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Transcript

Fine Is Not a Status · The Lagging Team

• 0:00
  Katrina L. Coker: We were in a retrospective of like, look, we
• 0:01
  keep giving you all this feedback. You keep asking us the
• 0:04
  same questions. You have the information box. Are you looking
• 0:09
  at the information box? Right. We don't even know. And they
• 0:11
  literally said, "Well, at least we're all in this together.
• 0:15
  Devon Morris: This is the Lagging Team. Falling behind is
• 0:19
  a position, not a verdict. Every week, we work to change that
• 0:25
  outcome. At least we're all in this together. See, somebody on
• 0:35
  a team said that out loud in a meeting and meant it as good
• 0:41
  news. Here's what I want you to sit with: If you ran that team,
• 0:48
  your survey that quarter probably came back fine. Your
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  one-on-ones came back fine. Your stand-ups came back fine, and
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  every one of those fines was true, and none of them told you
• 1:05
  anything whatsoever. See, somewhere this week a leader is
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  looking at an engagement score, and it's fine: threes and fours,
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  maybe a couple fives, right? Nothing alarming, nothing red.
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  The conversation in a room is a reasonable one. Nobody's
• 1:24
  actually complaining. Retention's okay, and the team
• 1:27
  gets along. People are showing up every day. They really are.
• 1:31
  Be careful here because that's a completely reasonable read, and
• 1:38
  you've actually made it. When nobody is raising their hand.
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  The obvious move is to assume that there is nothing going on
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  that's a problem. Watch what that read has in common with
• 1:52
  every other one. It treats silence as the answer. No
• 1:57
  complaint means no problem. Nobody ever turns it around and
• 2:04
  asks, "What is that silence made of?" This is the Lagging Team.
• 2:10
  See, falling behind is a position, not a verdict. I am
• 2:14
  Doctor Devon Morris, and this right here is a sidebar. See, on
• 2:20
  Tuesday, I sit down with somebody, and on Thursday, I
• 2:25
  take one thing that they said and go all the way into it.
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  Today is one word every team says on this planet, and nobody
• 2:36
  actually checks. Fine. If there is something I've seen
• 2:43
  consistently across teams has always been the word "fine, I've
• 2:48
  seen that word in good times. I've seen that word in bad
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  times. On a survey, it looks exactly the same. It's a very
• 3:00
  efficient answer, but it could actually be true. So here's the
• 3:08
  problem with "The scores are fine, so the team is fine. It's
• 3:13
  the wrong argument to have, right? It doesn't get you
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  anywhere. I don't mean the score is lying because it may not be
• 3:20
  lying. I mean, they're answering a different question than the
• 3:25
  one you think you really asked. When you ask a team any
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  problems, you're not measuring the problem. You're measuring
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  what feels safe to them at that particular time, in that
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  particular room. See, Katrina, When she's with her teams, she's
• 3:49
  with them for a living. That's what she does. She says the
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  first thing she hears every single time is the same thing:
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  "We're fine. Everything's fine. There's no problems. And here's
• 4:02
  the part that should stop you. Katrina says it's usually true
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  that they get along. Check that the people like each other.
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  That's another check, right? Working together isn't really
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  the problem here, the problem is that nobody's asking the hard
• 4:24
  questions. You heard that said, right? Fine isn't a lie. It's
• 4:29
  what's left when nobody asks anything specific enough to get
• 4:32
  a real answer. So the team is fine. The survey is fine. The
• 4:37
  one-on-ones are fine. The team is behind, though. Quietly
• 4:43
  behind, because the job changed and nobody said it out loud.
• 4:48
  Talked about that, and the fine is the sound the team makes
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  while that is actually happening. See, Katrina has a
• 4:59
  simple test for this, and I want you to notice it's not
• 5:04
  about the team at all. It's really about the question.
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  Katrina L. Coker: If you say, "Do you have any problems? Most
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  people will say, "No, I have any problems. But when you start
• 5:14
  saying, "Hey, how is the team communication? How are the
• 5:18
  dynamics? Are there any? What are the blockers for you, right?
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  What are the pain points you're having?
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  Devon Morris: See, same team, same day, different question,
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  different answer. Hold on to that because it means the fine
• 5:34
  was never about them. All right, here's the part I actually want
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  to give you. We treat two sentences like they mean the
• 5:44
  same thing, and they actually don't. Nothing wrong, and
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  something's wrong. Nothing wrong, and something's wrong.
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  See, nothing wrong is the absence of a complaint. It's
• 5:59
  quiet. You can get it from a team that's thriving, but you
• 6:06
  can also get it from a team that gave up three months ago.
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  Something's right is evidence. It's a person telling you
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  specifically what's working and why. The meeting that's worth
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  their time, the product that they love, and the things that
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  they're willing to fight to actually keep. Two really
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  different sentences, and almost every instrument that you can
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  utilize. I'll just say survey. That built the check on the
• 6:39
  team. It's only hears one thing. It just hears the answer. See,
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  let me put my researcher hat on for just a moment. A score isn't
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  a reading on how people feel. It's a reading of what a person
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  believes is safe and worth saying to whomever's going to
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  read it, those can be the same thing. Often they aren't. So a
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  four out of five has two possible authors. One is a
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  person who is genuinely good. They are genuinely good. The
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  other is the person that decided the four was the easiest way to
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  not start a conversation. The number can't tell you which one
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  that particular person wrote. Only a better question can do
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  that for you, and here's the uncomfortable part, right? The
• 7:48
  team that stopped believing anything will change usually
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  gives you the cleanest scores you'll ever, ever, ever, ever,
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  ever see. See, because disengagement is quiet, and
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  quiet looks fine. See, Katrina was looking at exactly this kind
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  of score on one of her teams, and here's what she told the
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  leaders.
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  Katrina L. Coker: And what I had to give feedback on is, I'm
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  like, they're giving threes or fours, but it's because they're
• 8:22
  all in it together. It's not because they're actually happy.
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  I said so. Those are the hidden things that y'all need to be
• 8:28
  aware of. They might even be giving fives, but it's because
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  we're like, well, I'm not fired. I still have a job. I'm still
• 8:35
  getting paid.
• 8:36
  Devon Morris: A five that means I haven't been fired, man. That's
• 8:40
  the same as a five. That means I love this work I'm doing. Your
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  dashboard puts them in the same column, in the same place, and
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  as it rolls up, it looks to the same to every single person that
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  it rolls up to. Second pair, and it's the one that actually fools
• 9:01
  good leaders together and well. See, look, go back to the cold
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  open that we had. At least we're all in this together, man.
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  That's not satisfaction. That's solidarity, right? It's what
• 9:19
  people say when each other, every person on the team, kind
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  of having a harder time, and they decided to just kind of
• 9:30
  lock arms and go through it together, side by side, and
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  solidarity is truly a an amazing strength, right? It's why teams
• 9:43
  don't always fall apart. See, Katrina's point is that it also
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  is exactly what makes the scores look fine. People rate the team,
• 9:56
  the people next to them, and they rate them high, because
• 10:02
  the team is good. So the warmth is real. The problem is real. At
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  the same time, the problem is the warmth hides the problem. A
• 10:18
  team that gets along is not the same as a team that's okay.
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  Cohesion tells you that the people are fine with each other.
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  It tells you nothing about whether they're fine with the
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  actual work. This is the trap that leaders who care about
• 10:38
  culture immediately fall into. Right? You build a team that
• 10:42
  gets along. Ah, that feels good, great. You read it, and the team
• 10:49
  is doing really, really well. Last pair, and it explains why
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  fine gets worse over time instead of better. Asked versus
• 11:00
  heard. See, you heard a few things being said. You keep
• 11:07
  asking the same questions. Are you looking at the information
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  box? See, the team wasn't refusing to give feedback.
• 11:16
  They'd given the feedback over and over and over again, and
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  nothing ever came back to them. Every time you ask, and nothing
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  changes, you teach people that asking is actually a ritual. And
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  why would they waste time going through the same ritual again
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  and again and again and again, so they stop asking, answering
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  for real, for real. They really do, not out of anger, really out
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  of efficiency. Why spend effort on that dang old retrospective
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  information box that nobody's really gonna open up? And even
• 12:01
  if they do open it up, you don't know that they opened up because
• 12:04
  they never said anything back to you. But here's the deal: the
• 12:12
  leader side of it, the way Katrina describes it, she brings
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  the team's feedback up the chain and hears that's old news. Old
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  news to you. Still new news to them. See, fine is often what a
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  team says after it's been asked too many times the same thing
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  over and over and over again, and they've heard nothing back
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  or very little amounts of stuff. All right, so three things I
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  need you to kind of roll into right for Monday. None of them
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  should cost you any money. Should need any permission,
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  right? Number one, retire the any problems question. It's a
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  question that guarantees fine. Stop asking it. It doesn't get
• 13:00
  you the data that you need. Replace it with Katrina's three
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  specific ones, right? Around what communication, process, and
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  the work, right? When you think about communication, what's
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  going well with the people, who's a blocker for you, purpose
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  or not, those kind of things, right? When you think about
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  process, which meeting is worth your time, which one is not, the
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  actual work. Do you know what you're building? Do you like
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  what you're building? Heck, are they using it in the building?
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  See, specific questions get specific answers. That's the
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  entire trick. Two. Read those fours like they're twos. I mean,
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  not literally, right? I'm really just telling you to be curious.
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  That's really it. Treat every fine as a score that is
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  unconfirmed until a person tells you why. That's all I'm saying.
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  Add one question: whether you collect a number, what would
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  make that number a higher number? So, if you had a four,
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  then the question is, what would make that four a five? A person
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  who genuinely answers that easy, they're probably one of the
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  people that's thriving. A person who's surviving, they
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  kind of go quiet. They kind of go quiet.
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  Either way, you know what's behind that four that you
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  actually got. Number three, close the actual loop on
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  something and say it out loud. Look, pick one thing that the
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  team has told you from the retro, from the survey, from the
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  box, from somewhere. They say, "Hey, you told me this, and
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  here's what I did. That, that's what you want to do. You want to
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  say, "You told me this, and here's what I did, even if it
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  is. You told me this, and here's why we can't do it, and here's
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  the specifics around it, and here's who decided that. Even
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  transparency at a level where it is we just can't do that is
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  better than nothing. It's better than silence, right? See,
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  Katrina's order matters here because she takes the feedback
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  to leaders first, so nobody's surprised. Then goes back to the
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  team with what can actually happen. No promises you can't
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  keep here. So close a loop, y'all. It's gonna help you trust
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  me with that team and establish what you need to establish with
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  them. Now, here's what would make me feel like I got egg on
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  my face, because I want you to just go and check this for
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  yourself instead of just believing what I'm saying to
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  you. Ask yourself what questions you can ask that are specific.
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  Remember those three things we talked about earlier, right? So
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  find a specific and good question to ask. Understand this
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  meeting is worth it because is what I would be looking for
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  forward to hearing back from a team member. I like the product
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  because that, because that you're saying there gives them
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  reasons to speak about it. Those are more specific types of
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  questions. Then the team that's fine, really, really fine. This
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  episode isn't for you. It's not for those teams. Believe them.
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  They gave you some clean findings. If it's specific and
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  what you get is bad, now you got something that you can truly
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  work on, and spend your time actually dealing with. If it's
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  still vague, though, it's fine. No complaints, even to a
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  specific question, you got an answer already. You need to sit
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  with that because it means they don't believe the answer will go
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  anywhere. So you need to close the loop. Not asking
• 17:14
  again, that's not going to help. Not repeatedly asking. See, the
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  point isn't fine is a lie. I'm not saying that at all, because
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  the team could be really amazing. The point is that you
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  never once checked what it was made of, and it cost you one
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  better question to find out. That's it. Then here's the deal.
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  Here's what I want you to do. I want you to come tell me
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  specifics of what happened. You know, was it about fine or you
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  get something specific? Put it in the comments, right? Wherever
• 17:54
  you're listening at, find me on LinkedIn. I want to hear from
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  you, man. Let me know what the question was that you actually
• 18:00
  utilized, right? Yeah, I may want to use it right because
• 18:04
  what you need to understand is falling behind is a position,
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  not a verdict, and a lot of teams are sitting in that
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  position right now quietly while every report that's being turned
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  in about them says fine. Fine isn't a status, y'all. It's the
• 18:23
  sound a team makes when nobody asks them anything that they
• 18:28
  really could answer. So before you trust the score, ask a
• 18:33
  question it can't answer for you. If the only answer you can
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  get is fine, you may not have a healthy team. You have a quiet
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  one, and you don't know why. Go find out why. All right. If you
• 18:55
  want to talk about what this looks like for your team, go to
• 19:02
  thelaggingteam.com/start. That is thelaggingteam.com/start.
• 19:13
  That's the sidebar. Now you know what to listen for. Thank you
• 19:20
  for joining us. Where every Tuesday and Thursday we work
• 19:26
  toward bridging the gap for teams that are behind.