Learning To Build And Grow A Team Together
The importance of evaluations, setting goals and why it’s all about the journey
‘It’s not the destination but the journey that counts’
Never has this been clearer in my mind than throughout last week’s review process here at Funifi.
A startup usually begins with grand plans in mind on how it’s particular product will impact mankind. We rarely think about the little things in between, at least not as part of the initial vision.
It’s every one of those little pieces though that makes everything else worth it
Throughout the past 10 days or so, Andrew and I have been sitting down with the team to discuss progress, improvements and goals. Our process is split up into 3 parts:
1 — Intro
We’ve been asking how everyone feels, what improvements can be made and what they enjoy and don’t enjoy doing. We’ve also been trying to identify any areas of stress either potential or actual.
Stress is of zero effect to anything so we always try to ensure that everyone is comfortable.
2 — Identifying Goals
This is split into professional and personal goals. Each person sets 3 work related goals to be achieved within 3 months and 1 personal one. We try to keep these measurable. So a work goal is ‘k visits month’ and a personal example is ‘lose 10kg in weight’.
We think it’s important to work on a personal goal through the workplace. You’re here for a third of your day so by default any goal you set will have to be worked on here as well.
3 — Acknowledgements and Feedback
Many times in life we either forget to acknowledge the good things we do or simply underplay them. It’s so important to list some acknowledgements so that you can look back on and remember how they made you feel. That’s the feeling you want to carry around with you always.
The aim is to make ourselves accountable to each other for our goals, to open up to each other with the acknowledgements and find ways to make things better through feedback and improvements.
A team can be an incredible mechanism when its individuals can function effectively as a unit.
When we started Funifi we had this idea that we should never not enjoy work again, we should always be learning and always find ways to help the business move forward so that all the other things can be possible.
The results so far have been awesome as we’ve managed to surround ourselves with amazing people.
What these sessions helped to confirm were the very reasons that we wanted to do this in the first place:
1 — be around amazing people
2 — do something that matters
3 — wake up to something we love
It was incredible watching people come to life as they talked about things they would usually only share with friends, for us it was super rewarding.
Another subject that we went into was the whole professional vs personal issue.
So whilst we completely respect everyone’s will to keep private what they don’t want to share, we’re also trying to instil the realisation that it’s practically impossible to not bring personal stuff to work with you as much as it is not to do the same in the opposite direction.
While the idea of a ‘complete cutoff point’ between work and home sounds nice, if you’re passionately involved in something you love, it’s impossible to get it out of your mind. What we want is to find a happy balance and encourage our people to talk about things that are bothering them or that they feel they want to share.
We always plug the notion of a ‘great team’ but no great team has a specific time where it’s people can’t talk to each other or shouldn’t share something
Some might say that to try and master this blend is ambitious but so is evolving and revolutionising entire industries, why should the processes that drive this change be exempt? Why should we stop at ok?
We haven’t stopped there and in fact the Funifi culture doc has been created to make sure we stay aligned in striving for that perfect balance.
Action Points:
Our goals are written down, the next step is to get them on the wall. It feels exciting and challenging at the same time, it’s going to be fun!
A 3 month timeframe has been set and will help us measure the effectiveness of what we’re trying to accomplish and let us know if this ‘team accountability’ model works out. I’ll put up our results here for everyone to see.
