idea contends that participants silently write ideas, opinions, or responses around a specific topic or meeting agenda item before open discussion.

The key to generating more diversity of thought here is anonymity. By removing the noise and the name, you force your entire team to bring their ideas to discussion. Brainwriting produces 20% more ideas and 42% original ideas as compared to brainstorming while helping mitigate groupthink by reducing the likelihood that meeting attendees will forego their own ideas and embrace someone else’s.

Put it into practice: Have your team write down their individual thoughts or ideas pertaining to a specific topic on separate index cards then vote and/or have a discussion around them

3. Sharing Meeting Agendas

Imagine you’ve been thinking about a problem for a week straight. You've done your research but you want to hear feedback from your team before making your next move. You raise the problem in your next team meeting hoping to elicit a lively discussion on what to do next....

If this is your process, you’re doing your team a disservice! Expecting them to have real-time well-formulated opinions or concrete ideas on a topic you’ve spent days preparing for is an open invitation for groupthink to permeate your discussion.

Put it into practice: Send out a shared meeting agenda 2-3 days in advance so your team can prepare, leading to a more thoughtful discussion and, hopefully, better business decisions

Strety Users: Use Comments to further the discussion leading up to your meetings and leverage Action Items to assign any required tasks to ensure everyone is on the same page before your next meeting.

$\"shared$

4. Silent Reading

I’m going to somewhat contradict the previous suggestion because each business is different and not all solutions to mitigating groupthink are universal!

Jeff Bezos believes ideas should be “evaluated on their merits and not influenced by the flash, personality, and speaking talents of the presenter… nor should there be implicit pressure to be socially cohesive when dictating choices that are made in a meeting”. Where Amazon differs is their institutionalized practice that all ideas, concepts, and proposals have to be thoroughly documented

Amazon includes a period of silence within the meeting to read relevant documents. This assures necessary preparation is done by all attendees, reassures that the work is valuable, and prevents groupthink by giving attendees the opportunity to formulate their own unbiased opinion of the presentation before the presenter speaks.

Additionally, Silent Reading gives the presenter the opportunity to express detailed ideas and rationale on a deeper level than they could orally. Attendees gain control over the knowledge acquisition; allowing them to slow down and re-read sections. The self-pacing increases understanding and retention and the discussions that flow post-practice are the benefactor.

**5. Solicit, i.e force, Feedback**

When groupthink occurs, ideas get adopted and the organization quickly moves on. Not so fast. Try having everyone in attendance write down or submit one piece of positive feedback and one piece of critical feedback around each topic or agenda item. This forces your team to think critically about the decisions made in your organization.

Put it into practice: Leverage email, documentation tools like Google Docs, internal communication tools like Slack or Teams, or a a performance management tool like Strety to generate real-time feedback about decisions that matter

If you didn’t already, you now understand the dangers groupthink can present to your organization and how you can be proactive in combating it. It’s all about creating a work environment where the best ideas can come forth and better decisions can be made as a result!

Share Your Strategy

Send us a quick email - info@strety.com - telling us how you’ve successfully curbed groupthink, whether through the ideas presented here or your own original solutions. We’d love to learn from you!

","rss_summary":"

\n","rss_body":"

\n\n

Regardless of reason - whether it be new, shy, or unprepared employees or lack of cognitive and cultural diversity within the team - the output is the same:

\n
When your team engages in groupthink it stunts your ability to get the best ideas on the table and can lead to impulsive and ineffective decision-making during team meetings.
\n

Avoiding groupthink starts with management. It’s critical that you construct an environment that encourages team members to openly contribute their thoughts, ideas, and opinions.

If you want the best ideas on the table you must have processes and practices in place to:

Monitor signs of groupthink
Analyze and validate the decision-making process
Facilitate open feedback from all involved.

Here are a five actionable ways to mitigate groupthink that we believe in:

5 Ways to Avoid Groupthink

1. Pairing

The key to Pairing, Rogelberg believes, is to make it clear that everything said in the breakout conversations is tentative and that you aren’t looking for definitive resolutions.

2. Brainwriting

Put it into practice: Have your team write down their individual thoughts or ideas pertaining to a specific topic on separate index cards then vote and/or have a discussion around them

3. Sharing Meeting Agendas

Put it into practice: Send out a shared meeting agenda 2-3 days in advance so your team can prepare, leading to a more thoughtful discussion and, hopefully, better business decisions

$\"shared$

4. Silent Reading

I’m going to somewhat contradict the previous suggestion because each business is different and not all solutions to mitigating groupthink are universal!

**5. Solicit, i.e force, Feedback**

Share Your Strategy

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Management Tips

Groupthink is a Trap: How Managers Can Avoid It

We all know what groupthink is. We’ve all seen it go down in meetings. In the rare case you haven’t, groupthink is the phenomenon in which people ...

Written By: Derek Weaver

April 2, 2020

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Daily standup meetings have become a ritual for many teams, especially those using the Scrum methodology. Daily standups can help everyone stay on the same page and communicate more effectively—but these types of team meetings can quickly turn into a time drain if they aren’t run effectively.

\n","post_body":"

\n\n

So, here are some standup meeting best practices so you can lead your team’s daily standups with confidence!

\n\n

What is a Daily Standup Meeting?

A daily standup meeting, also known as a scrum meeting, is a daily get-together that helps teams sync up and prepare to have a productive day. This type of team meeting is typically capped at 15 minutes (although this may need adjusting depending on the size of the team).

\n\n

What are the Benefits of Daily Standups?

There are many benefits to daily standup meetings, which is why they’ve become so popular amongst modern teams! Daily standups can create higher performing teams by making it possible to:

Track each team member’s progress on their list of priorities
Identify obstacles to productivity
Clarify objectives and goals
Ensure that everyone is working towards those same goals together
Stay focused on a shorter window of time, preventing employees from feeling overwhelmed
Encourage team communication
Foster collaboration
Empower team members to feel comfortable bringing up issues and asking each other for support

\n\n

Example of a Daily Standup Agenda

The great thing about daily standup agendas is that they’re short and dialed-in. In fact, only three core topics should be discussed at your daily standup meetings. Your daily standup agenda should include asking participants to go around and answer the following questions:

What did I do yesterday? Have each team member share their progress on what they worked on the day before, focusing on the activities that are relevant to the overall goals and initiatives of the team.
What am I doing today? Next, each team member should cover all the things they plan to accomplish that day—knowing they’ll be held accountable to give a progress report on those tasks in tomorrow’s daily standup meeting.
Are there any obstacles impeding my progress? Each team member should voice if they have any concerns about their task list for the day. This includes any cross-departmental dependencies, technical limitations, and lack of resources.

Yup, that’s it! Any items that will take longer than a few minutes to discuss should be addressed after the daily standup meeting.

\n\n

How Can You Run More Effective Daily Standups?

There are clearly many benefits of daily standups—but there can also be some pitfalls, too.

In our digitally-driven, hyper-connected world, the way we work has changed. More and more companies offer remote work policies, which means employees are often working on the go.

With this working model, daily standups can easily become a waste of time. When everyone has to stop what they're doing and get on a live call or meet live, it can quickly become distracting. It’s even more challenging to get everyone together for a live daily standup if team members are off-site in client meetings, living in different time zones, getting work done on a flight, etc. Plus, if someone is off for the day or out sick, they won’t get a chance to hear what was talked about in the daily standup meeting.

So, how is it possible to lead daily standups that are actually effective—rather than distracting—in our modern working world? By going digital! You can make the most of your team’s daily standups by using a reliable team meeting software, and Strety is the solution you’ve been looking for.

Instead of having live daily standups that interrupt the flow of people's workday each and every day, you can ask those three questions from our daily standup agendas via a virtual check in within Strety. Through our all-in-one performance management and people management product, you’ll also be able to:

Set up the questions you want to ask and send them to your whole team at once
Store and send notes on each employee’s responses from your virtual daily standup meeting
Track progress and goals
Use team message boards to make virtual communication simple
Create discreet automated reminders for recurring tasks and questions
Keep all your notes, action items, and progress benchmarks in one organized place
And more!

\n\n

Keep Track of Your Standups in Teams

Daily standup meetings are designed to be short, focused, and engaging—resulting in more seamless team cohesion and project management. If you're collaborating with your team in Microsoft Teams, shouldn't standups live there, too? Strety is the team meeting software that can make this possible.

With Strety, you can collaborate on agendas, make note of decisions, and add context to goals -- all within Microsoft Teams.

Contact us to book a tour or to ask any questions you may have about our performance management product for modern teams!

","rss_summary":"

\n","rss_body":"

\n\n

So, here are some standup meeting best practices so you can lead your team’s daily standups with confidence!

\n\n

What is a Daily Standup Meeting?

\n\n

What are the Benefits of Daily Standups?

There are many benefits to daily standup meetings, which is why they’ve become so popular amongst modern teams! Daily standups can create higher performing teams by making it possible to:

Track each team member’s progress on their list of priorities
Identify obstacles to productivity
Clarify objectives and goals
Ensure that everyone is working towards those same goals together
Stay focused on a shorter window of time, preventing employees from feeling overwhelmed
Encourage team communication
Foster collaboration
Empower team members to feel comfortable bringing up issues and asking each other for support

\n\n

Example of a Daily Standup Agenda

What did I do yesterday? Have each team member share their progress on what they worked on the day before, focusing on the activities that are relevant to the overall goals and initiatives of the team.
What am I doing today? Next, each team member should cover all the things they plan to accomplish that day—knowing they’ll be held accountable to give a progress report on those tasks in tomorrow’s daily standup meeting.
Are there any obstacles impeding my progress? Each team member should voice if they have any concerns about their task list for the day. This includes any cross-departmental dependencies, technical limitations, and lack of resources.

Yup, that’s it! Any items that will take longer than a few minutes to discuss should be addressed after the daily standup meeting.

\n\n

How Can You Run More Effective Daily Standups?

There are clearly many benefits of daily standups—but there can also be some pitfalls, too.

In our digitally-driven, hyper-connected world, the way we work has changed. More and more companies offer remote work policies, which means employees are often working on the go.

Set up the questions you want to ask and send them to your whole team at once
Store and send notes on each employee’s responses from your virtual daily standup meeting
Track progress and goals
Use team message boards to make virtual communication simple
Create discreet automated reminders for recurring tasks and questions
Keep all your notes, action items, and progress benchmarks in one organized place
And more!

\n\n

Keep Track of Your Standups in Teams

With Strety, you can collaborate on agendas, make note of decisions, and add context to goals -- all within Microsoft Teams.

Contact us to book a tour or to ask any questions you may have about our performance management product for modern teams!

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Meetings

How to Lead Virtual Daily Standups With Confidence

Daily standup meetings have become a ritual for many teams, especially those using the Scrum methodology. Daily standups can help everyone stay on the ...

Written By: Strety

March 28, 2020

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\n","post_body":"

\n\n

The number of organizations that offer flexible or completely remote work opportunities has steadily increased over the past few years. However, the majority of the world’s workforce still works from an office. As we all do our part to minimize the spread of COVID-19, many organizations are quickly adapting to remote work, creating many first-time work from home (WFH) employees.

We recently brought you suggestions for how managers can help transition their teams into remote work. Today we want to share a few more easily-applicable lessons from our years working remotely that all employees can use during this abrupt transition.

I worked as the sole remote employee at my previous employer, BrightGauge. Let me tell you, transitioning to remote-work is not seamless. It’s like a personal science experiment; you have to perform a lot of small tests to see what makes you most effective. The beauty of remote-work is that if a process isn’t producing, you have much more leeway to adjust it to work in your favor.

We hope the following tips help improve your quality of work and your work-life balance while you transition into WFH.

1. Get Comfortable

Set-up a dedicated workplace where you can minimize noise and distractions. Ideally this is a separate room, but if that’s not possible, set-up in a quieter place (with lots of light) that maximizes your ability to focus.

Depending on the nature of your work, a set of noise cancelling headphones, a secondary monitor, a laptop stand, and bluetooth keyboard & mouse/trackpad can make a huge impact in how quickly you can settle-in and maintain output.

Many of you are splitting your work duties with child and/or parental care; you can only do so much in regards to finding peace, quiet, and comfort amidst a packed house. I see this second-hand through Zoom meetings daily. As a childless, spouseless silverback millennial, I salute you - that is not a walk in the park. The remaining tips are more within your control and will hopefully help you remain focused and productive despite your surroundings.

2. Time Blocking: Optimize Your Schedule

Start each week - or morning - surveying your calendar. Assess what has to be accomplished and block off your schedule to ensure it gets done. A huge part of this is knowing when you are most productive and arranging your work around that schedule. Lessen your reliance on the 9-5. A remote day is more fluid, take advantage of the extra time available to you.

I suggest organizing your day into deep-work blocks to knock out the more focus-requiring elements and shorter reactive work blocks to respond to emails and internal communication channels.

One last thing to note: schedule time for yourself. Trying to fit all the things you want to accomplish within an office workday can be stressful. Leverage the additional time saved from your commute to knock-out a midday run, a long lunch, or just helping around the household. Making time to accomplish more of your personal needs/goals will have a positive impact on your work output.

$\"time$

3. Keep a Routine

Wake up as you would when you commuted to work. Give yourself time to prepare and focus on the day ahead. I strongly suggest not rolling out of bed and jumping on the computer, as the lack of adjustment can easily lead to a decrease in morning output….

…..Unless that’s already part of your routine. Our CEO, Brian, wakes up at 4am everyday and begins to write and that works for him. Different strokes for different folks.

I’ve made a habit to wake up, throw on a work-related podcast and go for a walk. A little movement and brain stimulation before flipping-on work-mode is a must. Truth be told, I sort of forgot how nice a quiet morning walk can be. Newfound appreciation for everyday acts we tend to take for granted can be a silver lining amongst all this uncertainty.

4. Over-communicate

Over communicate up, down, and across the chain, especially in the early going.

It’s super important to stay connected. Make it a daily habit to update your team via email, Slack, Teams, and Zoom with how things are going - obviously about work - but equally important, with your COVID-19 experience/response. This is a first-time event for almost all of us and little intermittent interactions will go a huge way in helping us all stay connected.

To expand here, the transition to remote work means your manager can’t quickly see what you’re up to or read your body language. Help your managers in their transition - it’s new for them too - by communicating with him/her during your daily or weekly 1:1s so they know how you’re holding up and that you’re getting your work done.

5. Reflect on the Workday

Working from home, it’s important to do quick self-assessments. Daily write-ups force you to reflect on what you’ve learned and accomplished. Without reflection, sometimes that growth can go unnoticed. A few short sentences or a bulleted list is all you need to get going.

Important: We recommend sharing these reflections with your manager and potentially your entire team as the feedback and/or minor course corrections received are massively important during the early stages of a remote transition. A shared Google doc, dedicated Slack or Teams channel, or performance management tools are great places to kickstart your writing.

1. Get Comfortable

2. Time Blocking: Optimize Your Schedule

I suggest organizing your day into deep-work blocks to knock out the more focus-requiring elements and shorter reactive work blocks to respond to emails and internal communication channels.

$\"time$

3. Keep a Routine

…..Unless that’s already part of your routine. Our CEO, Brian, wakes up at 4am everyday and begins to write and that works for him. Different strokes for different folks.

4. Over-communicate

Over communicate up, down, and across the chain, especially in the early going.

5. Reflect on the Workday

How to Work From Home: 5 Tips to Help Anyone Adjust

The number of organizations that offer flexible or completely remote work opportunities has steadily increased over the past few years. However, the ...

Written By: Derek Weaver

March 23, 2020

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Did COVID-19 just make you a newly minted Work From Home (WFH) manager? Welcome to the club of remote leaders, there are a ton of us now! Though at Strety we’ve been working remotely for nearly two years, I asked Todd Kaufman who is the CEO of a 50 person remote software agency (TestDouble) to share his advice. This is what he said:

\n","post_body":"

\n\n

\"You will need to focus and prepare more as a remote manager than an in-person one. You won't be able to rely on body language and the stronger relationship that comes from working side by side with your direct reports, so you'll need to up your game.\"

He’s right and we want you to help you up your game. Here are 5 tips to implement right now for your new “Work From Home” team:

1. Start from a place of Trust & Compassion (i.e. do not micro-manage)

Everyone will be going through an adjustment period right now, even you. Deep down you may be experiencing the thought of “when the cat’s away, the mice will play” and have the urge to micromanage your team all day. Especially now with 24/7 online and tv coverage of COVID-19. Stop yourself and start your journey as a remote team manager from a place of trust and compassion.

Your team is full of good people (that’s why you hired them) and they will settle into this new normal and get their work done just as they had done in the office sitting near you. Micromanagement and distrust is a surefire way to add more stress and less focus to this transition. Even if you can’t see them, they will get their work done and you can keep the team humming, focused, and accountable.

2. Set up Daily Check In Process

Once #1 is done, you can now put the processes in place to keep your fears at bay of whether someone is working or not AND provide a lightweight way for employees to feel connected to you and the team. Two ideas to implement:

Team Morning Check in Call - This may feel heavy to start (it is) but during the transition it will be helpful. After a few days, move this to a check in via email, slack, or a people management product. This simple check is where everyone shares what they’re up to for the day and gives a general vibe check in.
Daily Summary Write Ups - Have your direct reports write up a quick blurb of how they felt today, including what they accomplished and what they struggled with. It will give you peace of mind knowing what happened each day and provide a daily incremental coaching and course correction opportunity. And it gives your direct report the opportunity to reflect on their day.

These two simple daily check ins will give your direct reports a sense of normalcy; a feeling of a start and end to the day and a cadence to check in with you so you know how and what they’re doing.

3. Schedule 1:1s Weekly Over Video Call

1:1s are important always but during a transition like this, they’re critical to do weekly! We suggest doing them over a video call (Zoom is the clear winner as a tool). This is your informal catch up to see how remote work is going, what can they be doing better, what you can be doing for them, etc. Stick with consistent and simple agenda items that you share ahead of time. This is a learning experience for everyone so encourage collaboration and transparency about everything going in the lives of your direct report.

4. Feed the FOCUS!

Your job as a remote manager (heck, as any manager) is to ensure your team stays focused. Do your part by limiting instant messages to your direct reports and remove pointless meetings (great sketch The New Yorker put out). Some of your direct reports will have major distractions at home during this crisis and you can help them by being supportive and giving them time to adjust. For others, you will likely hear “I get so much more done remote” so don’t be surprised. That means you’re hitting the sweet spot!

And lastly….

5. Watch for Burnout

This is a stressful time for everyone. Working from home is going to bring enormous challenges for many workers, especially those with kids or elderly parents. You need to manage everyone’s emotional state, be extraordinarily supportive, and help avoid burnout. Not only for their mental state, but for that of your teams.

If you read our blog, you already know: It starts with you. Make sure you're adjusting well, communicating frequently, and protecting your own distractions.

There are lots of resources out there for remote work. We found these two resources most aligned with our beliefs and success in working remotely.

https://www.helpscout.com/playlists/working-remotely

REMOTE Livestream Q&A with Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

","rss_summary":"

\n","rss_body":"

\n\n

\"You will need to focus and prepare more as a remote manager than an in-person one. You won't be able to rely on body language and the stronger relationship that comes from working side by side with your direct reports, so you'll need to up your game.\"

He’s right and we want you to help you up your game. Here are 5 tips to implement right now for your new “Work From Home” team:

1. Start from a place of Trust & Compassion (i.e. do not micro-manage)

2. Set up Daily Check In Process

Team Morning Check in Call - This may feel heavy to start (it is) but during the transition it will be helpful. After a few days, move this to a check in via email, slack, or a people management product. This simple check is where everyone shares what they’re up to for the day and gives a general vibe check in.
Daily Summary Write Ups - Have your direct reports write up a quick blurb of how they felt today, including what they accomplished and what they struggled with. It will give you peace of mind knowing what happened each day and provide a daily incremental coaching and course correction opportunity. And it gives your direct report the opportunity to reflect on their day.

3. Schedule 1:1s Weekly Over Video Call

4. Feed the FOCUS!

And lastly….

5. Watch for Burnout

If you read our blog, you already know: It starts with you. Make sure you're adjusting well, communicating frequently, and protecting your own distractions.

There are lots of resources out there for remote work. We found these two resources most aligned with our beliefs and success in working remotely.

https://www.helpscout.com/playlists/working-remotely

REMOTE Livestream Q&A with Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

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Meetings

Transitioning to “Work From Home” People Management

Did COVID-19 just make you a newly minted Work From Home (WFH) manager? Welcome to the club of remote leaders, there are a ton of us now! Though at ...

Written By: Brian Dosal

March 21, 2020

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What a difference a few weeks can make in this globally connected world of ours....

\n\n

Like everyone, our world has been upended as we have watched and now prepare for the continued spread of COVID-19. We have a variety of content lined-up to share but like many of you, we’re taking a little pause to make sure our families and communities are ready for impact.

Fortunately we are already a fully remote company so we're able to stay productive in our day to day roles - writing code, supporting customers, prepping for our official launch - with minimal adjustments. And as we’ve told our subscriber list via email, we are launching Strety officially in June. COVID-19 should not impact that.

What we all are seeing is that COVID-19 is creating a massive shift, forcing many office-based organizations to rapidly transition to remote work. While this has happened we have learned from our early testers that our product is a tremendous benefit for managers of remote teams. So as we continue our push to go live in June, we will definitely have this shift in mind while building our remaining feature sets.

Once things settle down a bit, we will start sharing more about how we manage a remote workforce, including our experiences at other companies working within and managing remote teams.

Stay safe and healthy everyone! And please do your part to #FlattenTheCurve.

","post_summary":"

What a difference a few weeks can make in this globally connected world of ours....

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Once things settle down a bit, we will start sharing more about how we manage a remote workforce, including our experiences at other companies working within and managing remote teams.

Stay safe and healthy everyone! And please do your part to #FlattenTheCurve.

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What a difference a few weeks can make in this globally connected world of ours....

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Company Update

Strety & COVID-19: Company Updates

What a difference a few weeks can make in this globally connected world of ours.... Like everyone, our world has been upended as we have watched and ...

Written By: Brian Dosal

March 14, 2020

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In my 15 years of managing people, along with working with hundreds of small business leaders, I’ve learned one main lesson to pass on… it all starts with you... the manager! It has become more apparent recently as I’ve been helping companies implement Strety, our passionate People Management product. What I have said to our customers is this:

\n","post_body":"

\n\n

You have to lead by example.

Yes, for sure, it’s a big part of your job (as a manager) to lay the framework for some basic communication requirements. Stuff like:

Schedules for weekly team meetings and 1:1s (daily, weekly, etc)
What check ins are required from everyone and at what frequency
What type of transparency among the team is required.

But setting up the framework is not enough. As a manger, you have to lead by example in how you want things to work. You have to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, or else you’ll never get buy-in.

For example, as a manager you always want to have more productive meetings, especially 1:1 meetings, with direct reports. This means you’ll want an open and meaningful discussion about a wide range of topics. Well if you’re like us, then you know you’ll need to send agenda items ahead of time and ask the same of your direct reports.

For example, you may send them questions like these (with context) so your direct report is prepared.

What’s been unclear in your job responsibilities - I want to get a sense of anything you find unclear about your assignments. This way I can clarify or remove them.
Where do you think you’ve been underutilized in your team - Your skills are important to the team, do you think there is something else you can be adding? Let's discuss.
Anything else? - Please add any other agenda items you want to discuss or hear me discuss

You have to come prepared for your 1:1 meetings or your direct reports never will. If you’re not doing this, you’re not walking the walk. And if you do this and they aren’t adding any topics, keep going, behavior doesn’t change overnight. Eventually they’ll start adding items because they’ll know you’re committed to collaborating on making them better performers. It starts with you.

If you want the team to participate in important weekly check ins like “what challenged you this week?”, it has to start with you participating in them. Show them how you respond to these check ins and they’ll follow your lead. I’m always the first one to share in the companies I’ve run, especially vulnerable weekly check ins like “what challenged you this week?”. It sets the tone that I want to run a transparent and authentic team. I write a short but honest response so the team knows (1) that we’re all open and (2) that it doesn’t have to be the most thorough or time consuming response. It starts with yo

If you want the team to provide solid peer feedback, you should be out in front providing great feedback both publicly and privately. And even more importantly, you should be asking for feedback on your own management performance. One of the reasons we built Strety was how badly I wanted feedback on my own performance as a leader. If you create an environment where peer feedback is accepted and constant… you will be able to receive and react to critical feedback on your own skills. Even better, your peers will provide valuable feedback to each other and support each other. But you know who it starts with right?? Yeah you do, it’s you!

If you're a manager in a larger organization or if you've inherited a team used to a different management style, this can be difficult to accomplish but it isn't impossible. And I would argue it’s even more critical for you to set the tone early and lead by example consistently. Trust me, your direct reports want to be more engaged, want to have their thoughts heard, and want to do good work. It’s up to you to pull it out of them.

Don’t let the opportunity pass you by, lead by example. It starts with you!

","rss_summary":"

\n","rss_body":"

\n\n

You have to lead by example.

Yes, for sure, it’s a big part of your job (as a manager) to lay the framework for some basic communication requirements. Stuff like:

Schedules for weekly team meetings and 1:1s (daily, weekly, etc)
What check ins are required from everyone and at what frequency
What type of transparency among the team is required.

For example, you may send them questions like these (with context) so your direct report is prepared.

What’s been unclear in your job responsibilities - I want to get a sense of anything you find unclear about your assignments. This way I can clarify or remove them.
Where do you think you’ve been underutilized in your team - Your skills are important to the team, do you think there is something else you can be adding? Let's discuss.
Anything else? - Please add any other agenda items you want to discuss or hear me discuss

Don’t let the opportunity pass you by, lead by example. It starts with you!

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Management Tips

Company Culture Starts With You: Advice for Leaders

In my 15 years of managing people, along with working with hundreds of small business leaders, I’ve learned one main lesson to pass on… it all starts ...

Written By: Brian Dosal

March 7, 2020

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People have been asking me about the origin of Strety - and not just about the name - but how the idea came to fruition and why we started a People Management product. It's been asked so frequently lately that I figured a public blog post with the details would be a great idea! So here we go...

\n\n

It was nearly two years ago, in May 2018, that a few different situations converged together that led to the original idea. At that time I was CEO of BrightGauge Software, a 35 person SaaS product that my brother and I founded in 2010. My brother was CEO of Compuquip Cybersecurity, a 20 person cybersecurity consulting firm founded by our father in 1980. Two small but growing businesses!

Managing Growing Teams

BrightGauge was growing very fast in 2016 and 2017 - from 7 employees to 35 with no end in sight. To handle all the growth and keep our unique culture going, I promoted the best people from within our teams to become managers. As you might imagine, many were first time managers. Meanwhile, my brother was managing a regrowth in our cybersecurity firm with an established culture and experienced management team. But that leadership team required some shuffling to prepare for this next phase of growth.

As CEOs, we were both (and still are) very focused on efficiency and productivity among ourselves, our management team, and entire organization. Meaning, we did not want any time wasted in meetings, in communication problems, or mis-alignment. We wanted everyone focused on their work and getting sh*t done, including managers. To us it came down to having the right people in the right jobs, a basic requirement, but on top of that it was about keeping everyone fired up about their work and focused on the right priorities. We did this by communicating (1) constantly about everything, (2) being authentic and transparent with the company, and (3) leading by example.

We realized that no matter how much we did as CEOs, a lot ultimately came down to the management team leading employees day to day. And that’s where things, for us, became a bit unclear in how that was progressing. Though we had tools to manage our projects, our support tickets, our pipeline, and dashboards to manage KPIs... we had no tools to manage our employees or to ensure our managers were doing the same. Much of that visibility came through conversations in management meetings, hallway run-ins with employees, during annual performance reviews, or random private slack messages. All over the place and undocumented (except for reviews).

To me, that was terribly inefficient. Surely, I thought, there was a system out there built for companies like ours. I looked around and… not really. Many of these “soft” management jobs are built into HR systems but were not given much thought to by the vendors. Or they were built in big performance management products that were very “heavy” to use and enterprise focused. Neither was ok for us.

We wanted something that integrated into our day to day communication tools, that was easy to use, while still having all the power of an enterprise toolset. And if we wanted a tool like this, we knew there were many others that wanted this product just like us!

We were looking to find \"what's next\" at the same time

At that time BrightGauge, the product, was starting to feel a bit too bloated in its feature set. We reached a point where we were just cluttering the user interface to add things for the sake of adding things. In analytics, which is what BrightGauge was all about, it was easy to get sucked into building more spreadsheet-like features. Just look at Microsoft Excel, it has a TON of features and is quite a bit cumbersome to use... not what we wanted out of BrightGauge.

We were so stuck that we actually had been planning to re-write BrightGauge from scratch...just to give it a new take. After working on the proof of concept for a rewrite we felt it was too risky of a project. It would have been two years of a whole development team for potentially little gain. The feeling around our management team was that it was time to find something new to build!

Keep in mind, BrightGauge was a dashboard and reporting company that was used by managers to manage teams by KPIs. Think to do list counts, profitability numbers, response time averages, etc. It was (and still is) an incredibly helpful product to manage people by the numbers. But all the important people/soft stuff was missing. The soft stuff like how were the employees feeling about their work, about the company's vision, how did their peers perceive them, what things were they working on to advance the company’s mission, or their own careers. These were all the questions that went unanswered by BrightGauge.

I felt this was something we could build a product around. And sell to the same audience who bought BrightGauge because they liked the type of easy to use, purpose built for small businesses product we liked to build.

Our market was asking for this type of system… in a roundabout way

Lastly, and the most impactful situation converging, was that our BrightGauge customers were asking for these types of features already!!! Just not directly. At BrightGauge we only marketed and sold to Managed Services Providers (MSPs) of which there are about 20,000 worldwide in english speaking countries. At the time of our sale of BrightGauge in late 2018, we were fortunate enough to call 2,000 of them customers. Every quarter we would lead workshops with customers on how to run a company (primarily using BrightGauge). I would personally lead these workshops and at some point in each workshop, the conversation would break down into \"how do you manage talent and keep them engaged and productive”. And this conversation was totally outside the KPI world and more about 1:1 meetings, performance reviews, and that soft stuff I was feeling was so important as well.

As I talked to these small business managers and my friends who also ran companies, I realized this product idea had a broader appeal outside then the MSP market. Therefore this couldn’t be part of BrightGauge, it had to be a separate product all together.

And off we went to build Strety!

We started building Strety in July of 2018 not knowing BrightGauge would be sold 5 months later. Though we started building a foundation of a product, we put a hold on building the entire system until after the sale.

Once the sale was announced in early 2019, off we went to build Strety as an independent product and company. We (re)started in February 2019 and released a beta version in October of that year. Here we are 4 months later with 25 companies using Strety and providing amazingly important feedback on what’s critical to manage their people. And soon we will launch for all companies to use!

Ready to Strety in 2020!

If this story resonates with you and you’re interested in trying out Strety, contact us. We’ll get you in the product as soon as possible!

","post_summary":"

\n\n

Managing Growing Teams

We were looking to find \"what's next\" at the same time

Our market was asking for this type of system… in a roundabout way

And off we went to build Strety!

Ready to Strety in 2020!

If this story resonates with you and you’re interested in trying out Strety, contact us. We’ll get you in the product as soon as possible!

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Company Update

Strety Origin Story

People have been asking me about the origin of Strety - and not just about the name - but how the idea came to fruition and why we started a People ...

Written By: Brian Dosal

February 29, 2020

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Congratulations, you’ve been promoted to a leadership position within your organization 🎉!

\n","post_body":"

Congratulations, you’ve been promoted to a leadership position within your organization 🎉!

\n\n

Even though you're likely over the moon about your promotion, a new role always comes with new changes and obstacles. Becoming a new manager and getting comfortable in a different position can be challenging, and it’s easy to overlook some simple things that will make the transition a lot smoother.

If you’re wondering what to do as a new manager, this list of tips for your first day is a great place to start!

Why Your First Day as a Manager Matters

We all know how important first impressions are. Your first day as a manager is an important opportunity to make a positive impression and begin building credibility and relationships with your new direct reports. While you’re not new to the team, you’re new to your leadership role—which means you’re still making a first impression.

No pressure, but everyone will be watching, from your team members to your boss and peers 👀. So, you want to have a strong start and make the most of your first day as a manager! How can you do it?

4 Things a New Manager Should do on Their First Day

Here is a new manager checklist of four simple things you should always do on your first day as a new manager:

1. Get to Know Your Direct Reports in a New Way

If you’re wondering what new managers need to know, the #1 thing isn’t a skill—it’s their team 🧑‍🤝‍🧑! Even though you already know the people in your organization, your relationships and responsibilities as a leader will be different than they were in your previous role. So, it’s important to start establishing those manager/direct report relationships (which are much different than relationships amongst coworkers) from the get-go. Now that you’re a manager, it’s essential to know what each employee’s strengths are, what challenges they’re facing in their job role, what their career development goals are, etc. These are things you likely haven’t uncovered as their team member, but will definitely need to know as their manager.

Your willingness to meet with, listen to, and learn from your new direct reports shows that you respect them and truly want to help better the company—plus helps you to build deeper personal relationships that can translate into better work 😃. Be sure to take good notes during these meetings, jotting down any issues you notice, areas for opportunity, or ideas you have 📝. Then, once you have your lay of the land and feel comfortable in your new role, you can get to work making those changes and improvements!

2. Start Looking Beyond Your Own Team

As a first time manager, your own direct reports aren’t the only important people in the organization that you should get to know better. It’s also important to have a firm understanding of what other departments do and how they operate. This will give you an awareness of the role your team plays in the bigger picture of the organization 🤝. It also helps you learn who to go to in different situations or if you need something. As a team member, you may not have had to deal with leaders or employees from other departments, but as a manager, you definitely will.

However, there’s simply no way you could meet with every single person and have a firm understanding of everything that’s going on from your first day as a manager alone. What you can do is start setting up meetings over the next couple of weeks with people from various departments 📅. Get a meeting on the books with HR so you can gain a deeper understanding of your company culture—and how to be an example of it to your direct reports. Ask for the opportunity to attend meetings with other teams and departments so you can listen in and observe. Hearing about opportunities and challenges across the organization can give you deeper insights and ideas that people on your own team may not have thought of before 💡.

3. Keep it Positive

Another important new manager tip is to remember that your new direct reports are used to the way they’ve been working. So, if you notice processes that are inefficient or areas where improvements could be made, your very first day as a manager isn’t the right time to tell them everything they’ve been doing is wrong. You'll have plenty of time to make changes and improvements, so resist the urge to make criticisms and keep your first impression all about the positives 😌.

While you’ll probably feel excited to hit the ground running 🏃‍♂️ as a first time manager, it’s important to take the time to build a strong foundation and knowledge base. After all, you can’t help your teams improve or fix inefficient processes if you have no idea that a problem exists or what it means. Plus, if you come in with a negative attitude, your direct reports likely won’t feel comfortable voicing their problems or raising concerns to you—which means you’ll never be able to help fix them 😔.

4. Find a Mentor

Mentorship is a valuable thing to have in any position and especially important when you’re in a brand new role. As a first time manager, having a reliable person you can go to for guidance, advice, and support will be crucial to your success 👏! So, on your first day as a manager, scope out the other successful managers in your organizations and identify one you’d like to observe and learn from.

Don’t be stubborn here—being a manager is harder than it looks. Pick someone to learn from and ask them to be your mentor. Beyond just helping to ease the transition into your new role and make you feel more comfortable as a first time manager, you’ll be able to learn a whole lot 🤓! Having an experienced role model to look up to, answer your questions, and lead you on the right track with new manager training can help you become a better manager to your own teams down the road.

Use the Right Tools to Manage Your Team

While these new manager tips are valuable, implementing them all on your own can be tricky. You need access to the right tools and technologies to make it happen 🛠️.

Luckily, there are lots of modern tools out there that first time managers can use to streamline the day-to-day tasks of being a manager, freeing up time for bigger-picture tasks and new manager training.

If your organization uses Microsoft Teams, the tool you need is Strety.

Strety lives inside Microsoft Teams to help new managers keep track of workload, timelines, projects, performance goals, communication, and more -- without having to switch tools. It's a system to help you stop sweating the details 💦 and start focusing on being the best possible manager to your team.

With Strety, you'll be able to:

Run more efficient and effective meetings
Set and track employee, team, and company goals
Send and store team announcements
Ask recurring questions
Set automated reminders for more streamlined project management

Do you want a smooth, seamless transition into your role as a new manager? If so, you’re ready to Strety! Contact us today to learn more about our tool and how it can make your first day as a manager—and every day after that—effective and enjoyable.

","rss_summary":"

Congratulations, you’ve been promoted to a leadership position within your organization 🎉!

\n","rss_body":"

Congratulations, you’ve been promoted to a leadership position within your organization 🎉!

\n\n

If you’re wondering what to do as a new manager, this list of tips for your first day is a great place to start!

Why Your First Day as a Manager Matters

4 Things a New Manager Should do on Their First Day

Here is a new manager checklist of four simple things you should always do on your first day as a new manager:

1. Get to Know Your Direct Reports in a New Way

2. Start Looking Beyond Your Own Team

3. Keep it Positive

4. Find a Mentor

Use the Right Tools to Manage Your Team

While these new manager tips are valuable, implementing them all on your own can be tricky. You need access to the right tools and technologies to make it happen 🛠️.

If your organization uses Microsoft Teams, the tool you need is Strety.

With Strety, you'll be able to:

Run more efficient and effective meetings
Set and track employee, team, and company goals
Send and store team announcements
Ask recurring questions
Set automated reminders for more streamlined project management

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Management Tips

What Should a New Manager do on the First Day?

Congratulations, you’ve been promoted to a leadership position within your organization 🎉! Even though you're likely over the moon about your ...

Written By: Strety

February 19, 2020

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Giving feedback to employees and receiving manager feedback are two core responsibilities of your role as a manager. If you’re looking for ideas on how to give and receive feedback in more efficient, engaging, and effective ways, then we’ve got you covered! Let’s dive in… 🏊

\n\n

Why Employee Feedback is Important

Employee feedback is the process of managers, supervisors, and peers giving constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement to an employee. Employee feedback is a two-way street—it also includes an employee giving feedback to his/her manager, peers, or the organization as a whole.

Giving feedback to employees (both when things are going well and when they aren’t) is one of the most crucial responsibilities of a manager. It can help them identify areas of opportunity to develop new skills, improve job performance, and promote their personal and professional growth.

Receiving feedback from your employees can help you improve as a manager while simultaneously bettering the organization as a whole. The result? Happier, higher performing employees and more effective leadership—all working together to meet the goals of the business 😍!

\n\n

How to Get Feedback From Your Employees

One of the primary roles of a manager is giving employee feedback—but what’s often overlooked is getting employee feedback. Many businesses rely on exit interviews to gain insight into a manager’s effectiveness, but what good does it do to uncover how an employee feels about you as their manager when they’re leaving the company?

If you have a way for your leadership team to receive frequent employee feedback, you could get ahead of the issue and improve employee retention. Seeing as a Gallup study found 50% of Americans have left a job to “get away from their manager at some point in their career,” having these insights sooner can help your organization reduce costly employee turnover 💰.

So, you want to be sure you’re regularly asking for feedback while your employees are still your employees and you can actually make changes to benefit them! This may involve asking for feedback during regular check-ins, team meetings, or 1:1 meetings, or sending out monthly or quarterly surveys 📝.

No matter how you get the feedback, here are a few major things you should always do when asking for manager feedback from your employees:

Make it clear you value manager feedback 🤗. When you’re the boss, it can be awkward to ask your direct reports to tell you what they think of your performance—and it can be even more awkward and intimidating for the employee. So, make sure your employees know you actually value their feedback so they feel more comfortable giving it. You're not perfect, and letting your team members know you’re always looking to improve makes you a more transparent, approachable boss.
Ask specific employee feedback questions ❓. Asking “do you have any feedback for me?” is simply too vague. Instead, ask specific yet open-ended questions to help your direct reports come up with more relevant, helpful answers. For example, instead of asking, “Do you like our team meetings,” you could ask questions like, “What’s something I could change about the way I lead our meetings to make them more engaging,” or, “Do you think our team meetings are well organized? If not, how do you think we could make them more efficient?”
Lead by example 🚶‍♂️. If you want your direct reports to listen to and apply your employee feedback, then you need to be able to do the same. Accept manager feedback with a positive attitude and work to actually implement the changes and improvements your team is asking for. This shows you’re invested in being a better manager and willing to work on your weaknesses—which will make it easier for them to accept your feedback on their own areas for improvements.

\n\n

How to Learn From Employee Feedback

In order to be an effective manager, you need to be able to show your employees that you’re actually learning from their feedback. However, learning from feedback, especially negative or redirecting feedback, can be a challenge 🤯.

Here are a few simple tips for learning from employee feedback so you can actually turn insight into action.

Look for patterns. Try to find patterns or commonalities in your manager feedback. Did a lot of your employees bring up the same concerns or problems in a recent employee feedback survey? For example, let’s say 8 out of 10 of your team members made a comment about your team meetings being unorganized. This is a pattern you should definitely pay attention to!

Address priorities first. As a manager, you won’t be able to address every concern or make every change your employees are asking for overnight. So how can you prioritize? If you do identify patterns or recurring issues, address those problems first. If the majority of your team seems to have the same problem, you’ll want to get it handled as quickly as possible to avoid negative impact on team morale and performance.

Be transparent about changes. When your employees are being vocal about manager feedback, you want to make sure you’re being vocal about how you’re handling it, too. Don’t just quietly make changes and assume your employees will notice—be open, honest, and upfront about the improvements you’re making and why.

\n\n

How to Give Feedback to Your Employees

Now that you know the ins and outs of getting manager feedback, the next part is being able to effectively give it to your employees.

It can be hard and awkward to have tough conversations about professional performance 😖—especially with someone you like personally. But as a manager, giving employee feedback is a crucial part of your job role. So how can you do it effectively?

A study quoted in the book First, Break All The Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham says that the world’s best managers share three characteristics. They all tend to:

Exchange feedback continuously 🔄. If you only give employee feedback during annual performance reviews, you may give your team members the impression that you’re giving them feedback because “it’s that time of year and you have to.” On the other hand, when you provide more regular feedback or constructive comments as soon as you notice something your direct reports can improve upon, it makes it possible to nip issues in the bud right as they occur. If left unsaid, issues will only get worse, and by the time the annual performance review rolls around, you’ll have to deal with a whole slew of issues that could have been avoided if resolved earlier.
Focus on employee strengths 💪. As we mentioned earlier, it’s important to stay positive while giving employee feedback. Make sure to give reinforcing feedback and highlight an employee’s accomplishments when they’re doing something well! This boosts morale and shows your employees you appreciate them. When you do have to give negative feedback, use the redirection method to spin it in a more positive light. Don’t just focus on the employee’s actions, but figure out next steps and talk through ways in which you could help. Always try to balance positive and negative feedback—if you have to discuss an employee’s weakness, make sure you also highlight one of their strengths.
Praise in public and provide criticism in private 🤫. If you need to give a team member constructive feedback, make sure to give it in private and ideally in person during a 1:1 meeting. You don’t want to send performance feedback in an instant message or email—this feels impersonal and shows your employee you don’t care about taking the time to meet face to face. You also don’t want to call out an individual in a team meeting or in front of their coworkers. This can make an employee feel incredibly uncomfortable and create a competitive nature amongst your team. Instead, find a quiet space to offer your feedback and advice face-to-face. On the other hand, employee praise or positive recognition can be shared publicly (as long as your report is comfortable with it).

\n\n

6 Manager Feedback Examples to Follow

Here are some examples of how you can effectively give both positive and negative employee feedback.

Positive Employee Feedback Examples

“Something I really appreciate about you is your ability to effectively brainstorm and collaborate with your team.”
“I think you did a really great job presenting the latest project to our client. It showed that you have excellent communication and public speaking skills, and the client was very happy with what you came up with. Great work! Let’s keep this momentum going as we start actually executing the campaign.”
“I can see your positive attitude is having an impact on our team morale. Thank you for coming into work everyday with a positive, go-getter attitude and setting a great example for your team members.”

Negative Employee Feedback Examples

When an employee didn’t meet a deadline: “This project wasn’t delivered on time. Was there anything I could have done as your manager to help you meet that deadline? For the next project, let’s make sure you have more time and resources to finish as planned. We can sync up every couple of days to make sure you’re on track and not feeling rushed. Going forward, maybe we can schedule your work in advance to make sure that you’re not overwhelmed towards the end.”
When an employee didn’t achieve a performance goal: “Great job setting your goals this quarter! You accomplished quite a bit, and it’s okay that you didn’t hit every single goal. But, I can see how that might feel discouraging. Do you have any ideas why you didn’t hit particular goals? Let’s meet more regularly throughout the next quarter to track and discuss your progress towards your next set of goals.”
When an employee made a mistake: “I know you feel badly about what happened, but let’s not dwell on it. Instead, let’s focus on how we can make changes to do better in the future! What do you think could have been done to prevent that outcome? Was there something I could have done as a manager to help you? Let’s find a way to learn from this and make sure you have the right support and resources so it doesn’t happen next time.”

The bottom line here? Employee feedback is a valuable tool that can be used to help each and every team member learn, grow, and get better at their job. It also plays an important role in helping organizations achieve their big-picture goals—while developing a better workplace culture along the way. So, when given and received effectively, employee feedback can make all the difference in your organization 👏!

\n\n

Give and Get More Effective Feedback with Strety!

Strety, an all-in-one performance management and people management product, makes being a better manager and giving more effective feedback easier than ever before. By giving you all the features you need in one easy to use, purpose-built product 💻, you can:

Set up employee feedback questions, send them to your whole team at once, and gain insight into how your employees really feel
Automate scheduling and following up on 1:1 meetings
Track an individual employee's performance
Track key team and organizational goals
Document employee coaching sessions
And much more!

Are you ready to learn how to give and receive feedback in more engaging, effective ways 🙌? Reach out to a Strety team member today 📲!

","post_summary":"

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\n\n

Why Employee Feedback is Important

\n\n

How to Get Feedback From Your Employees

No matter how you get the feedback, here are a few major things you should always do when asking for manager feedback from your employees:

Make it clear you value manager feedback 🤗. When you’re the boss, it can be awkward to ask your direct reports to tell you what they think of your performance—and it can be even more awkward and intimidating for the employee. So, make sure your employees know you actually value their feedback so they feel more comfortable giving it. You're not perfect, and letting your team members know you’re always looking to improve makes you a more transparent, approachable boss.
Ask specific employee feedback questions ❓. Asking “do you have any feedback for me?” is simply too vague. Instead, ask specific yet open-ended questions to help your direct reports come up with more relevant, helpful answers. For example, instead of asking, “Do you like our team meetings,” you could ask questions like, “What’s something I could change about the way I lead our meetings to make them more engaging,” or, “Do you think our team meetings are well organized? If not, how do you think we could make them more efficient?”
Lead by example 🚶‍♂️. If you want your direct reports to listen to and apply your employee feedback, then you need to be able to do the same. Accept manager feedback with a positive attitude and work to actually implement the changes and improvements your team is asking for. This shows you’re invested in being a better manager and willing to work on your weaknesses—which will make it easier for them to accept your feedback on their own areas for improvements.

\n\n

How to Learn From Employee Feedback

Here are a few simple tips for learning from employee feedback so you can actually turn insight into action.

Look for patterns. Try to find patterns or commonalities in your manager feedback. Did a lot of your employees bring up the same concerns or problems in a recent employee feedback survey? For example, let’s say 8 out of 10 of your team members made a comment about your team meetings being unorganized. This is a pattern you should definitely pay attention to!

Address priorities first. As a manager, you won’t be able to address every concern or make every change your employees are asking for overnight. So how can you prioritize? If you do identify patterns or recurring issues, address those problems first. If the majority of your team seems to have the same problem, you’ll want to get it handled as quickly as possible to avoid negative impact on team morale and performance.

Be transparent about changes. When your employees are being vocal about manager feedback, you want to make sure you’re being vocal about how you’re handling it, too. Don’t just quietly make changes and assume your employees will notice—be open, honest, and upfront about the improvements you’re making and why.

\n\n

How to Give Feedback to Your Employees

Now that you know the ins and outs of getting manager feedback, the next part is being able to effectively give it to your employees.

Exchange feedback continuously 🔄. If you only give employee feedback during annual performance reviews, you may give your team members the impression that you’re giving them feedback because “it’s that time of year and you have to.” On the other hand, when you provide more regular feedback or constructive comments as soon as you notice something your direct reports can improve upon, it makes it possible to nip issues in the bud right as they occur. If left unsaid, issues will only get worse, and by the time the annual performance review rolls around, you’ll have to deal with a whole slew of issues that could have been avoided if resolved earlier.
Focus on employee strengths 💪. As we mentioned earlier, it’s important to stay positive while giving employee feedback. Make sure to give reinforcing feedback and highlight an employee’s accomplishments when they’re doing something well! This boosts morale and shows your employees you appreciate them. When you do have to give negative feedback, use the redirection method to spin it in a more positive light. Don’t just focus on the employee’s actions, but figure out next steps and talk through ways in which you could help. Always try to balance positive and negative feedback—if you have to discuss an employee’s weakness, make sure you also highlight one of their strengths.
Praise in public and provide criticism in private 🤫. If you need to give a team member constructive feedback, make sure to give it in private and ideally in person during a 1:1 meeting. You don’t want to send performance feedback in an instant message or email—this feels impersonal and shows your employee you don’t care about taking the time to meet face to face. You also don’t want to call out an individual in a team meeting or in front of their coworkers. This can make an employee feel incredibly uncomfortable and create a competitive nature amongst your team. Instead, find a quiet space to offer your feedback and advice face-to-face. On the other hand, employee praise or positive recognition can be shared publicly (as long as your report is comfortable with it).

\n\n

6 Manager Feedback Examples to Follow

Here are some examples of how you can effectively give both positive and negative employee feedback.

Positive Employee Feedback Examples

“Something I really appreciate about you is your ability to effectively brainstorm and collaborate with your team.”
“I think you did a really great job presenting the latest project to our client. It showed that you have excellent communication and public speaking skills, and the client was very happy with what you came up with. Great work! Let’s keep this momentum going as we start actually executing the campaign.”
“I can see your positive attitude is having an impact on our team morale. Thank you for coming into work everyday with a positive, go-getter attitude and setting a great example for your team members.”

Negative Employee Feedback Examples

When an employee didn’t meet a deadline: “This project wasn’t delivered on time. Was there anything I could have done as your manager to help you meet that deadline? For the next project, let’s make sure you have more time and resources to finish as planned. We can sync up every couple of days to make sure you’re on track and not feeling rushed. Going forward, maybe we can schedule your work in advance to make sure that you’re not overwhelmed towards the end.”
When an employee didn’t achieve a performance goal: “Great job setting your goals this quarter! You accomplished quite a bit, and it’s okay that you didn’t hit every single goal. But, I can see how that might feel discouraging. Do you have any ideas why you didn’t hit particular goals? Let’s meet more regularly throughout the next quarter to track and discuss your progress towards your next set of goals.”
When an employee made a mistake: “I know you feel badly about what happened, but let’s not dwell on it. Instead, let’s focus on how we can make changes to do better in the future! What do you think could have been done to prevent that outcome? Was there something I could have done as a manager to help you? Let’s find a way to learn from this and make sure you have the right support and resources so it doesn’t happen next time.”

\n\n

Give and Get More Effective Feedback with Strety!

Set up employee feedback questions, send them to your whole team at once, and gain insight into how your employees really feel
Automate scheduling and following up on 1:1 meetings
Track an individual employee's performance
Track key team and organizational goals
Document employee coaching sessions
And much more!

Are you ready to learn how to give and receive feedback in more engaging, effective ways 🙌? Reach out to a Strety team member today 📲!

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Management Tips

A Guide to Constructive Employee Feedback: Examples & Tips

Giving feedback to employees and receiving manager feedback are two core responsibilities of your role as a manager. If you’re looking for ideas on ...

Written By: Strety

February 4, 2020

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There are many types of business meetings: team meetings, 1:1 meetings between managers and their direct reports, distributed meetings, client meetings, stakeholder meetings, and leadership meetings, just to name a few.

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Leadership meetings are one of the most important—but why? How can you run more effective leadership meetings in your own organization? We’re here to bring you the management meeting topics, tips, and tricks your leadership team needs to achieve success 👏!

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Why Are Leadership Meetings Valuable?

The leadership team sets the tone and focus for the entire organization. This means having leaders that are aligned on company goals who are able to work together towards achieving them, creating the recipe for a successful company 🥣.

Essentially, you want your management team to operate like a well-oiled machine… but this can be incredibly difficult to achieve. Each leader within an organization will have different priorities based on their specific job role or department. For example, the CFO may be focused on finances while the HR Director is likely more concerned with how budget changes would affect their staff. Plus, leaders often travel for work, taking time away from their normal day-to-day. With such hectic schedules and so many things to keep track of, it can make getting everyone together a challenge 😩. How can you overcome these obstacles?

The most important ingredient in this recipe for success is consistency and communication 🗣️! Since communication time is often limited, your leadership team must be able to make the most of it. It’s essential to talk openly, regularly, and effectively in team meetings.

The primary goal of leadership meetings is to make decisions, solve problems, and ensure the organization’s day-to-day operations and processes are aligned. Team meetings are also a place to gather, bond, and build rapport as a leadership unit. Participants should look forward to attending these meetings and leave feeling energized and inspired💡!

However, none of this will be possible if the leaders in your organization never talk to each other or are forced to sit through poorly-prepared and poorly-conducted leadership meetings 😣. On the other hand, highly-productive leadership meetings will ensure everyone is always on the same page, aligned on goals, and working towards them together 🙌.

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How to Prepare for and Run a Leadership Meeting

Now that you know the importance of effective leadership meetings, how can you utilize them in your own organization?

Tips for Preparing for a Leadership Team Meeting

They say you can never be too prepared. The same is true when it comes to meetings. Here are five top tips for prepping for an effective leadership meeting:

Create a context driven leadership meeting agenda 📝. A business meeting agenda is a great tool that ensures your leadership meetings stay on track, run on time, and cover all the necessary topics. However, meeting agendas shouldn’t just be a list of things to discuss—a thoughtful agenda will also give context on why each agenda item is being discussed. In your meeting agenda, be sure to add in as many notes or backup documents as possible so all meeting participants can prepare themselves.
Send the leadership meeting agenda in advance 📧. Once you’ve created your agenda, send it to the other meeting participants for input at least 24 hours in advance. There may be something important that someone else needs to talk about or something you’ve forgotten to add. Plus, by sending the business meeting agenda in advance, you give others a chance to prepare—meaning everyone can make the most of their time.
Prioritize the leadership meeting agenda ⌛. On your agenda, highlight the items that are the highest priority so you can be sure to address them first. This way, if something takes longer than expected, you can leave the less important items for next time instead of pushing back something that needs to be addressed urgently.
Determine the goal of each leadership meeting agenda item 🥅. Make it clear whether each agenda item requires a final decision or if it’s simply open for discussion.
Do your homework 📚. Be sure to block off an adequate amount of prep time for each leadership team meeting. Start thinking about ideas you may have and devote time to necessary research so you can add value and lend expertise to the meeting.

Tips for Running a Leadership Team Meeting

Once you’ve got a plan in place, it’s time to execute it. Here are five top tips for running an effective leadership meeting:

Be respectful of everyone’s time ⏰. If you don’t start your meetings on time they likely won’t end on time. This can create a snowball effect and before you know it, the entire day is off schedule. Leaders in any organization are incredibly busy, so it’s important to start and end your meetings on time and be respectful of everyone’s schedule.
Keep it positive 😃. In order for your team meeting to yield positive outcomes and results, you must approach it with a positive attitude. Even if there’s an issue you need to address, don’t be negative about it—have an open discussion and work together to reach a solution. Never bad mouth or make fun of another employee, client, project, or situation.
Eliminate distractions 📵. As a leader with a busy schedule, you certainly don't have time to waste on distractions—like a ringing cell phone or a fellow manager that’s spending the entire meeting scrolling through social media. In order to minimize distractions and keep everyone focused, it’s best to ditch electronic devices in team meetings (unless they’re actually necessary).
Summarize each agenda item after you’ve discussed it 📄. After you go through each agenda item, wrap up what you discussed before moving on to the next thing. Summarize any issues or areas of opportunity that were identified, and confirm the next steps the group has decided to take.
Capture decisions and assign action items ⏭️. You could have the most wildly productive meeting but if you don’t take note of your decisions and next steps, they are likely to get lost in the shuffle and never actually happen. So, be sure to wrap up every leadership team meeting by capturing any decisions and assigning action items to the appropriate people.

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5 Leadership Meeting Ideas to Discuss

Here are five management meeting topics and ideas that you may want to implement in your next leadership team meeting:

Get personal 🤝. As leaders, you’re all busy people, which means you may not get the opportunity to talk about something other than work very often. Try dedicating the first couple of minutes in your leadership team meeting to chat as peers, even if it’s something as simple as sharing what everyone did over the weekend. This allows your leadership team to build deeper relationships which can actually lead to higher quality work, plus sets a positive tone for the rest of the meeting.
Review key metrics and goals of the team 📏. The bulk of your time in leadership team meetings is typically dedicated to tracking progress, metrics, and results for various projects and initiatives. This makes it possible to identify whether each team, department, and the organization as a whole is on track to meet its goals so you can course-correct if necessary.
Use the red, yellow, and green method🚦for goal status updates. If you find reviewing key metrics and results to be overly time-consuming or overwhelming, try using the red, yellow, and green method for each agenda item. Are you feeling red (bad), yellow (so-so), or green (good) about hitting a particular goal or benchmark? If the team consensus is green, move onto the next item quickly. If it’s yellow, make a note to come back to that item at the end of the meeting if you have time (and if you don’t, put it at the top of the next meeting’s agenda). If it’s red, you know you need to focus the discussion on that item!
Identify issues and challenges and work to solve them 🙁. When all leaders from various teams and departments come together, it’s a great time to identify issues and roadblocks to success. Then, you can brainstorm and work together to come up with solutions.
Highlight good news and wins 🎉. Leadership team meetings shouldn't be all negative. Try to have each leader bring one “win” from their team or department to the meeting, then end by going around the room so each person can share their win. This makes it possible for leaders to know what exciting things are going on in other areas of the organization, plus wraps up the meeting on a positive note and boosts team morale.

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Leadership Meeting Agenda Examples

Here are a few leadership meeting agenda examples for various kinds of meetings. Keep in mind that these are simply outlines meant to be used as a starting point.

“The Quick Meeting”

Duration: 15 minutes or less.

Purpose: Often referred to as a “daily stand up,” the type of meeting is more administrative in nature and is designed to keep the leadership team in sync.

Sample business meeting agenda: Participants will assemble for an informal go around where each person shares:

What they worked on yesterday
What they plan to work on today
If any roadblocks are preventing them from completing those tasks effectively
If they’ve made any new learnings or have anything to share that may benefit the rest of the group

“The Weekly Leadership Team Meeting”

Duration: 60-90 minutes.

Purpose: This type of leadership meeting should be routine, and scheduled for the same time and day each week for consistency. The goal is to review what happened last week, discuss any challenges that the organization may be facing, and start planning for the next week. However, it’s important to only focus on a few high-importance issues at a time—don’t lose valuable time talking about less important problems, or think that you’ll be able to discuss and solve everything in just one meeting.

Sample business meeting agenda:

Intro to the meeting (5 min)
Review numbers and metrics
Review goals
Highlight company wins and accomplishments
Identify top issues
Brainstorm ways to tackle top issues
Agree on a solution and implementation plan
Assign action items
Review and confirm actions items
Rank meeting and conclude!

“The Quarterly Strategic Meeting”

Duration: 2-6 hours, depending on the size of the leadership team and the organization. You can break this meeting into two separate sessions, or schedule an off-site planning day. This helps you take a step back from the day-to-day operations and eliminate distractions—plus can be used as a leadership team building exercise.

Purpose: The goal of this type of leadership meeting is to review progress on last quarter's goals, adjust processes as needed, and set goals and priorities for the upcoming quarter. Perhaps more importantly, these meetings keep the leadership team connected to the overall direction the organization is trying to move in. This can get fuzzy as the year goes on, so it’s important to be reminded.

Sample business meeting agenda:

Welcome and chat as a team to loosen up before the long meeting ahead
Go over a high-level review of the leadership meeting agenda and set key goals for the meeting
Look back on the last quarter

Discuss what went well and why
Discuss what didn’t go well and why, and where course corrections could be made going forward
Discuss highlights, key learnings, and wins
Measure success through metrics and KPIs
Identify if goals were met—if not, where can changes or adjustments be made in order to reach them?

Take a break
Start thinking about plans for the next quarter by asking and discussing questions like:

Have any of our organizational goals shifted? If so, what are our new goals going forward?
What do we need to adjust in our approach for next quarter based on what we identified that worked well and didn’t previously?

Put a strategy in place for the next quarter

Define key goals and initiatives
Define metrics for meeting them, such as new quarterly targets, KPIs, etc.
Define an action plan, which includes who will be carrying out each initiative, who is responsible for tracking progress towards each goals, and timelines

Confirm the plan

Review key decisions that were made to ensure everyone is on the same page
Identify what will be shared with the rest of the organization and how that messaging will be delivered
Confirm action items

Close the meeting by asking if anyone has any final thoughts, and thanking everyone for their time

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Run Leadership Meetings with the Tools You Already Use

One big problem with meetings: there are too many things in too many places. One person scribbles an agenda in a notebook, another takes notes in Google Docs, another shows up totally unprepared because they didn't realize they needed to review something in advance.

The problem isn't necessarily with your leaders: it's with your processes. When you're trying to keep track of action items, agendas, and decisions, it's helpful to keep everything in one place so you can reference the information you need.

You can use a dedicated tool for that, but what's even better: expanding on a tool you already love.

If you spend your workday in Microsoft Teams, Strety is for you.

It’s an all-in-one performance management and people management tool that lives inside of Teams to work where you're already working. Strety brings together all the features you need to become a better leader and run better team meetings 😊!

With Strety, you’ll be able to:

Automate scheduling and following up on meetings
Run more effective and engaging team meetings
Store info about what you need to cover in a leadership meeting agenda
Collaborate on team meeting agendas
Take meeting notes and add comments
Assign post-meeting action items
Track progress on action items and goals
And much more!

It’s time to say goodbye to unproductive leadership meetings and hello to Strety 👋! Ready to learn more? Contact us today 📞!

","rss_summary":"

\n","rss_body":"

\n\n

Why Are Leadership Meetings Valuable?

\n\n

How to Prepare for and Run a Leadership Meeting

Now that you know the importance of effective leadership meetings, how can you utilize them in your own organization?

Tips for Preparing for a Leadership Team Meeting

They say you can never be too prepared. The same is true when it comes to meetings. Here are five top tips for prepping for an effective leadership meeting:

Create a context driven leadership meeting agenda 📝. A business meeting agenda is a great tool that ensures your leadership meetings stay on track, run on time, and cover all the necessary topics. However, meeting agendas shouldn’t just be a list of things to discuss—a thoughtful agenda will also give context on why each agenda item is being discussed. In your meeting agenda, be sure to add in as many notes or backup documents as possible so all meeting participants can prepare themselves.
Send the leadership meeting agenda in advance 📧. Once you’ve created your agenda, send it to the other meeting participants for input at least 24 hours in advance. There may be something important that someone else needs to talk about or something you’ve forgotten to add. Plus, by sending the business meeting agenda in advance, you give others a chance to prepare—meaning everyone can make the most of their time.
Prioritize the leadership meeting agenda ⌛. On your agenda, highlight the items that are the highest priority so you can be sure to address them first. This way, if something takes longer than expected, you can leave the less important items for next time instead of pushing back something that needs to be addressed urgently.
Determine the goal of each leadership meeting agenda item 🥅. Make it clear whether each agenda item requires a final decision or if it’s simply open for discussion.
Do your homework 📚. Be sure to block off an adequate amount of prep time for each leadership team meeting. Start thinking about ideas you may have and devote time to necessary research so you can add value and lend expertise to the meeting.

Tips for Running a Leadership Team Meeting

Once you’ve got a plan in place, it’s time to execute it. Here are five top tips for running an effective leadership meeting:

Be respectful of everyone’s time ⏰. If you don’t start your meetings on time they likely won’t end on time. This can create a snowball effect and before you know it, the entire day is off schedule. Leaders in any organization are incredibly busy, so it’s important to start and end your meetings on time and be respectful of everyone’s schedule.
Keep it positive 😃. In order for your team meeting to yield positive outcomes and results, you must approach it with a positive attitude. Even if there’s an issue you need to address, don’t be negative about it—have an open discussion and work together to reach a solution. Never bad mouth or make fun of another employee, client, project, or situation.
Eliminate distractions 📵. As a leader with a busy schedule, you certainly don't have time to waste on distractions—like a ringing cell phone or a fellow manager that’s spending the entire meeting scrolling through social media. In order to minimize distractions and keep everyone focused, it’s best to ditch electronic devices in team meetings (unless they’re actually necessary).
Summarize each agenda item after you’ve discussed it 📄. After you go through each agenda item, wrap up what you discussed before moving on to the next thing. Summarize any issues or areas of opportunity that were identified, and confirm the next steps the group has decided to take.
Capture decisions and assign action items ⏭️. You could have the most wildly productive meeting but if you don’t take note of your decisions and next steps, they are likely to get lost in the shuffle and never actually happen. So, be sure to wrap up every leadership team meeting by capturing any decisions and assigning action items to the appropriate people.

\n\n

5 Leadership Meeting Ideas to Discuss

Here are five management meeting topics and ideas that you may want to implement in your next leadership team meeting:

Get personal 🤝. As leaders, you’re all busy people, which means you may not get the opportunity to talk about something other than work very often. Try dedicating the first couple of minutes in your leadership team meeting to chat as peers, even if it’s something as simple as sharing what everyone did over the weekend. This allows your leadership team to build deeper relationships which can actually lead to higher quality work, plus sets a positive tone for the rest of the meeting.
Review key metrics and goals of the team 📏. The bulk of your time in leadership team meetings is typically dedicated to tracking progress, metrics, and results for various projects and initiatives. This makes it possible to identify whether each team, department, and the organization as a whole is on track to meet its goals so you can course-correct if necessary.
Use the red, yellow, and green method🚦for goal status updates. If you find reviewing key metrics and results to be overly time-consuming or overwhelming, try using the red, yellow, and green method for each agenda item. Are you feeling red (bad), yellow (so-so), or green (good) about hitting a particular goal or benchmark? If the team consensus is green, move onto the next item quickly. If it’s yellow, make a note to come back to that item at the end of the meeting if you have time (and if you don’t, put it at the top of the next meeting’s agenda). If it’s red, you know you need to focus the discussion on that item!
Identify issues and challenges and work to solve them 🙁. When all leaders from various teams and departments come together, it’s a great time to identify issues and roadblocks to success. Then, you can brainstorm and work together to come up with solutions.
Highlight good news and wins 🎉. Leadership team meetings shouldn't be all negative. Try to have each leader bring one “win” from their team or department to the meeting, then end by going around the room so each person can share their win. This makes it possible for leaders to know what exciting things are going on in other areas of the organization, plus wraps up the meeting on a positive note and boosts team morale.

\n\n

Leadership Meeting Agenda Examples

Here are a few leadership meeting agenda examples for various kinds of meetings. Keep in mind that these are simply outlines meant to be used as a starting point.

“The Quick Meeting”

Duration: 15 minutes or less.

Purpose: Often referred to as a “daily stand up,” the type of meeting is more administrative in nature and is designed to keep the leadership team in sync.

Sample business meeting agenda: Participants will assemble for an informal go around where each person shares:

What they worked on yesterday
What they plan to work on today
If any roadblocks are preventing them from completing those tasks effectively
If they’ve made any new learnings or have anything to share that may benefit the rest of the group

“The Weekly Leadership Team Meeting”

Duration: 60-90 minutes.

Sample business meeting agenda:

Intro to the meeting (5 min)
Review numbers and metrics
Review goals
Highlight company wins and accomplishments
Identify top issues
Brainstorm ways to tackle top issues
Agree on a solution and implementation plan
Assign action items
Review and confirm actions items
Rank meeting and conclude!

“The Quarterly Strategic Meeting”

Sample business meeting agenda:

Welcome and chat as a team to loosen up before the long meeting ahead
Go over a high-level review of the leadership meeting agenda and set key goals for the meeting
Look back on the last quarter

Discuss what went well and why
Discuss what didn’t go well and why, and where course corrections could be made going forward
Discuss highlights, key learnings, and wins
Measure success through metrics and KPIs
Identify if goals were met—if not, where can changes or adjustments be made in order to reach them?

Take a break
Start thinking about plans for the next quarter by asking and discussing questions like:

Have any of our organizational goals shifted? If so, what are our new goals going forward?
What do we need to adjust in our approach for next quarter based on what we identified that worked well and didn’t previously?

Put a strategy in place for the next quarter

Define key goals and initiatives
Define metrics for meeting them, such as new quarterly targets, KPIs, etc.
Define an action plan, which includes who will be carrying out each initiative, who is responsible for tracking progress towards each goals, and timelines

Confirm the plan

Review key decisions that were made to ensure everyone is on the same page
Identify what will be shared with the rest of the organization and how that messaging will be delivered
Confirm action items

Close the meeting by asking if anyone has any final thoughts, and thanking everyone for their time

\n\n

Run Leadership Meetings with the Tools You Already Use

You can use a dedicated tool for that, but what's even better: expanding on a tool you already love.

If you spend your workday in Microsoft Teams, Strety is for you.

With Strety, you’ll be able to:

Automate scheduling and following up on meetings
Run more effective and engaging team meetings
Store info about what you need to cover in a leadership meeting agenda
Collaborate on team meeting agendas
Take meeting notes and add comments
Assign post-meeting action items
Track progress on action items and goals
And much more!

It’s time to say goodbye to unproductive leadership meetings and hello to Strety 👋! Ready to learn more? Contact us today 📞!

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Meetings

How to Run a Leadership Meeting: Topics and Agendas

There are many types of business meetings: team meetings, 1:1 meetings between managers and their direct reports, distributed meetings, client ...

Written By: Strety

January 22, 2020

{"use_featured_image":true,"post_summary":"

Many managers and employees view team meetings as a waste of time ⏱️. We get it, we’ve been in these types of meetings—they’re not effective team meetings. So, what is a truly effective team meeting? Get ready to find out.

\n","post_body":"

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What is the Purpose of Team Meetings?

Let’s take a step back. As much as meetings can be a waste of time, good ones are actually extremely critical to any team or company. Personally, I used to despise (and still do to an extent) having meetings but GREAT team meetings are an essential component of building a happy, highly functional team that is able to achieve its goals—and have fun while doing so.

If you run effective team meetings, you will provide an open opportunity for all team members to come together, reflect on their progress, identity and solve problems, and help each other reach individual solutions. This empowers each individual member of the team, as well as the team as a whole, to be more successful 🙌.

\n\n

How Do You Run an Effective Team Meeting?

The average worker spends 3.8 hours each week in unproductive meetings. Making your employees sit in team meetings that are irrelevant to them, unorganized, or too long can cause frustration—resulting in a room full of meeting participants that are bored, unengaged, and frankly, ticked off. No one is ever happy in a bad meeting. So, how can this be avoided ❌?

Here are some simple tips for running an effective team meeting:

ALWAYS prepare a team meeting agenda📝. Creating a staff meeting agenda helps to identify the priority topics for the meeting so you can keep the focus on what’s truly important. Plus, having a team meeting agenda that can be distributed to every participant doesn’t just keep you organized and on track as the manager, but makes it possible for everyone else in the meeting to prepare accordingly and stay on the same page as well.
Minimize distractions📵. A ringing cell phone or the constant ping of an email inbox is distracting during team meetings. Plus, if an employee is clearly scrolling through their social feed or checking other messages during a meeting, it can make their coworkers feel like they don’t care about what they have to say. For these reasons, it’s best to minimize the number of devices in a team meeting. Avoid bringing cell phones, computers, and tablets into a meeting unless they’re actually necessary.
Set the example 👀. If you expect your team members to have a positive attitude and stay off their personal devices during a team meeting, you need to follow the same rules as a leader. Your employees are looking to you to set the example, so be sure to always act in the same manner you’re expecting them to.
Leave room for collaboration 💭. While it’s certainly important to have an organized team meeting agenda, you don’t want to cram so many items on the agenda that there’s no time for collaboration and brainstorming. So, be sure to always leave some time at the end of a team meeting to revisit an unplanned topic that came up, get creative, brainstorm ideas for an upcoming project, or simply chat as a team to build rapport.
Take meeting notes 🗒️. Having a great discussion or coming up with the world’s best idea during a team meeting won’t mean anything if no one can remember it later. It’s essential that meeting notes are taken so that all participants can refer back to them later. Plus, if someone is out sick or unable to make the meeting, you can pass the meeting notes along to them so they can get themselves back up to speed.
Assign action items ✍️. Just chatting about improvements that need to be made isn’t enough—action must be taken if you really want to truly see change. So, before leaving a meeting, assign action items and make sure each team member knows what they are responsible for and when it’s due.
Actually follow up on those action items 🔼. Hold individuals accountable for their commitments and check in on their progress before the next meeting. This minimizes the risk of showing up at the next team meeting and finding out that nobody bothered doing what they committed to last time.
Ask for team feedback 🗣️. Keep striving to improve your team meetings by asking for team feedback. Ask your employees what they like about your team meetings, what they think isn’t working quite as well, and if they have any ideas for improvements.
Never Run Late 🏃. If you set the tone that the meeting will run on time and end on time, everyone will appreciate it. You may not get to everything on the agenda but everyone will realize you respect their time and your own time.
Limit Tangents 💬. There is always someone on your team who lives to bring up random topics during a meeting. This is typically due to a lack of preparedness on their part but could be a personality trait as well. The key is to refer back to the prepared agenda and stick to that. Leave tangents for the next meeting.

\n\n

How to Structure Your Team Meeting Agenda

When it comes to structuring your team meeting agendas, every manager does things a little differently. There are tons of free team meeting agenda templates out there that you can use as a starting point—we have our own at Strety, too—then customize to meet your team’s specific needs and goals.

The time spent on each topic will depend on the length of the meeting, how much you need to cover, and what the goals and focus of the specific meeting is.

Here is a simple team meeting agenda structure you can follow:

Team meeting check in ✔️. Get everyone loosened up for the meeting and catch-up for a few minutes as a team to build rapport. This could be about how they’re feeling at the moment, what they’ve been up to in their personal lives recently, etc. Keep this part really short—it’s only to segue into the rest of the meeting. At Strety, we like to start our team meetings with a ranking of how everyone is feeling coming into the meeting and a short description of why.
Recent wins 🎉. Start out the team meeting on a positive note by recognizing the progress the team has made so far and highlighting any team or individual wins.
Challenges and constraints 👎. Identify if any team members are facing any obstacles or roadblocks. For example: Is there a resource they need to complete a task they don’t have access to? Do they need to get with an employee from another department? Is a timeline unrealistic?
Upcoming priorities ⏭️. Dive into the biggest priorities and areas of focus moving forward.
Next steps 🚶‍♂️. Assign action items coming out of the meeting, and confirm that each team member knows what they’re responsible for, when it’s due, and has the necessary resources to actually complete them.
Rank & close out the meeting 🔟. Have everyone rank the meeting and give reasons why they ranked it. This shows your team members that they actually have a voice in these meetings.

\n\n

5 Team Meeting Agenda Ideas

Here are five team meeting agenda ideas to spice up your next team meeting 🌶️!

Ask for input on your team meeting agendas. As a manager, it’s your responsibility to develop the team meeting agenda, but that doesn’t mean others can’t be involved at all. Invite your team members to contribute agenda items—this makes them feel like you truly care about what they have to say, and may bring a problem to your attention you weren’t even aware of.
Stick to your team meeting agendas. Spending time creating a team meeting agenda is pointless if you don’t actually stick to it. With free time tracking apps like Toggl, you can set a time limit for each topic on the agenda. When the timer goes off, you know it’s time to move onto the next topic. This helps you stay on track so you can cover everything you need to and avoid spending 45 minutes going off on a tangent.
Utilize some team meeting ice breakers. Team meeting icebreakers can loosen everybody up and get them into “meeting mode.” You can use pretty much any short topic that will get people talking, smiling, and ready to collaborate!
Switch things up sometimes. Put a little variety in the format of your team meetings to keep your employees engaged. We like and recommend switching locations, and even doing a walking meeting when agendas are light. Anything to shake up the routine is good for everyone!
Carve out some time to celebrate team wins. Team meetings shouldn’t just be to discuss problems with a project or issues with performance. Take a few minutes during each team meeting to call out team wins and celebrate them together. This will show your employees you appreciate them and boost team morale!

\n\n

How Do You Improve Team Meetings?

Running a good team meeting can feel like an overwhelming task, especially if the organization is known for running bad and unproductive meetings.

Utilizing a team meeting software (sure, like ours!) can make running a team meeting easier on you as a manager, plus make your meetings more efficient and enjoyable for your employees 😍! By having all the information you need in one place, you can have peace of mind that you aren’t forgetting anything or overlooking an important detail.

\n\n

Elevate Your Team Meetings with Strety!

Strety is a performance management and people management product that brings together all the features you need to become a better manager and lead better team meetings 👏!

With Strety, you’ll be able to:

Automate the process of scheduling and following up on meetings
Run better 1:1 meetings
Run more effective team meetings
Store info about what you need to cover in a team meeting agenda
Collaborate on team meeting agendas so your employees can add what they'd like to discuss, too
Take meeting notes
Add comments during the meeting so you don’t forget what you’ve discussed
Assign post-meeting action items for team members
And more!

Are you ready to level 🆙 your team meetings with Strety? Contact us today to learn more!

","rss_summary":"

\n","rss_body":"

\n\n

What is the Purpose of Team Meetings?

\n\n

How Do You Run an Effective Team Meeting?

Here are some simple tips for running an effective team meeting:

ALWAYS prepare a team meeting agenda📝. Creating a staff meeting agenda helps to identify the priority topics for the meeting so you can keep the focus on what’s truly important. Plus, having a team meeting agenda that can be distributed to every participant doesn’t just keep you organized and on track as the manager, but makes it possible for everyone else in the meeting to prepare accordingly and stay on the same page as well.
Minimize distractions📵. A ringing cell phone or the constant ping of an email inbox is distracting during team meetings. Plus, if an employee is clearly scrolling through their social feed or checking other messages during a meeting, it can make their coworkers feel like they don’t care about what they have to say. For these reasons, it’s best to minimize the number of devices in a team meeting. Avoid bringing cell phones, computers, and tablets into a meeting unless they’re actually necessary.
Set the example 👀. If you expect your team members to have a positive attitude and stay off their personal devices during a team meeting, you need to follow the same rules as a leader. Your employees are looking to you to set the example, so be sure to always act in the same manner you’re expecting them to.
Leave room for collaboration 💭. While it’s certainly important to have an organized team meeting agenda, you don’t want to cram so many items on the agenda that there’s no time for collaboration and brainstorming. So, be sure to always leave some time at the end of a team meeting to revisit an unplanned topic that came up, get creative, brainstorm ideas for an upcoming project, or simply chat as a team to build rapport.
Take meeting notes 🗒️. Having a great discussion or coming up with the world’s best idea during a team meeting won’t mean anything if no one can remember it later. It’s essential that meeting notes are taken so that all participants can refer back to them later. Plus, if someone is out sick or unable to make the meeting, you can pass the meeting notes along to them so they can get themselves back up to speed.
Assign action items ✍️. Just chatting about improvements that need to be made isn’t enough—action must be taken if you really want to truly see change. So, before leaving a meeting, assign action items and make sure each team member knows what they are responsible for and when it’s due.
Actually follow up on those action items 🔼. Hold individuals accountable for their commitments and check in on their progress before the next meeting. This minimizes the risk of showing up at the next team meeting and finding out that nobody bothered doing what they committed to last time.
Ask for team feedback 🗣️. Keep striving to improve your team meetings by asking for team feedback. Ask your employees what they like about your team meetings, what they think isn’t working quite as well, and if they have any ideas for improvements.
Never Run Late 🏃. If you set the tone that the meeting will run on time and end on time, everyone will appreciate it. You may not get to everything on the agenda but everyone will realize you respect their time and your own time.
Limit Tangents 💬. There is always someone on your team who lives to bring up random topics during a meeting. This is typically due to a lack of preparedness on their part but could be a personality trait as well. The key is to refer back to the prepared agenda and stick to that. Leave tangents for the next meeting.

\n\n

How to Structure Your Team Meeting Agenda

The time spent on each topic will depend on the length of the meeting, how much you need to cover, and what the goals and focus of the specific meeting is.

Here is a simple team meeting agenda structure you can follow:

Team meeting check in ✔️. Get everyone loosened up for the meeting and catch-up for a few minutes as a team to build rapport. This could be about how they’re feeling at the moment, what they’ve been up to in their personal lives recently, etc. Keep this part really short—it’s only to segue into the rest of the meeting. At Strety, we like to start our team meetings with a ranking of how everyone is feeling coming into the meeting and a short description of why.
Recent wins 🎉. Start out the team meeting on a positive note by recognizing the progress the team has made so far and highlighting any team or individual wins.
Challenges and constraints 👎. Identify if any team members are facing any obstacles or roadblocks. For example: Is there a resource they need to complete a task they don’t have access to? Do they need to get with an employee from another department? Is a timeline unrealistic?
Upcoming priorities ⏭️. Dive into the biggest priorities and areas of focus moving forward.
Next steps 🚶‍♂️. Assign action items coming out of the meeting, and confirm that each team member knows what they’re responsible for, when it’s due, and has the necessary resources to actually complete them.
Rank & close out the meeting 🔟. Have everyone rank the meeting and give reasons why they ranked it. This shows your team members that they actually have a voice in these meetings.

\n\n

5 Team Meeting Agenda Ideas

Here are five team meeting agenda ideas to spice up your next team meeting 🌶️!

Ask for input on your team meeting agendas. As a manager, it’s your responsibility to develop the team meeting agenda, but that doesn’t mean others can’t be involved at all. Invite your team members to contribute agenda items—this makes them feel like you truly care about what they have to say, and may bring a problem to your attention you weren’t even aware of.
Stick to your team meeting agendas. Spending time creating a team meeting agenda is pointless if you don’t actually stick to it. With free time tracking apps like Toggl, you can set a time limit for each topic on the agenda. When the timer goes off, you know it’s time to move onto the next topic. This helps you stay on track so you can cover everything you need to and avoid spending 45 minutes going off on a tangent.
Utilize some team meeting ice breakers. Team meeting icebreakers can loosen everybody up and get them into “meeting mode.” You can use pretty much any short topic that will get people talking, smiling, and ready to collaborate!
Switch things up sometimes. Put a little variety in the format of your team meetings to keep your employees engaged. We like and recommend switching locations, and even doing a walking meeting when agendas are light. Anything to shake up the routine is good for everyone!
Carve out some time to celebrate team wins. Team meetings shouldn’t just be to discuss problems with a project or issues with performance. Take a few minutes during each team meeting to call out team wins and celebrate them together. This will show your employees you appreciate them and boost team morale!

\n\n

How Do You Improve Team Meetings?

Running a good team meeting can feel like an overwhelming task, especially if the organization is known for running bad and unproductive meetings.

\n\n

Elevate Your Team Meetings with Strety!

Strety is a performance management and people management product that brings together all the features you need to become a better manager and lead better team meetings 👏!

With Strety, you’ll be able to:

Automate the process of scheduling and following up on meetings
Run better 1:1 meetings
Run more effective team meetings
Store info about what you need to cover in a team meeting agenda
Collaborate on team meeting agendas so your employees can add what they'd like to discuss, too
Take meeting notes
Add comments during the meeting so you don’t forget what you’ve discussed
Assign post-meeting action items for team members
And more!

Are you ready to level 🆙 your team meetings with Strety? Contact us today to learn more!

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Meetings

How to Run an Effective Team Meeting

Many managers and employees view team meetings as a waste of time ⏱️. We get it, we’ve been in these types of meetings—they’re not effective team ...

Written By: Larry Garcia

January 17, 2020

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We get it—being a first time manager can feel like a daunting task 😳. Many of us are thrust into management positions without any formal training or leadership. And it’s crazy sometimes… you have so many new responsibilities, from decision making to employee motivation to monitoring performance goals, all while often times still holding on to your previous day to day responsibilities.

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How can you do it all to the best of your ability while learning fast and minimizing mistakes? We’ve compiled these 15 tips for new managers to help you step into and carry out your new leadership role with confidence 🙌!

\n\n

Becoming a New Manager: What You Need to Do Beforehand

If you feel like you're on the cusp of being promoted to a management position or have a long-term goal to get there, there are things you could be doing to prepare for your future role.

Start by taking the time to observe current managers in your organization. You could even reach out to them and ask to shadow one of their meetings or see if they have time to grab a coffee and chat about what their role entails ☕. If they make it look easy, trust me, it isn’t—and you need to learn from them.

Good management can sometimes blend in the background and look effortless (but bad management always looks obvious). Learning from those around you is your best way to get started in your educational journey of being a manager. You could also take educational courses or seminars on business management (there are lots of free ones online 💻), attend local conferences, or join networking groups to learn from other professionals in your area.

Additionally, you could read up on management topics and techniques through books, blogs, and more 📖. We certainly have done this and still do to this day. Fortunately, countless successful leaders have taken the time to put their knowledge and experience out there to help others, so why not learn from the best! It’s crucial to your success in your future management role to begin preparing for it now—after all, if you're offered a promotion and you’re not prepared, you’ll feel like kicking yourself.

\n\n

Tips for New Managers

So let’s dive into our tips on how to be a good manager! Here we go:

Recognize you’re in a new role. As a first time manager, accept the fact that you’re in a new role and will often be doing things you’ve never done before. It’s totally okay to have questions, need extra guidance or support as you’re getting comfortable in your new role, and make some mistakes along the way—you’ll just keep learning and getting better! Be humble and know you’re new!
Learn about different leadership styles. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to being a good manager. There are lots of different leadership styles out there, so take the time to learn about them and try different things out. Individual team members may respond better to a certain style of leadership or coaching, so if you have a solid foundation of various leadership styles, you can then tailor your approach to best fit their needs.
Get to really know your team members. Spend time with each of your team members and get to know their daily job tasks, career goals, strengths, and weaknesses, likes, dislikes, and workplace preferences. But don't just stop there—get to know things like the names of their children, what pets they have, where they live, etc. Knowing some small details that are important to them and bringing them up in conversation can help you build a more personal relationship that leads to a solid foundation of trust.
Be the boss, not a friend. Although you should get to know your team on a personal level, it’s important to realize that you’re still their superior. If you act like a friend and not an unbiased boss, it can cause feelings of bias or favoritism amongst other team members. This can cause big problems for team morale. So, while it’s natural to develop friendships with people you’re working with and seeing every day, be sure to maintain professional interactions while in the workplace.
Focus on employee motivation. Each individual team member will be motivated by different things. For example, some appreciate recognition from their manager while others are incentivized by perks like monetary bonuses or an extra day off for high performance. One of the most important new manager skills is the ability to uncover those motivators for each employee so you can help everyone on your team reach their greatest potential!
Lead by example. A major tip for new managers is to always lead your team members by example. Avoid the “do as I say, not as I do” mindset—this will lead to distrust and resentment amongst your team. Ensure you are working just as hard, if not harder, than everyone else. This will generate a great deal of respect from your employees and inspire them to do their best. But remember, this doesn’t mean just do their jobs for them—it means being the type of person you want them to be!
Find a mentor. Find another successful manager in your organization to observe and learn from. Having a go-to person for questions, advice, and feedback can help ease the transition into your new role and make you feel more comfortable as a first time manager. Don’t be stubborn, being a manager is harder than it looks. Pick someone to learn from and ask them to be a mentor.
Always keep learning. Once you land a management position, you shouldn’t just stop developing new skills and learning new things. There are always ways to improve and grow, so you should always strive to become a better leader, improve your skill set, and take the time to grow both personally and professionally. As a first time manager, you’ll definitely have a lot to learn!
Be transparent. One of the most important management tips is to always be open and honest with your team members. This transparency will go a long way in building trust. If your employees feel like you aren’t trustworthy, they won’t feel comfortable coming to you with questions, comments, or concerns, which can negatively affect team performance and morale.
Hold yourself accountable. There’s no point in being open if you aren’t going to actually follow through on what you said. So, be sure to never make promises you can’t keep, and do what you say you’re going to do. This is another way to build trust with your direct reports, and sets an example that your team members should hold themselves accountable, too.
Be accessible and approachable. Effective managers need to be accessible to their team members. After all, if your direct reports can never get a hold of you, or they feel that coming to you with a problem is intimidating, you’ll never be able to identify problems and create solutions for them!
Become an active listener. One of the most vital tips for new managers on this list is to become an active listener, which means paying very close attention to your team members during a meeting or whenever they approach you for a conversation. Maintain eye contact, nod your head, and watch for non-verbal cues and body language. Never interrupt them and always repeat the key points they’ve made back to them to confirm you not only heard, but actually understand what they said.
Schedule and stick with regular 1:1 meetings. You need to connect with your team members privately through 1:1 meetings to give and get feedback and uncover problems. This is so important because often times, employees may not feel comfortable voicing concerns in a group setting. You also need all the members of your team to interact with each other regularly. This way, you can ensure everyone is on the same page and knows what their coworkers are working on. This can also help with team bonding, which leads to higher morale, engagement, and employee motivation.
Ask for feedback. As a first time manager, you’re not going to be perfect—even experienced managers are far from perfect. So, it’s important that you regularly ask your team members for feedback, whether in group or 1:1 meetings or through anonymous surveys. When you know what your team members like and what they don’t and where they think improvements can be made, you can proactively make the necessary changes.
Stay organized. Staying organized will make you feel all over the place as a first time manager, and keeping tasks on track will go a long way in boosting team productivity. There are lots of tools that managers can use to keep track of workload, timelines, projects, performance goals, and more. Streamlining these processes will help you keep all the many moving parts of being a manager on track!

\n\n

First Time Managers Can Succeed with Strety!

One of the tips for new managers we mentioned earlier was leveraging a digital tool to keep track of workload, timelines, projects, performance goals, and more.

One of these tools is Strety—a platform that brings together all the features you need to be a better manager so you can run high performing teams 😍! With Strety, you’ll be able to:

Conduct more effective team and 1:1 meetings
Set and track employee and company goals
Send and store team announcements for improved communication and bonding amongst team members
Ask recurring questions and set automated reminders for more streamlined project management
And much more!

If you’re a new team leader, you need access to the tools and data insights that will make it possible to improve your management skills and get the most out of your team members. Strety makes this possible! So, are you ready to get started? Contact us today 📞!

","post_summary":"

\n\n

Becoming a New Manager: What You Need to Do Beforehand

If you feel like you're on the cusp of being promoted to a management position or have a long-term goal to get there, there are things you could be doing to prepare for your future role.

\n\n

Tips for New Managers

So let’s dive into our tips on how to be a good manager! Here we go:

Recognize you’re in a new role. As a first time manager, accept the fact that you’re in a new role and will often be doing things you’ve never done before. It’s totally okay to have questions, need extra guidance or support as you’re getting comfortable in your new role, and make some mistakes along the way—you’ll just keep learning and getting better! Be humble and know you’re new!
Learn about different leadership styles. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to being a good manager. There are lots of different leadership styles out there, so take the time to learn about them and try different things out. Individual team members may respond better to a certain style of leadership or coaching, so if you have a solid foundation of various leadership styles, you can then tailor your approach to best fit their needs.
Get to really know your team members. Spend time with each of your team members and get to know their daily job tasks, career goals, strengths, and weaknesses, likes, dislikes, and workplace preferences. But don't just stop there—get to know things like the names of their children, what pets they have, where they live, etc. Knowing some small details that are important to them and bringing them up in conversation can help you build a more personal relationship that leads to a solid foundation of trust.
Be the boss, not a friend. Although you should get to know your team on a personal level, it’s important to realize that you’re still their superior. If you act like a friend and not an unbiased boss, it can cause feelings of bias or favoritism amongst other team members. This can cause big problems for team morale. So, while it’s natural to develop friendships with people you’re working with and seeing every day, be sure to maintain professional interactions while in the workplace.
Focus on employee motivation. Each individual team member will be motivated by different things. For example, some appreciate recognition from their manager while others are incentivized by perks like monetary bonuses or an extra day off for high performance. One of the most important new manager skills is the ability to uncover those motivators for each employee so you can help everyone on your team reach their greatest potential!
Lead by example. A major tip for new managers is to always lead your team members by example. Avoid the “do as I say, not as I do” mindset—this will lead to distrust and resentment amongst your team. Ensure you are working just as hard, if not harder, than everyone else. This will generate a great deal of respect from your employees and inspire them to do their best. But remember, this doesn’t mean just do their jobs for them—it means being the type of person you want them to be!
Find a mentor. Find another successful manager in your organization to observe and learn from. Having a go-to person for questions, advice, and feedback can help ease the transition into your new role and make you feel more comfortable as a first time manager. Don’t be stubborn, being a manager is harder than it looks. Pick someone to learn from and ask them to be a mentor.
Always keep learning. Once you land a management position, you shouldn’t just stop developing new skills and learning new things. There are always ways to improve and grow, so you should always strive to become a better leader, improve your skill set, and take the time to grow both personally and professionally. As a first time manager, you’ll definitely have a lot to learn!
Be transparent. One of the most important management tips is to always be open and honest with your team members. This transparency will go a long way in building trust. If your employees feel like you aren’t trustworthy, they won’t feel comfortable coming to you with questions, comments, or concerns, which can negatively affect team performance and morale.
Hold yourself accountable. There’s no point in being open if you aren’t going to actually follow through on what you said. So, be sure to never make promises you can’t keep, and do what you say you’re going to do. This is another way to build trust with your direct reports, and sets an example that your team members should hold themselves accountable, too.
Be accessible and approachable. Effective managers need to be accessible to their team members. After all, if your direct reports can never get a hold of you, or they feel that coming to you with a problem is intimidating, you’ll never be able to identify problems and create solutions for them!
Become an active listener. One of the most vital tips for new managers on this list is to become an active listener, which means paying very close attention to your team members during a meeting or whenever they approach you for a conversation. Maintain eye contact, nod your head, and watch for non-verbal cues and body language. Never interrupt them and always repeat the key points they’ve made back to them to confirm you not only heard, but actually understand what they said.
Schedule and stick with regular 1:1 meetings. You need to connect with your team members privately through 1:1 meetings to give and get feedback and uncover problems. This is so important because often times, employees may not feel comfortable voicing concerns in a group setting. You also need all the members of your team to interact with each other regularly. This way, you can ensure everyone is on the same page and knows what their coworkers are working on. This can also help with team bonding, which leads to higher morale, engagement, and employee motivation.
Ask for feedback. As a first time manager, you’re not going to be perfect—even experienced managers are far from perfect. So, it’s important that you regularly ask your team members for feedback, whether in group or 1:1 meetings or through anonymous surveys. When you know what your team members like and what they don’t and where they think improvements can be made, you can proactively make the necessary changes.
Stay organized. Staying organized will make you feel all over the place as a first time manager, and keeping tasks on track will go a long way in boosting team productivity. There are lots of tools that managers can use to keep track of workload, timelines, projects, performance goals, and more. Streamlining these processes will help you keep all the many moving parts of being a manager on track!

\n\n

First Time Managers Can Succeed with Strety!

One of the tips for new managers we mentioned earlier was leveraging a digital tool to keep track of workload, timelines, projects, performance goals, and more.

One of these tools is Strety—a platform that brings together all the features you need to be a better manager so you can run high performing teams 😍! With Strety, you’ll be able to:

Conduct more effective team and 1:1 meetings
Set and track employee and company goals
Send and store team announcements for improved communication and bonding amongst team members
Ask recurring questions and set automated reminders for more streamlined project management
And much more!

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Management Tips

How to Succeed as a New Manager: 15 Tips

We get it—being a first time manager can feel like a daunting task 😳. Many of us are thrust into management positions without any formal training or ...

Written By: Strety

January 9, 2020

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When done correctly, goal setting can put your employees on track to achieve their greatest potential as individuals and align themselves better with company goals 😌. But, if you set unrealistic, vague, or irrelevant performance goals for your employees, it can actually end up doing way more harm than good 😔.

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So, how can you set better performance goals in order to keep your teams highly motivated, engaged, and productive?

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What are Performance Goals?

Employee performance goals are, well, pretty much exactly what they sound like! They address specific aspects of an employee's job performance, enabling them to plan and organize their work so they can achieve the desired goals or outcomes.

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The Importance of Goal Setting for Your Employees

It can be difficult for your employees to know if their job performance is measuring up to your expectations as their manager. At the same time, it can be difficult for you to know how to best motivate your employees so they can continue working towards the goals of the entire organization, as well as grow personally and professionally.

Setting job performance goals for your employees is one way to take the mystery out of how they can improve their performance in the workplace 👏. By setting effective performance goals, your employees will be better equipped to:

Develop new job skills that help them level up in their career
Take on additional responsibilities
Think longer-term and more strategically
Pursue their career aspirations
Support the organization's vision, mission, and values
Collaborate with their coworkers
Communicate with leadership
Plan and implement successful projects and initiatives
Remain resilient and optimistic when roadblocks arise, learn from setbacks, and make changes or improvements to get back on track and meet their goals

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The Importance of Goal Setting for Managers

Goal setting can also make things much easier on you as a manager. When you set clear employee goals and track their progress, it means you can conduct more effective and accurate employee performance reviews 🙌.

It also makes day-to-day employee management a much less stressful process. When you know exactly what your employees are working towards and where they currently stand, you can then step in to help them along their path towards achieving them. How? By giving regular feedback, being a support system, and helping them find ways to improve and develop new skills!

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How to Create Performance Goals

There are many different approaches you can take when it comes to writing performance goals for your employees ✍️. Three of the most common goal frameworks are:

Outcome and process goals
SMART goals
Objective Key Results (OKRs)

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What are Outcome & Process Goals?

This goal framework originated from the world of athletics 🏃‍♂️ but is just as applicable when setting organizational goals or performance goals for employees! Let’s explore each type further:

Outcome Goals

An outcome goal is the main singular goal that you are working towards. While outcome goals can be very motivating, oftentimes, they are not under your control because they are affected by how others perform, too.

Process Goals

Process goals support performance goals by giving you something to focus on as you work towards your performance goals. They are the small things that are totally under your control that you should focus on or do to eventually achieve your performance goals.

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What are SMART Goals?

SMART goals are another goal framework that can be used to set employee performance goals. SMART goals are goals that are:

Specific 🙋‍♂️

A performance goal should be explained with enough detail that it can be clearly understood, and includes the who, what, when, where, and how. This is essential because it will be incredibly difficult for your employees to achieve a goal that is incredibly generic or too vague.

Measurable 📏

A performance goal also needs to be measurable in some numeric or descriptive way. After all, how will your employee know when they’ve completed the goal, or how much more progress needs to be made before they do, if there is no way to measure success?

Achievable 💪

It’s important that your employee goals are realistic. Each employee needs to have the resources and control necessary to actually complete the goals you’ve set for them. If they don’t, you’re just setting your team up for failure.

Relevant 📈

Any good performance goal should be aligned with the mission of the team, department, or overall organization. Otherwise, there is no point in pursuing it!

Timely 📅

It’s important that the performance goals you’re setting for your employees have a target completion date that is actually realistic. For example, setting a 10 year goal is not very motivating and expecting an employee to reach a huge goal overnight will only make them feel enormous amounts of pressure that can actually have a negative affect their performance.

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What are Objective Key Results?

Objective Key Results, or OKRs, are yet another popular goal framework. OKRs are designed to connect company, team, and personal employee performance goals to measurable results.

A large component of this goal framework is making sure everyone is clear about what is expected of them. For this reason, OKRs are supposed to be public. This way, all team members and leaders are aware of what others are working on, and can work together in one unified direction 👉 towards the same high-level organizational goals.

Structure of OKRs

The structure of OKRs are broken into two main components:

Objectives 📋 OKRs consist of a list of 3-5 high level objectives on company, team, or personal levels.
Results 📈 Under each objective, you should define 3-5 measurable results. Each Key Result can be measured on a score of 0-100% or 0 to 1.

Implementing OKRs

OKRs are typically part of the quarterly planning process, but some companies will also set annual or monthly OKRs. A major advantage of OKRs is that they are simple to use and do not take much time to implement. Oftentimes, it takes just a few hours each quarter to review OKRs for each employee in their performance review—although it’s a good idea to check in on them a little more regularly so you can keep up with each employee’s progress.

Once defined, it’s important to communicate the OKRs you’ve set for each employee to the rest of the team, as well as leadership within the organization. Then, as your employees start working towards their objectives, they will update their result indicators regularly, preferably weekly. Remember to be flexible! 🧘 If the goals of your company, team, or employees change, then OKRs can be changed as well!

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Examples of Performance Goals

Here are some examples of performance goals that may get your creative juices flowing as you’re working on goal setting for your own team.

3 Examples of Performance Goals for Employees

Deliver five completed project designs to each client in March.
Get together for a coffee date with a coworker from a different department each month to better understand how they contribute to the overall goals of the organization and brainstorm ideas to improve cross-departmental efficiency.
Reduce negative customer satisfaction rate by 50%.

3 Examples of Performance Goals for Managers

Dedicate time to once a month to recognize the work of a top performer on your team by taking them to get a coffee or sending them an encouraging email.
Create a document that outlines all the communication tools used across your team and distribute it to each member by the end of the month to ensure a strong understanding of them before the next quarter rolls around.
Keep attrition on your team under 10% year-over-year.

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Set—and Track—Better Performance Goals with Strety! 😍

Setting better goals is just the first step. To hit your goals, you need the right systems in place to keep track of progress, celebrate high performers, and give helpful feedback.

It's tough to see real progress if you're tracking goals in a spreadsheet. That's not designed for meaningful collaboration, which you need to keep people motivated.

Strety's designed to help you ditch the chaos and uncertainty of managing people and setting employee goals. Strety has all the features you need to become a better manager together in one convenient place: Microsoft Teams.

If you're already spending your workday inside Teams, shouldn't your goals live there, too?

With Strety, you can set and track individual employee performance goals as well as overall business goals: right within Teams. You'll always know where each employee and your business as a whole stands. Whether you use Traction/EOS, OKRs, or just simple SMART goals, we can help you monitor them with ease, all on a system built to be intuitive and easy to use.

Ready to gain access to the tools you need to set and track employee performance goals in a faster, simpler way? Contact us today! 📞

","rss_summary":"

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\n\n

So, how can you set better performance goals in order to keep your teams highly motivated, engaged, and productive?

\n\n

What are Performance Goals?

\n\n

The Importance of Goal Setting for Your Employees

Develop new job skills that help them level up in their career
Take on additional responsibilities
Think longer-term and more strategically
Pursue their career aspirations
Support the organization's vision, mission, and values
Collaborate with their coworkers
Communicate with leadership
Plan and implement successful projects and initiatives
Remain resilient and optimistic when roadblocks arise, learn from setbacks, and make changes or improvements to get back on track and meet their goals

\n\n

The Importance of Goal Setting for Managers

\n\n

How to Create Performance Goals

There are many different approaches you can take when it comes to writing performance goals for your employees ✍️. Three of the most common goal frameworks are:

Outcome and process goals
SMART goals
Objective Key Results (OKRs)

\n\n

What are Outcome & Process Goals?

Outcome Goals

Process Goals

\n\n

What are SMART Goals?

SMART goals are another goal framework that can be used to set employee performance goals. SMART goals are goals that are:

Specific 🙋‍♂️

Measurable 📏

Achievable 💪

Relevant 📈

Any good performance goal should be aligned with the mission of the team, department, or overall organization. Otherwise, there is no point in pursuing it!

Timely 📅

\n\n

What are Objective Key Results?

Objective Key Results, or OKRs, are yet another popular goal framework. OKRs are designed to connect company, team, and personal employee performance goals to measurable results.

Structure of OKRs

The structure of OKRs are broken into two main components:

Objectives 📋 OKRs consist of a list of 3-5 high level objectives on company, team, or personal levels.
Results 📈 Under each objective, you should define 3-5 measurable results. Each Key Result can be measured on a score of 0-100% or 0 to 1.

Implementing OKRs

\n\n

Examples of Performance Goals

Here are some examples of performance goals that may get your creative juices flowing as you’re working on goal setting for your own team.

3 Examples of Performance Goals for Employees

Deliver five completed project designs to each client in March.
Get together for a coffee date with a coworker from a different department each month to better understand how they contribute to the overall goals of the organization and brainstorm ideas to improve cross-departmental efficiency.
Reduce negative customer satisfaction rate by 50%.

3 Examples of Performance Goals for Managers

Dedicate time to once a month to recognize the work of a top performer on your team by taking them to get a coffee or sending them an encouraging email.
Create a document that outlines all the communication tools used across your team and distribute it to each member by the end of the month to ensure a strong understanding of them before the next quarter rolls around.
Keep attrition on your team under 10% year-over-year.

\n\n

Set—and Track—Better Performance Goals with Strety! 😍

Setting better goals is just the first step. To hit your goals, you need the right systems in place to keep track of progress, celebrate high performers, and give helpful feedback.

It's tough to see real progress if you're tracking goals in a spreadsheet. That's not designed for meaningful collaboration, which you need to keep people motivated.

If you're already spending your workday inside Teams, shouldn't your goals live there, too?

Ready to gain access to the tools you need to set and track employee performance goals in a faster, simpler way? Contact us today! 📞

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Employee Goals

How to Set Better Goals to Motivate Your Team

When done correctly, goal setting can put your employees on track to achieve their greatest potential as individuals and align themselves better with ...

Written By: Strety

January 2, 2020

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How would you define the term \"manager?\" According to Google’s manager definition, it’s \"a person responsible for controlling or administering all or part of a company or similar organization.\" That sounds easy enough, right? 🤔

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In practice, it’s not always so simple and straightforward. Being a manager can be an incredibly demanding job that requires a lot of time, effort, and responsibility—but it’s an important one. So, the more important question here isn’t “what does a manager do?” but “what makes a good manager?”

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What Makes a Good Manager?

Effective management is an essential component of any thriving business. A good manager can make all the difference in how happy and productive their team is, which contributes to the overall success of the business! 👏 So, it’s important that you have the management skills and traits necessary to help each member of your team achieve their greatest potential. Here are some characteristics of a successful manager.

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8 Traits of a Good Manager

There are some characteristics of a good manager that you can add to your repertoire if you want to become a better leader!

So, if you're wondering how to be a good manager, here are just a few key manager qualities and traits that are essential for success:

1. Patience ⏱️

Learning how to control your emotions and being able to take a step back before deciding how to react to a situation are key traits of a good manager. Instead of pointing fingers or getting worked up when a mistake occurs, a good manager will take the time to determine what went wrong, why it happened, what to do about it, and how to prevent the same issue from occurring again. This approach will make it easier to solve problems and fix errors quickly and efficiently—without flustering the rest of the team.

2. Strong decision-making skills 📈

One of the most important qualities of a good manager is the ability to pull information from multiple sources, make a strategic decision, and put a plan in place to actually carry it out. Any manager will have to make multiple decisions on a daily basis, and also have to make quick choices (often while under pressure) when unique circumstances or a problem arises.

3. Approachability 👋

Being welcoming, accessible, and easy to talk to is what makes a good manager. If your team members don’t feel comfortable going to you with questions, comments, or concerns (or can never actually get a hold of them to do so), it will negatively affect both the success and morale of the team. Every good manager should have an open door policy and actually take a genuine interest in what their team has to say.

4. Emotional intelligence ❤️

Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions, as well as the emotions of others. Why is this important for managers? How a manager behaves and interacts with their team in challenging circumstances, both throughout the day and in high pressure situations, can have a significant impact on their team members. A good manager should be emotionally resilient and cognizant of how their mood and attitude affects others, be able to cope well with change, and remain calm under pressure.

5. Trustworthiness 🤝

Every team member needs to be able to trust their manager’s words and actions. So, it’s vital that you openly and honestly communicate with your team with a high level of transparency. However, this is a two-way street—effective managers also need to be able to trust their team and not micromanage everything.

6. Accountability 🔐

It’s important that you don’t just talk the talk as a manager, but actually walk the walk, too. Avoid making promises you can’t keep. You should actually follow through on what you say you’re going to do. If you don’t, your team members will become skeptical of everything you tell them—and this fear of being manipulated or misinformed will negatively affect both their job performance and engagement.

7. Positivity 😄

Your employees will look to you as a manager to set the tone and attitude for the entire team. Positivity can be contagious, and it’s up to leaders to set the example and maintain a positive atmosphere in the office to keep team morale high. This will help keep people happy, engaged, and highly productive.

8. Motivational skills 🏃‍♂️

Success will mean something different to different employees, but a good manager should know exactly what this means for each of their team members. For example, some employees find recognition motivating, while others don’t need praise but are instead fueled by incentives or perks (such as a bonus or extra time off). So, a major key to being a good manager is knowing what it takes to get each team member to succeed as an individual—while also supporting the success of the team and the business as a whole.

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Effective Development for Managers

Where can you find the best new managers to lead your business to future success? Instead of hiring someone externally, promoting a current employee to a management position can be a great idea and is often done in small to medium sized businesses. But they (you) may not have all the expertise to be an effective manager right away. That’s why managers should be continuous learners, always striving to become better leaders, improve their skills, and take the time to grow both personally and professionally!

If you want to improve as a manager, it’s important to understand where you currently stand and where you feel you need more support or training. How can you find this information out? Feedback from your team members is a good start. You could consider sending out a manager effectiveness survey where your team members can provide anonymous feedback to help you understand what you’re doing right now and where improvements can be made.

You could also consider attending local management seminars, taking an online training course, talking to other managers you know in different companies and industries to get ideas or insight you may not have thought about, or leveraging resources such as podcasts, blogs, and books!

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Our Recent Book Favorites to Get You Going as a Manager…

At Strety, we’ve learned what makes a great manager based on 15+ years of experience managing teams and people. But, we also learned from others who have shared their knowledge in blogs and books—so we wanted to pass along some recent book gems that really gave us great perspective on how to be a great manager. We think you’ll enjoy them as much as we did...

The Making of a Manager

Written by Julie Zhuo, The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You is a Wall Street Journal bestseller is designed to help leaders understand that great managers are made, not born—then give them the tools and insights to grow into a truly successful manager. Whether you're new to the job, have been a team leader for years, or looking to be promoted to a management role in the future, this is the handbook you need to be the kind of manager that makes a true impact!

Nine Lies About Work

Written by bestselling author Marcus Buckingham, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World challenges the status quo about “work” that we encounter every day when we show up to our jobs. It teaches how freethinking leaders recognize the power and beauty of the individual uniqueness of each member of their team, and how this contributes to the overall success of the team as a whole.

Measure What Matters

Written by legendary venture capitalist John Doerr, Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs, uncovers how the goal-setting system of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) has helped tech giants from Intel to Google achieve exponential growth—and how you can apply this system in your own organization to reach new levels of success!

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Become a Better Manager with Strety

Even with all these tips, tools, and resources, it isn’t always clear what you need to do to become a better manager for your teams, but don't worry—you don’t have to figure it all out on your own anymore. 😍

Strety offers practical features that team leaders can actually use throughout the week to get their jobs done and become a better manager by making it possible to:

Conduct more effective team and 1:1 meetings
Set and track employee goals
Send and store team announcements for improved communication and team building
Ask recurring questions and set automated reminders for more streamlined project management
And much more!

Ready to gain access to the tools and data insights you need to improve your management skills and be a better leader to your team members? Contact us today! 📞

","post_summary":"

\n\n

What Makes a Good Manager?

\n\n

8 Traits of a Good Manager

There are some characteristics of a good manager that you can add to your repertoire if you want to become a better leader!

So, if you're wondering how to be a good manager, here are just a few key manager qualities and traits that are essential for success:

1. Patience ⏱️

2. Strong decision-making skills 📈

3. Approachability 👋

4. Emotional intelligence ❤️

5. Trustworthiness 🤝

6. Accountability 🔐

7. Positivity 😄

8. Motivational skills 🏃‍♂️

\n\n

Effective Development for Managers

\n\n

Our Recent Book Favorites to Get You Going as a Manager…

The Making of a Manager

Nine Lies About Work

Measure What Matters

\n\n

Become a Better Manager with Strety

Strety offers practical features that team leaders can actually use throughout the week to get their jobs done and become a better manager by making it possible to:

Conduct more effective team and 1:1 meetings
Set and track employee goals
Send and store team announcements for improved communication and team building
Ask recurring questions and set automated reminders for more streamlined project management
And much more!

Ready to gain access to the tools and data insights you need to improve your management skills and be a better leader to your team members? Contact us today! 📞

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Management Tips

What Makes a Good Manager?

How would you define the term "manager?" According to Google’s manager definition, it’s "a person responsible for controlling or administering all or ...

Written By: Strety

December 19, 2019

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One on one meetings are a powerful tool for monitoring performance, building strong relationships, and boosting motivation—however, managers often dread conducting these 1:1 meetings or avoid doing them all together. So, how can you take the stress out of 1:1 meetings? Get ready to find out!

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What Are One on One Meetings?

One on one meetings are dedicated, recurring time on the calendar for an open-ended conversation between a manager and a direct report. Unlike status reports or tactical meetings about a particular project, one on one meetings are designed to be a place for coaching and mentorship.

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Why Are One-on-One Meetings Valuable?

The manager and direct report relationship is fundamental to the success of your entire organization! Why? Each team and department within your organization is built on interpersonal and professional relationships—and any good relationship is built on trust. Without this trust, both employee performance and employee engagement will suffer.

Nearly all professionals surveyed in a recent study said that having trust in their bosses was essential to workplace satisfaction. However, while 80% of managers said they think they’re transparent with their teams, only 55% of employees agreed. Even worse, only 53% of employees felt like their managers genuinely cared about their well-being 😲. What could be to blame for this gap?

A lack of open, authentic communication—communication that could easily be gained through effective one on one meetings. One on one meetings are meant to be a safe, open forum for communication from manager to employee, as well as from employee to manager. When employees are informed, engaged, and feel like their voice 🗣️ is truly being heard, workplace involvement and morale will increase, along with a sense of ownership and accountability that results in higher job satisfaction and boosted productivity!

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What Do You Talk About in a One on One Meeting?

As a manager, you may be wondering: “What should I actually be talking about in my 1:1 meetings?” The purpose of these meetings is to:

Uncover current levels of employee engagement, morale, stress, job satisfaction, etc.
Set both short and long-term employee performance and career development goals
Track ongoing progress towards these employee performance and career development goals
Uncover if there are any personal or professional obstacles the employee is facing that are getting in the way of achieving these goals, and determine how they could be removed
Discuss any specific issues with employee performance or attitude
Provide constructive criticism, feedback, and coaching
Build a rapport that enhances the manager and employee relationship

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One on One Meeting Questions You Should Ask

You should always try to ask open-ended questions during your 1:1 meetings. This gets the conversation flowing and turns the meeting into a two-way discussion rather than a series of “yes” and “no” responses that don’t give you any actual insight.

You’ll want to ask a good mix of questions so you can get to know your employees on a more personal level to build rapport and trust, talk about job performance and career development, give and receive feedback, find areas for improvements, and check in on their overall happiness 😃 and job satisfaction. Just some ideas for one on one meeting questions you could try include:

How do you view yourself in your role?
What are you most excited about when it comes to your job? What are you most worried or stressed about when it comes to your job?
How do you feel your work/life balance is right now? How could it be improved?
What are your long-term career development goals? What skills do you need to achieve them, and how can you actually acquire those skills?
What obstacles do you foresee having to overcome to achieve these goals? How do you think you can do so?
Do you feel challenged at work? Are you learning new things?
What do you think are the key skills for your role? How would you rate yourself for each of them?
Are there any events or training you’d like to attend to help you grow your skills?
Do you feel you’re getting enough feedback? Why or why not?
What’s a recent situation at work you wish you had handled differently? What would you have changed?
How can I better support you as your manager?
What have your past managers done that you’ve liked or disliked?

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How Do You Run a Great One on One Meeting?

One on one meetings are a powerful and valuable tool for monitoring performance that can improve your overall business performance management strategy. But, it can be overwhelming for any single manager to schedule, run, and follow up on meetings with all the members of their team.

But don’t worry—while it isn’t always easy, it certainly isn’t impossible. Below are some of our top tips for conducting better one on one meetings!

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10 Tips for Better One on One Meetings

1. Have a Clear One on One Meeting Agenda

If you just show up and wing your one on one meetings week after week, what kind of message does that send to your employees? They may think it says that you don’t think putting time or effort into these meetings is important. So, you should always come prepared with clear, organized one on one meeting agendas.

2. Leverage Data

When discussing employee performance during one on one meetings, simply saying an employee is doing well or poorly isn’t helpful. It’s important to use data insights 📊 from direct reports to benchmark each employee’s progress when it comes to meeting their job role expectations and goals. This way, if they aren’t on target, you can give specific, constructive feedback and create a performance improvement plan that will help move the needle. We know a thing or two about KPIs, having founded BrightGauge Software in 2010 ( a SaaS Business Intelligence product) 👊.

3. Keep it Consistent

When it comes to conducting effective one on one meetings, consistency is key. So, it’s important to keep your one on one meetings on a recurring, regular schedule 📅. This enhances accountability because if your employees know when you’ll be checking in on their progress, they can plan their schedules appropriately. Plus, a consistent meeting structure lets both you and your employees to know exactly what to expect each time, meaning you can both prep and prepare accordingly.

4. Be Present

Constantly glancing at your phone while your employee is talking or having a ding from your email inbox go off every five minutes is distracting, and makes your employee feel like you're not really listening to what they have to say. So, ditch the distractions 🔕 and stay focused during one to one meetings by keeping unnecessary electronics and notifications turned off.

5. Have an Open Conversation About Career Development

Did you know that a lack of future opportunities for career development is a key driver of employee attrition and cited as a dissatisfying factor in their job by 40% of departing employees? Employees look to their manager to help them build a future career path, identify areas for improvement, and acquire new skills. So, it’s important that you’re asking the right questions about career development and working with each employee to ensure not only that you’re laying out a future career path, but that you’re equipping them with the tools necessary to get there.

6. Listen, Then Speak

Use active listening techniques to repeat what your employee is saying back to them. For example, “So, what I’m hearing is that you feel you can’t complete the next step of this project without support from Jane in marketing. Did I get that right? How can we get you that support you need?” This nips any chances of miscommunication in the bud, plus shows your employees you’re listening to what they’re saying and are actually understanding it.

7. Take Thorough Notes

Throughout your one on one meetings, you want to make sure you’re taking notes 📝 so you don’t forget anything that was said. This can also help keep both you and your employees accountable because it gives a verifiable, written record of what was discussed that can then be referred back to later. Getting audio recordings (with employee knowledge and permission) can also help with your notes.

8. Get Personal

One on one meetings aren’t just to discuss employee performance. They should also help to build strong 💪 manager and employee relationships! Be sure to check in on a personal level as well as a professional one so that your employees feel cared for and seen as actual human beings—rather than just “employee #4” on your list of one on one meetings you have to get through that week.

9. Give Positive Feedback

While one on one meetings are a great time to discuss issues and give performance reviews, it shouldn’t all be about negative feedback and constructive criticism. It’s also an ideal forum to recognize wins and make your employees feel valued and appreciated for their contributions. This can also be beneficial for your business—companies that provide ample employee recognition have 31% lower voluntary turnover rates than companies who do not.

10. Leave with Action Items

Just discussing what is going well and what isn’t won’t be enough—if you want your employees to actually grow, develop, and improve, you need to actually take action. Coming out of your one on one meetings, it’s important to set clear expectations and timelines for next steps, then be sure to actually follow up on them.

Conduct One on One Meetings with the Tool You're Already Using

If you spend your workday in Microsoft Teams, shouldn't your meeting agendas, action items, and decisions live there, too?

Strety is purpose-built for Microsoft Teams to take the stress out of arranging and following up on 1:1 meetings by automating the process. On our all-in-one employee management platform, you'll be able to:

Schedule one on one meetings with ease
Collaborate on one on one meeting agenda items so your employees can add what they'd like to discuss, too
Add comments and take notes within the product before or during the meeting
Assign action items for the employee to follow up on after

By transforming the way you conduct your one on one meetings with Strety, you can lead a high performing team with confidence! Ready to take the stress out of 1:1 meetings? Contact us today!

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\n\n

What Are One on One Meetings?

\n\n

Why Are One-on-One Meetings Valuable?

\n\n

What Do You Talk About in a One on One Meeting?

As a manager, you may be wondering: “What should I actually be talking about in my 1:1 meetings?” The purpose of these meetings is to:

Uncover current levels of employee engagement, morale, stress, job satisfaction, etc.
Set both short and long-term employee performance and career development goals
Track ongoing progress towards these employee performance and career development goals
Uncover if there are any personal or professional obstacles the employee is facing that are getting in the way of achieving these goals, and determine how they could be removed
Discuss any specific issues with employee performance or attitude
Provide constructive criticism, feedback, and coaching
Build a rapport that enhances the manager and employee relationship

\n\n

One on One Meeting Questions You Should Ask

How do you view yourself in your role?
What are you most excited about when it comes to your job? What are you most worried or stressed about when it comes to your job?
How do you feel your work/life balance is right now? How could it be improved?
What are your long-term career development goals? What skills do you need to achieve them, and how can you actually acquire those skills?
What obstacles do you foresee having to overcome to achieve these goals? How do you think you can do so?
Do you feel challenged at work? Are you learning new things?
What do you think are the key skills for your role? How would you rate yourself for each of them?
Are there any events or training you’d like to attend to help you grow your skills?
Do you feel you’re getting enough feedback? Why or why not?
What’s a recent situation at work you wish you had handled differently? What would you have changed?
How can I better support you as your manager?
What have your past managers done that you’ve liked or disliked?

\n\n

How Do You Run a Great One on One Meeting?

But don’t worry—while it isn’t always easy, it certainly isn’t impossible. Below are some of our top tips for conducting better one on one meetings!

\n\n

10 Tips for Better One on One Meetings

1. Have a Clear One on One Meeting Agenda

2. Leverage Data

3. Keep it Consistent

4. Be Present

5. Have an Open Conversation About Career Development

6. Listen, Then Speak

7. Take Thorough Notes

8. Get Personal

9. Give Positive Feedback

10. Leave with Action Items

Conduct One on One Meetings with the Tool You're Already Using

If you spend your workday in Microsoft Teams, shouldn't your meeting agendas, action items, and decisions live there, too?

Schedule one on one meetings with ease
Collaborate on one on one meeting agenda items so your employees can add what they'd like to discuss, too
Add comments and take notes within the product before or during the meeting
Assign action items for the employee to follow up on after

By transforming the way you conduct your one on one meetings with Strety, you can lead a high performing team with confidence! Ready to take the stress out of 1:1 meetings? Contact us today!

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Meetings

10 Tips for Better One-on-One Meetings

One on one meetings are a powerful tool for monitoring performance, building strong relationships, and boosting motivation—however, managers often ...

Written By: Strety

December 12, 2019

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Welcome to Strety! Though our product is still in beta, we thought now would be the right time to launch our marketing site and start sharing our story and our vision.

\n \n

Why Strety?

Strety will be the go-to tool for all things managing people. We categorize ourselves as a “Performance Management” product but, unfortunately, that category is filled with enterprise-y software that both managers and direct reports just don't like using. So, we like to say we're \"Performance Management for Modern Teams\" and expect to break the mold.

Strety was created to fulfill a need we had badly at companies we founded and operated, BrightGauge and Compuquip. For a clearer sense of our background (as founders), here are the main highlights

Currently, we also run a 30 person MSSP out of Miami, FL, Compuquip Cybersecurity.
We started and sold a 50 person MSP (sold in 2012), Compuquip Managed Services.
We started and sold BrightGauge Software (sold in 2018). Giving 2,000+ businesses around the world easy access to their KPIs.

At each of these companies, we needed to equip ourselves and our managers with just one product that we could use daily to manage our teams more efficiently and with transparency throughout. Nothing existed, and so in 2019, we decided to build it ourselves.

Whether you’re a business owner like us looking run a tighter and better team, a human resources director tasked with standardizing how managers conduct their 1:1 meetings, or a newly promoted team leader who just wants to become a better manager, Strety has the features you need to reach your goals faster and with ease.

\n\n

What Can Strety Do?

Strety makes managing people and monitoring team performance easy by giving you all the tools 🔨 you need in one easy to use, purpose-built product. With Strety, you can:

Automate 1:1 meetings. 📅 Strety takes the stress out of scheduling and following up on 1:1 meetings by automating the entire process.
Create amazing meeting agendas. 📝 Store info about what you need to cover in a particular meeting and collaborate on agendas together so your employees can add anything they need to discuss as well. Store & send notes on each meeting after one is a completed for a complete record of follow ups and what was discussed.
Solicit & Give Peer Feedback. ⭐ Strety takes the frustration out of giving 360 degree feedback by helping to create a more holistic assessment of your team members. This allows you to get a more complete picture of your employee performance and relationships.
Track Goals. 📈 Beyond just tracking an individual employee's performance, it’s important to track progress towards your overall business goals. With Strety, you can set and track key strategic business goals so you always know exactly where your business stands and where improvements could be made.
Send and store team announcements. 📢 Improve communication and foster relationships between team members with announcement and message boards.
Document employee coaching sessions. 📓 Strety’s team message board system makes it simple for your employees (and managers) to communicate with one another. With the ability to tag and save important messages for future reference, you can prevent people from forgetting important reminders.
Ask automated questions. 🔁 No one likes a nag—take the frustration out of status update requests by letting Strety automatically ask recurring questions for you.
Integrate with your favorite tools. 🔨 Strety seamlessly integrates with the tools your managers are already using, like Outlook and Microsoft Teams (coming soon).

\n\n

Who Should Use Strety?

Any manager of any modern team. From the CEO to HR professionals to front line managers, there’s a feature in Strety designed to make the job easier.

CEOs. Make sure every member of your team stays aligned with the big-picture direction of your business through our all-in-one performance management platform. With a full view of your company’s people and their performance, you can make adjustments as needed to ensure everyone is always working towards the same goals.
HR. Strety gives HR managers and team members the ability to set the standards for how to manage in your organization! Standardize how often meetings should happen, what to talk about in 1:1s, and more!
Managers. Be a better manager by fostering strong employee-manager relationships and leveraging automated scheduling for better 1:1 meetings with your team.

From a size perspective, we are built for companies of about 10-200 employees. And with our history in the MSP & MSSP space, we are ultra helpful for those types of companies

The bottom line? Strety can help just about every leader in your organization become a better manager and run their teams with improved transparency and efficiency—meaning your business will be able to:

Reduce turnover
Build a strong company culture that prioritizes continuous learning
Foster manager-direct report relationships
Align everyone's goals with that of the company

Are You Ready to get Strety?

We're currently in beta, but feel free to request an invite to our exclusive testing program if you’re interested in getting early access! We'd love to get you on board as soon as we can. 👍

In the mean-time, check out our new site and contact us with any questions you may have about our performance management product (for modern teams)!

","post_summary":"

Welcome to Strety! Though our product is still in beta, we thought now would be the right time to launch our marketing site and start sharing our story and our vision.

\n \n

Why Strety?

Strety was created to fulfill a need we had badly at companies we founded and operated, BrightGauge and Compuquip. For a clearer sense of our background (as founders), here are the main highlights

Currently, we also run a 30 person MSSP out of Miami, FL, Compuquip Cybersecurity.
We started and sold a 50 person MSP (sold in 2012), Compuquip Managed Services.
We started and sold BrightGauge Software (sold in 2018). Giving 2,000+ businesses around the world easy access to their KPIs.

\n\n

What Can Strety Do?

Strety makes managing people and monitoring team performance easy by giving you all the tools 🔨 you need in one easy to use, purpose-built product. With Strety, you can:

Automate 1:1 meetings. 📅 Strety takes the stress out of scheduling and following up on 1:1 meetings by automating the entire process.
Create amazing meeting agendas. 📝 Store info about what you need to cover in a particular meeting and collaborate on agendas together so your employees can add anything they need to discuss as well. Store & send notes on each meeting after one is a completed for a complete record of follow ups and what was discussed.
Solicit & Give Peer Feedback. ⭐ Strety takes the frustration out of giving 360 degree feedback by helping to create a more holistic assessment of your team members. This allows you to get a more complete picture of your employee performance and relationships.
Track Goals. 📈 Beyond just tracking an individual employee's performance, it’s important to track progress towards your overall business goals. With Strety, you can set and track key strategic business goals so you always know exactly where your business stands and where improvements could be made.
Send and store team announcements. 📢 Improve communication and foster relationships between team members with announcement and message boards.
Document employee coaching sessions. 📓 Strety’s team message board system makes it simple for your employees (and managers) to communicate with one another. With the ability to tag and save important messages for future reference, you can prevent people from forgetting important reminders.
Ask automated questions. 🔁 No one likes a nag—take the frustration out of status update requests by letting Strety automatically ask recurring questions for you.
Integrate with your favorite tools. 🔨 Strety seamlessly integrates with the tools your managers are already using, like Outlook and Microsoft Teams (coming soon).

\n\n

Who Should Use Strety?

Any manager of any modern team. From the CEO to HR professionals to front line managers, there’s a feature in Strety designed to make the job easier.

CEOs. Make sure every member of your team stays aligned with the big-picture direction of your business through our all-in-one performance management platform. With a full view of your company’s people and their performance, you can make adjustments as needed to ensure everyone is always working towards the same goals.
HR. Strety gives HR managers and team members the ability to set the standards for how to manage in your organization! Standardize how often meetings should happen, what to talk about in 1:1s, and more!
Managers. Be a better manager by fostering strong employee-manager relationships and leveraging automated scheduling for better 1:1 meetings with your team.

From a size perspective, we are built for companies of about 10-200 employees. And with our history in the MSP & MSSP space, we are ultra helpful for those types of companies

Reduce turnover
Build a strong company culture that prioritizes continuous learning
Foster manager-direct report relationships
Align everyone's goals with that of the company

Are You Ready to get Strety?

We're currently in beta, but feel free to request an invite to our exclusive testing program if you’re interested in getting early access! We'd love to get you on board as soon as we can. 👍

In the mean-time, check out our new site and contact us with any questions you may have about our performance management product (for modern teams)!

","rss_summary":"

Welcome to Strety! Though our product is still in beta, we thought now would be the right time to launch our marketing site and start sharing our story and our vision.

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Product Updates

Welcome to Strety!

Welcome to Strety! Though our product is still in beta, we thought now would be the right time to launch our marketing site and start sharing our ...

Written By: Strety

December 9, 2019

Quarterly Meetings are Critical

Authentic Leadership: Fostering a Positive Work Culture

5 Most Common Management Mistakes of New Managers

New Manager Mistake #1: Not Conducting Regular 1:1 Meetings 👫

New Manager Mistake #2: Micromanaging 📍

New Manager Mistake #3: Not Gathering Employee Feedback 🗣️

New Manager Mistake #4: Failing to Improve Their Leadership and Management Skills 📚

New Manager Mistake #5: Failure to Delegate ✍️

Avoid These Common Management Mistakes with the Right Tools!

5 Most Common Management Mistakes of New Managers

New Manager Mistake #1: Not Conducting Regular 1:1 Meetings 👫

New Manager Mistake #2: Micromanaging 📍

New Manager Mistake #3: Not Gathering Employee Feedback 🗣️

New Manager Mistake #4: Failing to Improve Their Leadership and Management Skills 📚

New Manager Mistake #5: Failure to Delegate ✍️

Avoid These Common Management Mistakes with the Right Tools!

What Are the Most Common Management Mistakes of New Managers?

Best ROI for a half day’s salary

Tinder for Jobs: How to have a great discussion about job happiness with direct reports

Develop Relationships Early

Nail the Sales/Implementation Handoff

Set Clear Expectations

Establish Multiple Communication Channels

Be Proactive, Stay Proactive

Respond Promptly

Use Every Interaction to Deliver Value

Develop Relationships Early

Nail the Sales/Implementation Handoff

Set Clear Expectations

Establish Multiple Communication Channels

Be Proactive, Stay Proactive

Respond Promptly

Use Every Interaction to Deliver Value

How to Manage Client Relationships for Long-Term Mutual Success

A Manager is Not an Individual Contributor

Measure the Team's Entire Output

Build the Right Management Systems

Schedule Your Day to Reduce Switching Costs

Over to You

A Manager is Not an Individual Contributor

Measure the Team's Entire Output

Build the Right Management Systems

Schedule Your Day to Reduce Switching Costs

Over to You

How to Become a More Productive Manager in 2020

How to Lead Career Development Initiatives

1. Prioritize Professional Growth in One-on-One Meetings

2. Help to Identify Relevant Learning & Education Opportunities

3. Share Your Professional Expertise

4. Expand Their Network

5. Promote Cross Departmental Collaboration

Lead and Manage

How to Lead Career Development Initiatives

1. Prioritize Professional Growth in One-on-One Meetings

2. Help to Identify Relevant Learning & Education Opportunities

3. Share Your Professional Expertise

4. Expand Their Network

5. Promote Cross Departmental Collaboration

Lead and Manage

Managers: 5 Ways You Can Promote Career Growth and Retain Talent

How to Run a Virtual Meeting

How to Uncover Unspoken Issues in a Virtual Meeting

Default to Video

Listen With Your Eyes

Make Time to Check In

Follow Up Privately -- and Immediately

We're Here to Help

How to Run a Virtual Meeting

How to Uncover Unspoken Issues in a Virtual Meeting

Default to Video

Listen With Your Eyes

Make Time to Check In

Follow Up Privately -- and Immediately

We're Here to Help

How to Get Better at Virtual Meetings in 2020

How Do You Conduct a Performance Review?

How Do You Start a Performance Review?

How Do You Give Good Feedback in a Performance Review?

How do Goals Come Into Play?

In Review: The Template