Pushing a team to excel is everyone’s responsibility
I love working at FiscalNote and being part of this family. We all strive to be better by pushing ourselves — and, more importantly, each other. That’s what makes our company exceptional; but in order to push each other to excel, it takes effort.
As with any company experiencing growth, at times I’ve witnessed members of the team shy away from the individual responsibility we have to push ourselves and our team members in the right direction — to drive accountability throughout all levels of the company.
This is often a result of someone being too nice to speak up or being too busy to look outside of our day-to-day activities. The former is inevitable when hiring a team that gets along well, the latter will happen at any high-growth organization. Both must be overcome by each individual for a company to succeed.
These issues can manifest themselves in several ways:
- Failing to pull team members aside who may not be performing at a high standard or are being unproductive/unprofessional.
- Not challenging each other about our strategies and plans.
- Letting cumbersome processes continue unchecked.
- Staying silent about typos, errors or imperfections in others’ work.
Ultimately, we should be deeply worried about letting our customers and peers down (both within our team and outside of our teams).
I charge the FiscalNote team with one of the same catchphrases used by Washington’s subway system — “if you see something, say something.”
If someone on the team sees sub-par performance or bad follow-through, they owe it to themselves and the company to address the issue. Similarly, if an employee determines they dropped the ball on something, they should be the first to speak up and figure out how to remedy bad performance.
A team that is truly thinking like owners and taking a bias for action, needs to hold themselves and each other accountable to deadlines, commitments, and jobs. I fully expect this of my own team. Be on the look-out within your company and push everyone to be relentless and exceptional in the way they approach our jobs.
