Get Your Groove On: Practicing Growth
This is the final post in a three-part series that outlines the pillars of a growth culture, as outlined in the book An Everyone Culture. Part 1 explored Home, or psychological safety, and part 2 focused on Edge, or self-awareness. The last of these three pillars is Groove, or regular practice.
Groove is the momentum you build around the growth of your organization. It involves both practice and feedback, which form a virtuous loop — feedback identifies your skill gaps, and practice closes those gaps. When a gap closes, feedback finds a new one.
Closing Gaps with Practice
Practice is repeatedly doing something with the intention of getting better. We break this down into two parts: Ritual and Cadence.
A ritual, in our usage, is any activity you do repeatedly in the same way. Some rituals are aimed at developing the individual, such as regular reflection or journaling to process your daily work experience, a peer coaching session, or a weekly 1-on-1 with a manager. Some are about team-level development, such as a project retrospective or a group journey meeting. And some are firm-level rituals, such as a company retreat, internal “TED Talks”, or annual development awards.
In any of these contexts, what’s important about the ritual is that it’s structured and intentional. By this I mean that the goal of the ritual is to get better in some way, either to relay information, synchronize as a group, create more clarity and direction, or establish and reinforce cultural norms (or all of the above.) There is an explicit goal to “get better” and everyone involved is aware of that goal.
“If there’s a more growth-oriented alternative to a culture of celebrating ‘talent’ or ‘performance,’ it might be celebrating constant practice and the way it pays off for people and the company.” -An Everyone Culture
These rituals then occur at a certain cadence. Stop for a moment and consider the things you might do on a daily basis to improve your skills. What about weekly activities? Monthly? Quarterly? Annually?
Generally speaking, the more people involved in the Ritual, the less frequent the cadence. Firm-focused rituals are mostly on quarterly and annual cadences, where as daily and weekly rituals tend to be more individual-focused.
I’ve explored many more examples in my post on The Rituals And Cadence Of Learning.
Another post, Be The Michael Jordan Of Meetings, explores deliberate practice and how to approach your work like a professional athlete or musician.
Finding Gaps With Feedback
Establishing rituals at a certain cadence is very tangible: just a recurring meeting to your calendar. What’s much more elusive (and, for most people, uncomfortable) is feedback. Groove is about giving feedback, receiving feedback, and that feeling of being on edge of your abilities.
“We are most alive when we are on that uncomfortable edge of not quite knowing what we are doing.”
The opposite of groove is complacency and stagnation. In this condition no one really calls out poor performance. No one seizes on opportunities for improvement. Everyone just sort of hides out in plain sight, doing enough to get by and not much more.
This is recipe for business failure and a repellant for great talent. Feedback is the antidote. And it comes in many forms, both formal and informal.
Formal feedback shows up in regular performance reviews, structured 1-on-1s and coaching sessions, and team retrospectives. Informal feedback shows up in hallway conversations, meetings, emails, and other workaday communication.
There are many approaches to giving feedback, such as the compliment sandwich or stars and wishes. But most of it comes down to being both direct and kind, focusing on the behavior rather than the person. And to receive feedback effectively requires being a great listener and putting your ego aside… easier said than done.
I think of feedback as one dot in a pointillistic painting. One dot does not a picture make. But gather enough of them and step back and you see the larger image take shape. This is the process of constantly sharing and gathering feedback. It illustrates the strengths and gaps of the individual, the team, and the firm.
In this sense, Groove is the process of constantly seeking your Edge. It’s about finding your gaps, closing those gaps through practice, and then finding new ones. Groove is the creation of a never-ending growth curve, which is what attracts great talent to your organization and keeps them there.
Three Pillars Of A Growth Culture
Let’s summarize this brief series
Edge is about self-awareness. It’s the clarity you have around your role, your mastery of that role, and the gap between the two. And it’s about always having a focus for your development.
Groove is about closing those gaps through regular and deliberate practice, and constantly seeking out new gaps through feedback.
Home is the psychological safety you have with your team, so you can deliver and receive feedback with candor and grace.
When these three elements come together your organization has a tremendous competitive advantage: a culture that is constantly improving and a business that is constantly adapting.
CultivateMe is a talent development agency for agencies. We help agencies establish a repeatable, scalable, and sustainable system for growing their people and winning the talent war. To get fresh ideas on how to improve learning at work, sign up for our newsletter.
