Building a strong culture requires deliberate effort.
28 questions to ask your team every 90 days.
A practical process that will help you to connect better with your team.
I get asked relatively often to share my my experience and lessons around being part of such a great culture at Nona. One of the most common questions I get asked about building a strong culture is to share the top 3 things that a leader can do to build a strong culture.
While I believe that this question is well intended, what I judge the question to actually mean is “What can I ‘set and forget’ to see my culture improve?”.
I wish it were that easy but its not.
Culture requires continual and deliberate effort and like anything that’s worthwhile it’s hard work. Work on it day in and day out however and you will see some great results.
One of the core pillars of a strong culture is honest and frequent communication. This is not some fluffy ‘nice to have’, it is at the core and without it you will struggle to build a culture that is resilient and meaningful.
Most of my team spends most of their time in Cape Town while I now live in Australia. There is a 7.5 hour time difference between us and this makes it that much harder to stay connected.
I used to travel back every 90 days to spend two weeks with the team and 3 days offsite with the leadership team but with Covid, that has obviously been put on indefinite pause which now makes these sorts of engagement even more necessary and valuable.
I should be be clear about what this process is not:
- This is not a performance review.
- This is not a retro.
- This is not an open ended catch up — the structure is what gives it value.
I schedule time every 90 days with every single person in the business. In our case there are 30 people so it’s doable but I acknowledge that at some point as we grow I will need to find a more scalable solution. For now, this is a ‘do things that don’t scale’ example and it’s very effective.
During these sessions, I try as best as I can not to talk much (which is hard for me!). The idea is to listen, to really listen and to give the other person a chance to speak and to be heard.
I don’t try to solve problems or provide solutions. This is really about listening, and if get it right you will learn more than you expect about yourself, your team and your business.
With all that said, let’s get into it.
1.Describe how you are feeling in a single word.
This is simply a gauge on how the person is feeling right now. You will ask this question again at the end and pay attention to the change.
2. How are you feeling about all things Covid19 and the lock down?
This about acknowledging that things are weird, difficult and in many cases lonely at the moment. Don’t solve, just listen.
3.What has been your biggest win in the last 90 days?
This is about bringing attention to good things. Let this be answered however it lands. It will usually be about work but it is as valuable if it’s a personal win.
4.What has been your biggest obstacle or challenge in the last 90 days?
This is about allowing them to be heard but also to give a space for you to see some blind spots. I’m often surprised by how much I learn here that I have no idea about and now, through this process it’s on my radar and I can take action if it’s appropriate.
5.What can Nona do to make you more successful?
This is a great and often uncomfortable question. If you are sincere with this question you will enter an area that is not often entered into. Don’t judge and don’t engage in conversation here, just listen and see what comes out of it.
6.How happy are you on a scale of 1–10…why?
This is such a great question, the number part is kind of random but when asked to explain their number choice there is often some great reflection on their part and learning on my part.
7.How are you experiencing the morale of those around you at Nona?
This allows them to consider their team mates but it also will often expose a blind spot that I was not aware of. This also builds empathy as people actively think about how others around them might be experiencing things.
8.Where do you think Nona is weakest?
This is like a mini section of the SWOT analysis but it’s just a light touch. For me it’s always really interesting to see how aligned the person is with my own answer to this at any given time. Again this is often where a blind spot is shown to me and where I learn something.
9. If you owned Nona, what is one thing that you would change?
As you build trust in your teams you will get some great answers here and I always make it clear that there are no boundaries. It gives me an insight into what matters to people.
10. Has anyone at Nona done something positive that stood out for you in the last 90 days?
If you have a healthy culture this should not be a difficult question to answer. Use this as a temperature check on your culture. I always ask if I can share the story in question with the person in question and I have never had anyone say no.
11. What does support from me look like for you?
This is a great question that you can really learn from. In the beginning a lot of people will struggle to answer this but as you build trust you will get some great feedback here.
12. Do you feel like you get recognised when you do great work?
If the answer here is no, there might be something to look into. Avoid the temptation to get into conversation now but you might want to flag it for later. If people are not recognised for their efforts it is very unlikely that you have the culture you need.
13. Do you feel like you get held accountable when you don’t?
At Nona we attract people and we want people that thrive in a high accountability environment. If you want a high performance culture, being held accountable needs to be front and centre.
14. Do you feel safe at Nona — why?
Pay close attention to the answers here. If people feel safe they will challenge, engage and grow the business but if they don’t you need to take a hard look at whether there is a deeper issue in the business and its culture.
15. What problem do we solve for our clients?
I always find this interesting and how it changes from person to person and through different cycles in our business. This is great to reflect on and to compare against how you are positioning your business to clients and internally.Of course the ideal is that everyone has the same answer but in my experience thats rarely the case. The idea here is to listen and learn not to correct and teach.
16. What is Nona’s purpose?
Similar to the above this is a great check for whether there is alignment.
17. What is your purpose at Nona…do you feel like your purpose is clearly linked to Nona’s purpose?
People need to feel like what they are doing is part of something bigger, that they are not just working on their own and towards nothing of bigger value or significance. This question is about that and bringing awareness to that.
Again, you will find it interesting how many different answers you get here especially in the beginning.
It’s important here that people don’t feel like they need to ‘learn the words’. This needs to be authentic and not about whether they can remember some words written on a wall somewhere.
18. What will Nona be in 10 years?
One of the most important jobs of a leader is to set the vision and then to being everyone along with them. To inspire and make everyone feel like they are a part of it. If this is not shared and clear it is likely that you have some work to do.
19. Do you feel like what you do every day is contributing to that vision?
Much like with purpose, everybody needs to see and feel how what they are doing today, right now is a part of where the company is going. Without this it’s not likely that they will be engaged and fulfilled.
20. If somebody asks you at a dinner party what it’s like to work at Nona, how do you answer?
My only comment here is listen carefully. There might be some learnings here but until you have a high trust environment you might need to read between the lines.
21. How can I be a better leader?
This will take a long time until you get honest and direct answers because of the power difference (whether you intend it or not) so do your best to be sincere and open when you ask this question and don’t force an answer. If they want to pass, graciously let them.
22.What is something that you think I should be doing more / less of?
Similar to the above.
23. What is an opportunity that you would like to be given a chance to fail at?
I have learned some really interesting things about some of my team from this question. You are not promising anything here you are just giving them a space to explore something that they would not normally bring up.
24. Do you feel like your voice is heard at Nona?
If you are not getting yes answers to this from everyone you need to fix this. Having great people in your business is a good thing but if you are not listening to them, you will not only miss out on some great ideas but you will probably not keep them for long either.
25. What is something that you think we should start / stop doing during this lock down period to healthier / happier / more connected?
This is a great reflection for the current period. If nothing else it brings awareness to the fact that we are all in this together and that we actually can’t do anything else to reduce the effects of this craziness. Interestingly, that realisation brings people closer together.
26. Is there something we could be doing better for our clients?
Again, I sometimes hear things here that I just don’t think I would otherwise hear because there is no set space to voice these things.
27. What is some value that you took or an insight that you had during this conversation?
This is about closing out the session and having them reflect on all the shares that they have just worked hard to give you. I have never had anybody say to me that this was not valuable to them and I suspect you will experience the same thing.
More often than not there is significant value for the person in that you have created a space for them to reflect on some things that they otherwise probably wouldn’t have.
28. Describe how you are feeling in a single word.
For me this is where the magic happens. By just asking sincere questions and listening you can help someone lift their mood or totally change a perspective.
In almost all cases the single word that is used to close is much more positive than the word that was used to open…and you didn’t solve a single thing.
At this point I ask if they have any questions or if they would like to discuss anything with me.
I don’t want to create expectations or limitations so I will resist the urge to list some of the experiences that I have had from this process. Instead I’ll just say that you will thank yourself for investing this time in your team and as a result your business.
I hope this has been valuable to you and good luck!
