Why mom was right about Team Health Checks

Last year the start up I was working for went from raising £20M to shutting down in less that 2 years. This is a cliche that has been overused and gives the startup industry a bad name…there’s even a series ❤️ which illustrates it…

But this article is not about the tech startup phenomenon and how not to burn £20M in 2 years (without releasing a product). That’s another article entirely. What I really want to talk about is how teams play a KEY role in any organization and how taking care of them can MASSIVELY contribute to your success.

At the end of the day, teams are the ones that get the work done and the ones who ultimately make a company a success OR a failure.

There has been a massive interest in employee engagement over the last few years. Companies are learning the importance of taking care of their employees and they are implementing multiple measures to increase their employee retention.

But who is taking care of the teams? Who is making sure those great individuals are happy and productive as a team?

And don’t get me wrong, the power of individuals is unlimited but the interactions and synergies amongst those individuals is what can take a team and consequently a business to the next level.

There have been countless times where I’ve been put in a situation with my team that we were not able to solve, because we were unable to come together and put forward solutions…

We were amazing as individuals, but we were too focused on OURSELVES instead of being able to bring our strengths together and be an even GREATER force.

BUT my the biggest challenge was that no one in the company was able to SEE that we were in trouble, that we were not functioning as a team. All the individual feedback we were providing didn’t flag out that we had issues in the team that made us JUST another team, not the great team we could have been.

We were delivering — YES, but we were not healthy and that was a handicap for the company.

Now, after reading a lot on this topic and sharing my experience with other companies, I have understood the importance of taking care of the team. But what does that mean? And how do you do it?

I started by measuring the happiness of the team first and then over time started tracking other indicators (i.e. teamwork, support, trust…). This method helped me understand the health of the team on a particular project and take action when needed.

My new GOLDEN rule…Track the health of my team on a regular basis to inform the success of my projects.

You know that moms are always right, and in this case, I have the role of your mom telling you to do the housekeeping at your company and make sure your teams are in good health. This will ensure the success of ALL your projects.

So my question to you. Do you know how healthy your teams are? Are you aware of what is the implication of this

I would love to hear your thoughts/methods 👇👇