3 tips for inviting team members to explore their successes and challenges

This is a simple but effective exercise for getting a team to explore its successes and challenges. It is especially effective as a kick-off activity to a regular meeting or an off-site. The exercise encourages people to learn from their successes – then move onto exploring their potential challenges. People often say they find the exercise both reassuring and stimulating. Imagine you are bringing the team together for a one-day session. You can take the following steps to kick-off the meeting before pursuing any other topics you want to cover.

* You can invite people to describe their successes and challenges.

“Welcome to today’s session,” began one leader. “It is two months since our last meeting, so I would like to start by asking you to do two things. First, describe your own and, if appropriate, your team’s successes over the past 2 months. For example, you may have finally recruited a full team; beat your sales target; dealt well with a difficult disciplinary session or whatever. Second, describe the challenges that you – or your team – may face over the next 2 months. For example, how to manage a difficult team member; improve profit whilst reducing costs; get sales-people buzzing in the peak period running up to Christmas or whatever. Take 10 minutes to make this list, then I will invite you to share these in the group.”

You will obviously approach this in your own way. But here is a framework you can use to invite people to clarify their achievements and focus on future issues.

The successes I/we have had in the past two months are:

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The challenges I/we face in the next two months are:

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* You can invite people to describe and learn from their successes.

Invite the first person to describe their achievements. Write these on the flip chart and build a catalogue of the team’s successes. Listen carefully, then ask them to go into more detail. You may want to say something like:

“Let’s explore these a little deeper. What did you – or your team – do right to achieve your first success? Try to be super specific. Great performers continually clarify and repeat good habits. So it is important: a) to find the principles you followed; b) to follow these principles again in future. Some people overlook the importance of following successful patterns. They immediately leap to ‘what went wrong’. Certainly it is vital to improve, but you often reach 7/10 by going back to basics - which calls for following good habits. So what did you do right to achieve your first success? Building on these foundations, we can then look at how to achieve the 10/10.”

Here is a framework you can use to invite people to build on their successes. Continue around the room until everybody has shared their achievements.

The specific success was:

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The specific things I/we did right to achieve the success were:

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The specific things I/we can do to follow these principles in the future are:

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* You can invite people to describe and explore their challenges.

Invite the first person to describe their challenges. Write these on the flip chart and start building a catalogue of the team’s challenges. Listen carefully and be crystal-clear on the challenge. Invite the person to phrase the issue in terms of: “How to ____?” Get them to put it in positive terms. For example: “How to improve morale?” rather than: “How to stop negativity?” Once the person has explained the challenge, you then have two options:

a) To invite the person to describe any ideas they already have for tackling the challenge and, if appropriate, add any suggestions.

b) To go around the whole team, collect all the challenges and highlight any common themes. You can then focus on each challenge and work together to explore possible solutions.

Whichever route you take, here is a framework for inviting people to explore their challenges.

The specific challenge I/we face is:

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The possible options for tackling this challenge are:

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The specific route I/we will probably take to tackle the challenge is:

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“Exploring this exercise properly can take quite a while,” explained one leader. “So we have got into the habit of doing it 3 or 4 times a year. Acting as a model, I kick-off by sharing my own successes and some potential challenges. People are then more likely to open-up and share their own experiences. The exercise provides a framework we use to keep improving our performance. ”