6 Steps to A Productive Team
The creative team at oVertone, 2019, making hair strands and filming beautiful instructional content. Productive on purpose, with purpose
Productivity is the catch word of the moment - there are so many enhancements that we can buy in our modern society to make things more streamlined, efficient, and productive.
Many people recognize that especially into a cash crunch, we as leaders want to lesson the stress on our teams by giving them the tools they need to make their work easier with the hopes that more work can get done in less time with fewer people more easily. Right now, LLM tools (aka: AI) seem to have an exceptional promise on what can get your team, and thereby your company, chugging along faster than ever.
The assumption that we make when we choose those things for those reasons, of course, is that faster is better. That if we’re moving the work along at a quick pace, that we’ll get to the finish line before everyone else and therefore capture more money than our competitors. At least, this is the unspoken belief behind the corporate lingo - you might hear it or even say it more like “capture more market share,” “run a leaner, more efficient team,” “growth at all costs,” “move fast and break things,” or “grow or die.”
The idea that speed over all other things is the most critical metric for success is ultimately misguided though, and could lead you and your team straight over a cliff (at great speed, of course).
Remember the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare? Everyone assumes that the Hare will win the race, however in the end, the Tortoise has clear sighted and stead direction - moving solidly one step at a time towards the finish line, while the Hare jumps around to a lot of interesting, but ultimately unhelpful detours.
Speed doesn’t make or break your company - the ability to clearly and consistently navigate towards a common goal DOES.
Without a clear set of priorities and objectives that everyone in the company is aligned to and pushing towards, it doesn’t matter how efficiently you work. A goal of more is always a moving target. It’s unclear, unspecific, and unmotivating. You can be as productive as you want, but what good is it if you have no idea what you’re ultimately looking to accomplish together? And no - increasing shareholder value doesn’t count. That goes in the ambiguous “more” bucket.
So how can you actually improve the productivity of a team?
Start with your leadership. Do you have a clear set of MVV’s (that’s mission, vision, and values to you). Do you know why you hire employees, what you want to accomplish with your company, and the impact that those accomplishments will have? If you don’t, spend some real time figuring that out.
Now, imagine where you want the company to be 3 years from now. Don’t ask Chat. Ask yourself, your exec team, and use your MVVs to guide you. Be as specific as you can. How big do you want to be? Why? What projects do you want to have worked on?
Next, complete this exercise: to be there in three years, paint the picture of what you need to accomplish THIS YEAR in order to be in good shape to get to your 3 year goal. Again, use your MVVs to guide you. Why does the work matter? How do the goals ladder into the broader mission and vision?
Congrats - now you know what you need to do and why it matters. Time to take it to the team.
Communicate your annual goals to the team by putting it in the perspective of the one year and three year goals. Write them down, revisit them often. Ask the leaders of departments to contribute what they will need in order to accomplish the combined goals you laid out, and what they believe will be important contributions to complete those goals. Let them tell you how their expertise will move the company forward - get their buy in. Create quarterly goals for each dept that ladder into the entire company’s annual goals, and follow up with them.
And the hardest part - stay consistent, even through the sticky parts. Only pivot when absolutely necessary, or things outside of your control hit the fan - and then always revisit as a team. Hold people accountable to their goals, and give them the tools they need to be productive in service of the goals - not just for “more more more.”
Bam. There you have it. Productivity with purpose, buy in, and intrinsic motivation.
