As we continue to ride the waves of post-pandemic mass corporate change, the sudden rise in popularity of AI technology and emerging generational differences in the workplace there is an opportunity for leaders at any level to lift their heads out of the day-to-day chaos and look ahead at proactively creating their environment for a future they want to lead in.
Burnout is pervasive – around 80% of American workers say they have experienced burnout in ‘23 – and one the antidotes to burnout is finding autonomy and sense of control in your work and environment. Holding space for yourself and your team to re-establish this feeling inside of the workplace system that you exist within is critical to envision a path forward from the stress teams are experiencing.
It’s not a small ask with the very real day-to-day chaos many are experiencing ontop of change fatigue, emotional labor at work and rising expectations to put profits over people. But I’m still inviting you to join me for a few minutes and envision a different future for yourself and your teams.
This Team Purpose Workshop/Offsite is one example that I hope is accessible and achievable to many managers as it’s containable within one business day.
Set the stage for human connection
Acknowledge where you are at current, while inviting your team to stay open minded. Set an agreement that you won’t “Rabbit-hole” into rehashing topics or things outside of your control as a team. Get out of the day-to-day environment and mix it up to effectively shift people’s thinking from the now to the possibility. If possible, get away from the office or home office(s), or if leading virtually or hybrid ask people to sit somewhere different! This doesn’t need to be expensive, but prioritize around inclusivity and how you’ll consider hybrid participants. What if someone on the team gets sick or can’t make it. How will you engage with them following?
Build in time for play, down-time or small group connection – if possible, get people moving or outdoors together with space and time without distractions. Provide your team absolute air cover and expectations of their commitment to the day, and help them establish boundaries for themselves and partners.
Create or revisit the Team’s Purpose
Assess what your purpose and mission is within your broader context. You can facilitate this a few different ways, but I’ll share one of my faves is to have everyone write down a one sentence team purpose on a post-it and all share (via chat, virtual board etc). This helps get all voices heard, and create a space where everyone has a chance to share their input.
What can only your team achieve and do together? How do you want to feel working together day-to-day? What are you proud of?
What connections are there between ya’ll’s understanding of the company mission, vision, and values, or annual objectives and the team purpose work?
Depending on group size, you could iterate together, or break up into small groups to combine, refine and play with options. Landing on a “good enough for today” purpose statement that you as the leader can refine and finalize. This can become a grounding statement at the beginning of every team meeting, or something you continue to use to talk openly about where you want to go together as a team.
Forge Individual Connections to your Team Purpose
As a leader, part of your role is to help your individuals see or forge the connection between their role and the purpose of the team, in support of the company’s goals.
How does each individual support this purpose? Are roles and responsibilities clear enough for folks to see themselves aligned to this purpose? Any outliers? What surprised people about other’s purpose statements?
Provide a mix of individual “thinking” time for this, and start to bring pairs of team members together to share and connect. Depending on your team size and interrelationships, this could be a good way to introduce new team members and make connections. What was exciting or inspiring to hear from another individual’s connection to the team purpose? Did anything challenge prior assumptions? Do we as a team have a secret weapon or secret sauce?
Bring Purpose Forward
In wrapping up the day, ask each individual to think how they will refocus on the purpose of the team, and what they want to shed from the day-to-day chaos leading up to this workshop. Acknowledge that this isn’t a “one day fix”, and that you are inviting them to experiment with you on a first step forward to a new team reality that ya’ll create continuously together. Do you have commitments you want to make to each other? What do they need from you (their leader) to uphold and protect the purpose of the team? Moving forward, are there any team habits or rituals that would maintain some of the connections sparked during the day?
One of my client’s team created stickers with their purpose so everyone could keep it as a daily reminder on their notebooks (or laptops!) Another began each team meeting with a picture of the post-its of all the team’s individual purpose statements, with the final one on top. This really kept it as a collectively owned and upheld mantra.
This is one step forward. One option for a leader to help their team processes the events of this year and all that preceded it. If you try this out will you let me know how it goes? I’m also available to facilitate sessions like this so that you as a leader can focus on the team and be guided through as a participant. Many time having an external, trained facilitator and coach enhances a team’s experience and makes it even more special.
If this idea of carving out a day feels too big, or your senior leadership is unsupportive at this time you could experiment with breaking up the activities over a week, or repurposing some existing time to dedicate to this work.
Good luck leaders!
