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From Dashboard Dreams to Daily Habits: A 90-Day Plan to Measure Teamwork Without Killing Trust · The Science of Leading

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  Welcome back to The Science of Leading.
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  I'm Claire, and I'm here with Edwin Carrington.
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  Today we're talking about something that sounds kind of boring on paper,
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  but totally changes how teams perform: the first 90 days of measuring
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  teamwork.
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  And specifically, how not to turn that into what you once called,
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  Claire, a "spreadsheet crime scene."Yeah,
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  that.
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  So let's start with weeks one through four.
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  Edwin, a lot of leaders jump straight into tools and dashboards.
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  You're saying: slow down, define "team success" first.
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  What does that actually look like?
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  You start with this team,
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  in this context.
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  Not a template from another department.
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  I'd look at three layers.
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  First, outcomes: what results does this team need to deliver that actually
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  matter to the business?
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  Deadlines, quality, customer impact,
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  revenue support-whatever is real for them.
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  Second, operating health: can they deliver those results at a sustainable
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  pace?
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  Or are you relying on heroics,
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  late nights, and quiet burnout?
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  Third, collaboration and decision quality: are they aligned on goals,
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  resolving disagreements productively,
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  and making decisions that don't fall apart two weeks later.
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  So not just
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  "hit the number," but "hit the number,
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  without breaking people or the system,
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  and stay on the same page while you do it."Exactly.
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  If you only measure the outcome,
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  you can accidentally reward very fragile,
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  even toxic performance.
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  If you only measure the vibe, you get lovely meetings and weak delivery.
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  Alright,
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  so once I've got that three-part definition for my team-outcomes,
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  operating health, collaboration-what's next?
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  You talk a lot about a lean metric set,
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  6 to 10 max.
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  What goes in there for weeks one to four?
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  You want four buckets.
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  One: delivery.
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  That could be on‑time delivery versus deadlines,
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  or throughput per week or sprint.
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  Two: quality.
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  Something like rework rate or defect rate.
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  Three: collaboration.
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  Blocker aging is powerful-how long do issues sit unresolved?
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  Handoff friction is another-how often does work bounce back and forth?
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  And four: team health.
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  A simple pulse survey trend around clarity,
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  support, and psychological safety.
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  Let me push on that pulse survey piece.
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  Busy managers are gonna say, "We're drowning already.
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  Do we really have time to add more surveys?"If you design it badly,
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  no, you don't.
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  But we're talking five to eight questions,
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  every two to four weeks.
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  Things like, "I know what success looks like this week," "Blockers get
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  removed quickly," "I can raise concerns without negative consequences."
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  That's it.
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  The point is to get a baseline trend,
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  not a novel.
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  And you only run it if you're prepared to act on what it tells you.
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  Right,
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  otherwise it's just disappointment with extra steps.
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  Where does something like OAD fit in at this early stage?
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  Because we're talking metrics,
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  but underneath that are real people with very different behavior patterns.
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  Good
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  question.
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  Early on, OAD is helpful as a lens-not a scorecard.
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  When you start seeing patterns in your metrics-say,
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  chronic handoff issues or one person becoming a bottleneck-OAD can help
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  you understand the stable behavior traits underneath that.
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  Are you overloaded with big-vision,
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  low-detail profiles?
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  Are your natural "finishers" spread too thin?
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  That lets you interpret the data without just blaming whoever speaks
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  the least in meetings.
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  So the first four weeks are basically: define success
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  for this team, pick 6-10 metrics across delivery,
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  quality, collaboration, and health,
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  run that first pulse survey, and... build a dashboard.
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  But you're very specific that it should be simple and visible.
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  What does that look like in practice?
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  One page.
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  Trend lines, not walls of numbers.
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  No more than those 6-10 metrics.
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  And each metric has an owner.
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  Not an owner who gets punished if the number is bad,
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  but someone who's responsible for collecting the data,
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  checking it's not garbage, and bringing it to the conversation.
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  Delivery metrics might sit with the team lead,
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  quality with a QA or process owner,
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  health with HR running the survey and the manager owning the response.
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  The key is: by the end of week four,
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  everybody knows what "good looks like," where the numbers live,
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  and who will keep them alive.
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  And we're not trying to fix everything yet-we're
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  just getting a clear, honest starting line.
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  Exactly.
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  You're building a real baseline,
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  not a pretty dashboard for executive theater.
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  Okay,
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  so we've survived weeks one through four.
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  We've got a definition of team success,
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  a lean metric set, a simple dashboard,
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  some pulse data.
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  Now weeks five to eight is where this lives or dies,
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  right?
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  Because this is where you either build habits or the dashboard starts
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  collecting dust.
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  That's right.
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  The heart of this phase is a weekly,
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  15‑minute metrics review.
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  Short on purpose.
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  You answer three questions: what moved,
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  what's stuck, and what one decision do we need this week.
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  Fifteen minutes
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  sounds almost... too short.
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  Why not an hour-long deep dive?
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  Because if you need an hour every week,
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  your system is too complicated.
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  The metrics are there to surface where the conversation is needed,
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  not to become the conversation.
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  In those 15 minutes, you glance at delivery,
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  quality, collaboration, and health.
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  If something's off-say blocker aging is spiking-you decide: who's going
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  to dig into that, and what will we try before next week.
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  So this is "steering
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  the ship," not rebuilding the engine in every meeting.
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  Where do deeper conversations happen then?
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  You mention structured one on ones,
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  retrospectives, psychological safety checks... how do those layer in without
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  overwhelming people?
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  You don't add three new rituals at once.
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  Start by tightening what you already have.
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  Turn existing one on ones into better diagnostic time.
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  Ask a few consistent questions: What's slowing you down?
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  Where is the team not on the same page?
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  What decision are we avoiding?
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  Then capture themes-no gossip.
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  Retrospectives you can run monthly.
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  Look at the metrics and ask: what improved,
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  what got worse, what blocked us most,
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  what one change will we test next month.
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  And the psychological safety
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  checks-are those just part of the pulse survey,
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  or are you watching behavior in meetings too?
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  Both.
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  Pulse questions like "I can raise opposing opinions without negative
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  consequences" give you the trend.
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  Then someone-often a team lead or HR partner-pays attention in meetings.
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  Who speaks, who stays quiet?
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  Do we actually follow through on decisions,
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  or do the same issues keep resurfacing?
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  If the scores drop and you see people disengaging,
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  that's a real signal, not a vibe.
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  I can hear some listeners worrying this
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  starts to feel like surveillance.
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  Weekly metrics reviews, observers in meetings... How do you keep this from
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  turning into "we're watching you" instead of "we're supporting you"?You're
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  very explicit about the goal.
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  You tell the team: we're measuring to make better decisions,
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  reduce friction, and keep performance sustainable.
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  We're not scorekeeping individuals off these charts.
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  You look at themes, not who said what on Tuesday morning.
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  And if you bring in tools like OAD,
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  you use them to understand behavior patterns,
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  not to label people as the problem.
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  For example, OAD might show you that your team is heavy on independent,
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  fast-paced profiles and light on patience and detail.
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  That explains why blockers pile up or why rework is high.
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  The response is redesigning roles and support,
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  not shaming individuals.
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  That's a really important distinction.
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  Let's talk about experiments, because this is my favorite part of weeks
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  five to eight.
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  You're not launching a big "transformation," you're running little
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  tests,
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  like a two‑week experiment to reduce meetings or clean up handoffs.
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  How specific do these need to be?
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  Very specific.
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  One change, one owner, one short time window,
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  and one or two metrics that you expect to move.
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  For example: "For the next three weeks,
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  we cut recurring meetings by 20 percent and tighten agendas.
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  We'll watch throughput, blocker aging,
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  and the pulse question on clarity." Or: "We add explicit handoff criteria-what
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  'done' means before passing work-and see what happens to rework rate and
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  first‑pass acceptance."And if nothing changes?
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  Then you've learned that
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  that lever doesn't move this system,
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  or you didn't apply it consistently.
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  Both are useful.
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  The worst outcome isn't a failed experiment.
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  It's no experiment at all-just more pressure and more status reports.
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  So
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  weeks five to eight are all about rhythm and learning: a quick weekly
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  review, better conversations in one on ones and retros,
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  and small experiments that give you proof,
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  not just opinions.
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  Exactly.
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  You're teaching the team to treat metrics as a flashlight,
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  not a weapon.
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  Alright, let's bring it home with weeks nine to twelve.
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  At this point, we've been measuring and experimenting long enough that
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  we actually have trends-eight to twelve weeks of them.
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  What should leaders be looking for now?
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  You're looking at three buckets
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  again: what improved, what's stable but not good enough,
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  and what's getting worse.
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  And you look across delivery, quality,
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  collaboration, and health together.
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  For example, maybe on‑time delivery improved,
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  but defect rate and pulse scores about sustainable pace got worse.
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  That tells you you're buying speed with quality and stress.
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  So you're
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  connecting the dots instead of celebrating one green number and ignoring
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  two red ones.
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  How do you decide which metrics to keep and which to drop at this stage?
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  Simple
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  test: did this metric change a decision in the last two months?
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  If not, it's probably vanity.
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  You keep the ones that actually provoke action-like reducing blocker
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  aging, clarifying ownership, or changing how you staff the team.
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  You also refine definitions.
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  If "on‑time" has meant five different things,
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  you standardize it.
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  If "rework" is fuzzy, you tighten what counts.
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  Can you give a quick example
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  of a vanity metric that sounds impressive but doesn't really help?
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  Hours
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  logged is a classic.
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  It tells you who's in the tool,
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  not who's creating value.
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  Another is counting meetings or messages without asking whether decisions
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  are actually being made.
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  Those numbers can look very active while progress is stalled.
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  This is
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  also where I imagine OAD can help you "tune" the system,
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  not just the metrics.
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  Like, you've got data that says handoffs are still messy,
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  or conflict keeps resurfacing.
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  How do you use behavior insight here without making it personal?
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  You use
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  it to design the team, not to diagnose character.
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  If the data shows chronic conflict around priorities,
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  and OAD reveals you have several highly assertive,
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  big‑picture profiles and very few people wired for detail and follow‑through,
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  that explains the pattern.
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  You can then adjust roles, add a more detail‑oriented hire,
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  or pair people differently.
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  The message is, "We're aligning work with strengths," not "You're wrong
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  as a person."I like that.
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  Okay, last big decision in weeks nine to twelve: how far do you scale
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  this system?
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  More teams, more metrics... or resist the impulse to add complexity.
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  What do you tell leaders here?
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  First,
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  protect trust.
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  If the team feels the system is fair and useful,
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  don't jeopardize that by suddenly turning it into surveillance.
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  Stay focused on team‑level signals unless roles are very stable and there's
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  strong trust in how individual data will be used.
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  Second, only expand if the basics are working: metrics are accurate,
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  reviewed weekly, and driving experiments.
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  If that's not true, don't scale the mess.
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  So maybe you roll it to one
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  or two more teams, or you add a single new metric where you see a blind
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  spot, but you're not trying to build a giant enterprise cockpit overnight.
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  Exactly.
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  A good measurement system is boring,
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  stable, and effective.
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  You keep it lean enough that people actually use it.
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  And you keep reiterating: the purpose is better decisions,
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  sustainable performance, and healthier collaboration-not catching individuals
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  out.
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  Before we wrap, I wanna connect this back to something practical for
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  listeners who are about to start this 90‑day journey.
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  If they're nervous about misreading the data,
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  or blaming the wrong things, where does a tool like OAD really de‑risk
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  the process?
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  It helps you see the human patterns behind the charts.
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  When your metrics say, "We miss deadlines when priorities shift," or
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  "Rework spikes on cross‑team projects," OAD can show you how people naturally
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  approach pace, detail, and conflict.
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  Instead of guessing, you see, "Ah,
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  we've put three highly independent profiles on something that actually
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  needs tight coordination," or, "We're light on people who enjoy structure."
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  That makes your interventions sharper and much fairer.
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  So you're not just
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  tuning the metrics; you're tuning the team design to support those metrics.
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  Exactly.
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  Alright,
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  let's land this.
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  If you remember nothing else from today: in 90 days,
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  you can build a simple, trustworthy system to measure teamwork-define
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  success for your specific team,
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  pick a lean set of metrics, turn them into weekly habits and honest
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  conversations,
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  then tune and protect the system so it serves people,
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  not the other way around.
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  And give yourself permission to keep it simple.
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  Depth comes from consistent use,
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  not from more charts.
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  If you wanna de‑risk those first 90 days and really
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  understand the behavior patterns behind your delivery and collaboration
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  metrics, you can test OAD for free at OAD.
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  ai.
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  It's a practical way to see how your team is wired before you redesign
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  roles, experiments, or expectations around teamwork.
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  Edwin, thanks as always for the wisdom.
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  Thank you,
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  Claire.
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  Always a pleasure.
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  And thanks to all of you for listening to The Science
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  of Leading.
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  We'll be back with more on building healthier,
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  higher‑performing teams.
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  Until then, take care of yourselves-and your data.
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  Bye, Edwin.
• 14:12
  Goodbye, Claire.