Ask them how they are doing. Tell a joke. Ask everyone a fun question. Poke fun at yourself. Learn something new about them. Your meetings have a goal, but the first one should always be – “we’re a team and we’re in this together” – make sure everyone always knows that.
It’s tempting at some point during a project, epic, feature, or any piece unit of work to go back to the way you used to do it because it was “easier”. But the question that has to be asked in that equation is – “Easier for who?” For your team? For your stakeholders? For your QA team? For who, this is the question. It might be easier for you to go back to how you…
It never works. It never works because people have questions and you’re not answering them. Ramming change through your team without hearing their concerns or input is about as valuable as ramming a car into a tree to take it down. Sure you might “get the job done” but in the process, you’ll destroy the car, hurt the driver and leave the downed tree a mess so it can’t be reused for anything else. Ask…
Yes, we are all hearing, we are all “aware” of what is being said around us all the time. We grab snippets, pieces that resonate with us, or parts of conversations that agree with our inner dialogue. But that’s not listening. And that’s not what your client needs to hear.
A few weeks ago we had a great interview with Rekha Rao-Mayya on our Season 4 topic of Worklife Balance. Rekha has had the unique experience of moving from Microsoft to Amazon during the pandemic and some of the lessons she has learned along the way were truly interesting to hear. One that resonated with me was leading by example when it comes to work life balance and how she has had to force herself…