Teams make better decisions than individuals 75% of the time.  We all instinctively know that.  However, did you know that when leaders facilitate, this benefit is greatly diminished due to power dynamics and decision-making rights? 

Are you still working from home? Ya, same here. Some of us might even be working from home permanently, as more and more companies are finding their teams are just as (or even more) effective remotely. That makes life easier in some ways, but presents new challenges for facilitators and team leads or anyone who is part of a team really.

I have a t-shirt it says “Hello” and has a picture of Lionel Ritchie. He has stamina and rocked that 2014 show all night long, haha. I’m on day 213 of Zoom calls and I have to say I cannot rock this show all night long.

We heard you, remote meetings and facilitating them is tough! If you ever send out a meeting invite, you are a facilitator. It’s requiring virtual jedi master skills that none of us knew we had. In this series, we’re going to provide you with a toolkit of jedi tricks to channel your force and better connect with your fellow humans.

For people managers, understanding why burnout is so common right now is important to help our teams deal with it.

The pandemic is like a hurricane or earthquake in that it triggers in our brain the same stress response and adrenaline rush. It is unlike a hurricane or earthquake in that there is no end in sight, no clear signal for our brains to take stock of the damage and rebuild. In that sense, it is infinitely worse because uncertainty is very taxing on our psyche.

The loneliness epidemic is real, study after study shows that we are less connected than ever and it’s taking a huge toll on our physical and metal health.

TLDR:  A lot more than you think.

Happy employees are more likely to work harder, be more efficient and stay in a job longer.

Five years ago Google published a study on effective teams, a study of over 180 Google teams – Project Aristotle. When we read this article about it we were blown away. Not only did they find NO correlation between successful teams and similar interests, same rewards, similar backgrounds, socializing out of the office, shared hobbies, introverts or extraverts.

After reading Jason Fried and David Heinemeir Hansson’s “ It Doesn’t Have To Be Crazy At Work”, we were inspired to try out some of the methods used at Basecamp to increase productivity. At the top of my list was Library Hours, not only because I love libraries (and being a librarian was my dream job when I was a kid), but because I thought it would help our team be more productive in our open environment.

This sign was posted in our co-working space and it made me cringe. Studies show that asking people to share something personal to a group of strangers is extremely stressful and distracting. No one is listening to the things that are actually being shared, instead they are worrying about what they will share when the time comes. Will it be interesting or funny enough?