The more feedback that people provide

mdh673558

We divided the team into two distinct teams, each with an associate director. We found that three to four direct reports per manager were the maximum we could allocate without losing our culture and bandwidth to manage and lead. Frequent manager check-ins Regular check-ins with team members so that they feel valued and heard is critical to creating an empowered team and retaining personnel. For our team, this means that each manager meets with their direct reports at least once weekly to dive into the work. Some managers meet with their direct reports twice or thrice weekly to review deliverables or prepare for client presentations. Creating a feedback loop It isn’t enough to just encourage feedback.

High-performance teams tend to create a feedback loop wherein feedback is not DB to Data heard but clearly actioned upon, thus encouraging more feedback. The faster and more publicly you act on feedback, the more feedback people will provide. the better the team gets. We frequently ask the team for feedback on onboarding, client kickoffs, projects we executed, and team events. We also encourage our team to provide feedback to their managers on how they can better work together. 3. Delegate ownership of team culture Another critical aspect of scale is delegating key tasks and objectives across the team, including culture. While it often comes from the top, sometimes team members are stronger connectors and culture builders – and that is OK! Acquiescing control is tough for most leaders, but the sooner you elect an “owner of team culture,” the sooner you’ll see that garden grow and flourish.



From a tactical perspective, we picked an employee who came to our team with a strong desire to lead culture and had fantastic ideas about implementing it well. This person also has a great attitude, is highly thoughtful and pleasant, and even wins awards for their cheerful demeanor. Let team members own areas of the business if they are better suited. 4. Hire for culture contribution vs. culture ‘fit’ One of the biggest paradigm shifts I had as a manager and leader was realizing that I didn’t need or want a “culture fit.” Instead, I needed to recruit based on what cultural contributions candidates could make. SHRM.org has collected great resources on the idea of “culture ad,” which I recommend reading to learn more about the topic. There’s also the danger of hiring people whose own core values are not aligned with your team.