Supporting Team and Individuals – How To

So, you want to start providing greater support for teams and individuals within your organisation, right? As discussed in the previous articles you want to encourage – honesty, discussion of mission and self-improvement?

Firstly we must recognise that this isn’t simply a case of flippng a switch and transforming your organisation, far from it in fact. This is about starting a process, one which should increase the amount of discussion around personal ambitions, aspirations and support. The double edge of nature of such conversations means that difficulties and obstacles encountered by staff may become more visible. Bad thing? Not necessarily, the process of providing support is partly about surfacing uncomfortable conversations as means of moving the organisation forward.

Weekly Check-ins

Start simple, weekly check-ins with staff collectively to get the balling rolling. In our experience a question along the lines of ‘how are things going’ is almost so wide to be meaningless. Focus the conversation, instead something along the lines of ‘what’s working well for you?’ this opens people up and gets them thinking about their personal victories big and small.

The next question to focus your check-ins is ‘even better if’ – this again focuses the conversation without necessarily allowing it to become negative. What would and could enhance this persons working experience, what would take it to the next level?

Visuals for Discussion

We’re all used to the idea of trending thoughts in an online sense. A great experiment in the workplace is to actually attempt to ‘de-tech’ this idea and take it a step back. Create a space within the working environment where people can simply write down the different ideas and thoughts they’re having. Random, uncut, work-related or un-work related.  We’ve seen this trialed in several working spaces and it can often be a fantastic precursor to work discussions.

Coaching

Every principle we’ve talked about, from honesty to reflection must be underpinned by some semblance of one on one support. It’s important that the support come from an independent voice, someone un-connected to the organisation as a whole. This isn’t an attempt to drill for information, but instead allow things to arise.