Measure Like No One Is Punishing

At PeopleNotTech we make software that measures and improves Psychological Safety in teams. If you care about it- talk to us about a demo at [email protected] ?

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Yesterday’s article discusses the topic of data and measurements and their relationship to productivity and performance. In today’s video, we revise some of the reasons why our collective attitude towards data is problematic and we give a few tips on how to work to reframe those limiting beliefs.?

There are two big things we touch on in this video that you can do when it comes to data and the topic of measuring for performance:

• Open a real and true dialogue at the team level about what it really means to you, what would be truly meaningful data and how would you rather it was collected. Once you know what you as a team deem important and acceptable, advocate on behalf of that vision to HR and Leadership to ensure that open dialogue translates into their level as well; and
• Help your people reframe - help them see that their reluctance comes from fear and organisational mistrust - ask them to go through the following mental exercise: Picture a time when you wanted to improve or change something - be it train for a marathon or lose weight - where did you record your progress? Pen and paper? Apps? Did you have graphs? Numbers to help you compare? How much time have you spent pouring over those? How much satisfaction did you get from analysing them in your mind? Were you anything but brutally honest with yourself if you never shared them? Did you record them wrong to feel better at any point or did you keep it real at all times? - There was no fear to make you less curious. There was no image to uphold to make you cautious with how you present the data. Just open-minded exploration of what the measurements show to motivate you and inform you next actions. The same should be true for work performance measurements.?

Lastly, if you can tell that your team has extensive “trauma” around data and measurements and you’re using our Dashboard consider adapting a “B!tch Fest” play to deal with this topic. Make sure you list and denounce any of the transgressions connected with the data in the past. The times where it was used against people; the times when it felt like it had negative repercussions; the times when it felt useless - like the feedback loop was never closed; the times when the questions felt soulless and unconnected; and the times when it felt like it was used as a control mechanism to spy on people; so on and so forth.

Then rephrase “In an ideal world, if we just wanted to do better and feel better and what we measured stayed in our bubble here like this data on Psychological Safety and team behaviours does, what would we want to see?” and watch your people open up and dare to apply their curiosity and need to learn and better themselves once the fears are removed. ?

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This Thursday on the Fundamentals of Psychological Safety Series: “Good Behaviours/Bad Behaviours of Teams” so subscribe so you have it in your inbox.?

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The 3 “commandments of Psychological Safety” to build high performing teams are:?Understand,?Measure?and?Improve

Read more about our Team Dashboard that measures and improves Psychological Safety at?www.peoplenottech.com?or reach out at?[email protected]?and let's help your teams become Psychologically Safe, healthy, happy and highly performant.

To order the "People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age" book go to this Amazon link