Tell me how you're doing today. Really.

Today’s Check-in

Don’t you ever feel like you need someone to say “How are you?” and then stop and really listen?

Anyone I’ve ever been on a team with knows that I love a daily check-in. I used to call them “finger shoots” because you say how you’re doing on your fingers (1=bad, 5=great), but 100% of clients hated that term.

So, “check-ins”.

Want to do one with me right now? Three, two one… go!

??

That means I’m a 4 because that’s what I could find in the emoji options, but maybe it means I’m a Vulcan too. Sure.

I exercised for two hours this morning which I haven’t done since… high school? So I feel proud of myself! Minus one though because it’s taken me almost two weeks to put together my book marketing plan and I thought it would take two days. I won’t lie, it is a bit of a shock to the system to be working on my own now. Like, who’s going to do a design pass on this deck? Oh, that’s me. Who’s going to give me a deadline for getting this finished? Me again. There are also no free snacks in the kitchen. Can you even believe I pay for all my own snacks now.

ANYWAY, tell me yours in the comments! Are you a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 and why?

If you need the deeper dive into how and why to do a check-in, check out the excerpt from Today Was Fun below.

Happenings

• My LinkedIn “About” section got a shout out in William Arruda 's Forbes article this week. Maybe similar to my love of check-ins, I wrote my About section so people could know Bree, the human. When I read other people’s About sections I tend to yada yada by the resume and just look for the human bits, so I figured, why not put that stuff up front?
• My friend Dart Lindsley just published an incredibly thought provoking HBR article about reimagining work as a product. Brilliant.

An excerpt from Today Was Fun

DO A DAILY CHECK-IN?

Having an aligned and joyful team is pretty simple. But somehow the norms of business productivity have squeezed out all the human juice that makes a team work well. Take, for example, just starting a team meeting with, “How are you?” instead of, “Okay, let’s jump right in.” You may think the jumping-in method is more efficient, but I can tell you confidently it is not more effective. You know what is effective? An aligned and joyful team. And that comes from acknowledging each other as humans first, before using each other as work-bots. At its heart, the check-in is just a structured way of asking each person on the team, “How are you?” and actually inviting them to share. In return, you are actually listening. Here’s how it works:?

At your daily stand-up or at the top of your regular meetings (no more than once a day), pose the question,?

“How is everyone? On the count of three, we’ll all hold a hand up with the number of fingers that represents how we are (from zero to five). It can be how you’re feeling about work, about life, about anything, just—how are you? Okay, one, two, three, shoot!”?

You may get some twos, a five, and a few in between. Then, ask everyone to share why they chose that number in 30ish seconds each. Perhaps they’re at a two because they’re stressed about a meeting later, or they’re at a five because it’s their birthday this weekend, or they’re a three because they just realized they’re wearing two different socks.??

Tactically, the Program Manager or I usually count us down, then we see all the fingers, then the PM or I will nominate one person to start. After they share, they nominate the next person, and on it goes until everyone has shared. The check-in is best done in team/meeting sizes of four to ten people and takes maybe five to ten minutes. If you start it right when the meeting begins, even if people are still joining, you’re likely to start the “work” part of the meeting no later than if you had just casually chatted waiting for others to join.?

The practice has about a bajillion benefits, but I’ll outline some here:?

1/ Psychological safety: When you practice sharing your thoughts and feelings and are met with support from teammates, you’re more likely to do it again, even when it’s harder.?

2/ Cognitive offloading: Like shutting down non-essential apps so your computer runs faster, verbalizing what’s running in the back of your mind (e.g., I’m nervous about that meeting, I’m excited about my birthday, WTF is up with these socks) helps you to then focus on the work at hand.?

3/ Thwarting misunderstanding: If someone shows up to a virtual meeting camera-off, you might wonder if they’re paying attention and committed, but if they were to say, “Team, I’m a two today. My back is killing me, so I’m joining this meeting horizontally.” you’ve now dodged the side-eye and replaced it with empathy.?

4/ Inclusive teams: How often have you been in a meeting where one or more people literally said nothing the entire time? Have you ever been that person and thought, “Oh god, I want to say this thing, but if it’s the only thing I say this whole meeting, it better be good...” Ensuring that every person has spoken up within the first 10 minutes of the meeting can reduce the barrier to them speaking up again.?

5/ It’s just fucking nice: It’s nice to care about how each other is doing, it’s nice to be cared about, and 30 seconds of listening to someone is not going to be a drain on your team or business, I promise you.?

Finally, I’ve found the check-in to be the most effective (and efficient!) way to reproduce some of the office camaraderie vibes in virtual and hybrid teams. In one team, we got to hear the daily play-by-play of our colleague, Joher, buying a house. It was a fantastic tale of will-they-won’t-they as he navigated contracts and fishy sellers and performed high-wire acts of rerouting money. We heard all about his eventual move-in and his adventures in weed-whacking, which we learned is legally mandatory in California. Every day his check-in was like a real estate telenovela. It was entertaining to be sure, but also made us all feel closer, as witnesses to each other’s lives.??

Good laughs with good people.?

We did kickass work too!?