“Is there one thing I could do with my team, to boost/ smooth dynamics, unblock thinking, loosen tension, elevate trust, generate ideas, address issues, improve process and accelerate productivity… all at once?”

YES, there is, and this is the #1 question I’m asked most frequently by leaders. 

That one thing is the Check-In, and I’ve used it five times in the last week alone to help teams accelerate. If you’re thinking that you’re already “checking in” with your team all the time because you talk to one another and coordinate all day long… Well… that’s actually not the same thing.

For efficiency and flow, you need a simple, intentionally-structured check-in process, designed to quickly get straight to what needs to be surfaced for everyone to gather speed forward with clarity and progress. I’ve got options for you….

You already know from experience that you can talk with someone every single day without ever broaching the one thing that really needs to be addressed and could shift everything (let alone all the small things that could be tightened up, tweaked or improved), right? Some people are so confronted by the idea of broaching that “one thing” that they’d rather quit their job than address it directly. So, let’s get the drama out of it, and set you up to easily get things up and OUT, accelerating your team forward with every check-in, yes?

Consider: 

You and your teammates are moving quickly, sometimes in rhythm, sometimes not. It’s easy to assume alignment when there isn’t, to get frustrated about small things, and swallow issues instead of working through them directly. These accumulate fast, and weigh the team down. We see signs: quality of work stagnates as “good enough”; folks going through the motions vs. pushing anything/one to excellence; the team dynamic gets shallow or transactional; people withdraw, playing it safe/small, their emotional armor assembled (“if they’re not going to put it out there, then I’m not either,” says the voice in our heads). In order for you and your team to achieve maximum results and impact, you want each person to be playing full-out, right? That requires a combination of trust and sync with one another, with openness of communication. Research now validates that, across the board, if those aren’t there, people hold back, consciously and unconsciously.  This is the core of psychological safety, which is the single biggest difference in teams that accelerate and thrive vs. teams that don’t. These models will help build it.

First, Own it…

No matter which tools you use to check in, the association and vibe you build into your culture has to be one that keeps things moving; help your avoiders cut right to it, and your confronters to lighten up a bit and keep focusing forward. Adopt and introduce the mantra of my favorite six words…

The cadence here is key… (I teach it with finger snaps to keep it moving) the message: we’re not dwelling on it, but calling it, anyone who needs to own it will vocally and quickly (whatever’s necessary to repair trust, etc.), and we are moving forward, on to the next! Teams love this mantra, because it keeps the somewhat uncomfortable process of talking about what’s not working… moving right along without dragging it out. Like ripping a bandaid off.

ALSO... For any of the tools in the rest of this article to work, you as the leader have to model calling yourself out. You might be used to the role of calling others out, yet we want your team to ideally be calling themselves out, and to do that, they need to see you in full accountability via a little vulnerability (sharing that you’re not perfect) by calling yourself out where it fits, making it safe for them to be honest.

Now, on to the most effective, fastest-moving tools you can integrate into your team’s process… 

1) The Essential 3-Part Check-In

You want your team to be playing full-out every day, with no drama, unspoken funkiness, or repressed upsets slowing them down. Think of this consistent practice as good team hygiene; just like you brush your teeth consistently to keep them healthy, you do this check-in regularly (weekly or monthly) to keep your team healthy. It creates the space for unspokens to get up and out (“so glad we got that called out!”), for progress to be seen (“wow-look how far we’ve come”), and for smart iteration to occur (“awesome idea- this will make a difference right away!”).

How: This is similar to a debrief, yet it’s in real time, as the team keeps moving...

Get the team together. Make 3 columns labeled +, -, Δ

Get people sharing their thoughts by asking the 3 questions about team process:

+ What’s working?

– What’s not working?

Δ   What do we want to change? (in our dynamics, process, etc.)

There are no wrong answers here, and the faster people can get their thoughts up and out, the better. Encourage people to build on one another’s ideas, building the list.

As facilitator, listen carefully to develop a sense of when people need to discuss the points going up, and when they just need to get them all out and up, so you can quickly take action on them.

When: The more you do this, the faster it gets. This can be 10 minutes or 2 hrs, depending on how you facilitate it, and how much is backlogged in the team, which hasn’t been said.

Real life: In the last 10 days alone, working with 5 different high-level teams, this was the process that unlocked things for them and got them productively reset (via me facilitating through a speakerphone). That was just one week. In three decades of helping thousands of teams accelerate, I’ve found this tool to be the singlemost powerful practice for high performing teams.

2) The 3-Part Debrief

Most people know the term debrief, yet few practice it well. High-stakes and quick-learning teams never skip it. Naval Seal teams call it the AAR (After Action Response), and hold it as one of the most important non-negotiable practices of their culture of psychological safety, agile learning and preparedness for anything. The sooner it’s done the better…

After something (like a meeting, a project, a game, a performance, a push, etc.), huddle the team, then use your 3-Part Checkin frame, now a bit differently– this time about how it went…

+ What worked?

– What didn’t work?

Δ   What do we want to change out of this? (that triangle is a Delta sign, which in math means change)

Option: to make it more visual, get everyone over to a whiteboard, make 3 columns of +, –, Δ , and have someone record as the team calls things out.

As the leader, make sure you’re calling out your own minuses right away (“I messed up…”). This instantly opens it up for your team to call and own theirs, too.

The more you do this as practice, people will come to the debrief with pluses, minuses and deltas to share out, and listening open to whatever needs to be said/hear to get better.

At the end, “Awesome… hands in the middle…… GO! “

3) The 3-Part Timeout

If you could stop the clock midway, call out what’s working/not working and adjust to improve things immediately, why wouldn’t you?

Most teams just do the postmortem debrief after something’s done, yet that’s actually too late to do anything to correct or change course in real time, or to get real-time learning from it; so use the 3-point check in midway through a process enables the team to pivot while it still counts! 

How: Similar to the Regular Check-in above, this is the 3-minute, stand-up-huddle version, which anyone can call in the midst of the fray or pressure, bringing the team together to reset quickly on +’s, –‘s, Δ’s.  Call it, adjust, move on! At the end, “Awesome… hands in the middle…… GO! “

I’ve seen this save teams… used in a quick 5 minute break midway through a high-stakes meeting/event, they could laser in to catch key things (good and bad), pivot quickly, and crush the rest of it differently than they ever could’ve without this little framework.

Here, we’ll break away from the 3-Part template, because we need specific tools for specific situations with your team.

4) The Episode Processing Checkin

“Stuff happens,” and people feel the impact. Individuals and teams don’t always have a clean path to process through what happens in a way that acknowledges it and moves them forward constructively and quickly. Having a simple model to facilitate through it easily is gold, and makes the difference between healthy team and dysfunctional team.

When your team has just experienced something big (change, pressure, win, loss)… make it count for something by facilitating constructive meaning out of it for everyone. You can do this with these 4 F’s as your guide. Get everyone in the room, and ask the questions:

1. Facts…  What actually happened?  

2. Feelings… What feelings came up for you? 

3. Findings… What can you learn? Where else do you see this pattern? 

4. Future… What do you want to take away from this or bring into next time? 

You’ve heard of “fail fast,” yet that only works if a fail is processed into a learning, which most teams don’t know how to do quickly or thoroughly. You’ve also heard “celebrate wins,” yet that’s usually just high-fives or happy hour, not also a process designed to transfer the win into more future wins. This gives you a guide to processing both. With it, your team will start actively, vocally learning through experiences together, making faster progress.

*BONUS, if you’re familiar with Circles of Reality, take the team through a Reality Checkin here, getting the circles up on a big whiteboard, and talk them through as a team!

5) The One Word Whip Quickcheck

Sometimes you don’t have time to completely debrief after a great experience with your team. You’ve just finished a process, a win, a day, a week, and you want to give the team some closure, have every person be heard AND facilitate instant processing for them of their experience and meaning making. So…

How: Get everyone together (in a circle is best, so everyone can see everyone else, and they’re not just talking to YOU at the front). Ask everyone to quickly…

“Think of one word to capture this for you.”

(options: one word to capture what you’re taking away from this, what you got out of this, what this means for you)

Then say, “One word from each person… Who will start us off?”

Once the first person shares their word, pick a direction in the circle, and have it “whip” all the way around, each person saying theirs.

No matter what people share… it’s powerful because everyone has a turn and it’s only one word, it pushes everyone’s thinking to rapidly reflect on their experience, check in with themselves and synthesize it all into one word. They then walk away continuing the reflection you began for them, exactly the ripples you want to start. I end every workshop meeting this way; It’s always gratifying for everyone in the circle, often profound, and always a moment of connection for the group.

6) The Daily Standup

Your team, like many, may be dividing and conquering most of their day, not actually working physically together on the same thing at the same time. So… this practice gets a team quickly into one another’s world, and on the same page for the day, so the rest of what they do all day is fueled by an kickstart of connectedness. It also gives everyone a quick visual+verbal+physical start to the day as team, creating mental+emotional resonance for rest of the day. 

First thing in the morning: Huddle the team, at a set time every morning. Whoever’s in the office attends (and all meetings scheduled during that time know that daily standup will interrupt them for just 10 minutes because it’s that important).

Have a standing, engaging agenda, and rotate who’s leading each day. 

Sample agenda: 

1. Burning Issues (anything people need to get up + out for the team to know) “Today’s my birthday!”

2. Move (way to physically + mentally wake everyone up together- could be a stretch, BrainGym or Improv) 

3. Wins (progress made in last 24 hrs) “Our sales are up 5% today!”

4. What/when/where (logistics lineup for day) “Project X is meeting with stakeholders in the space today. Whitney is working remotely today, but is on grid and available.”

5. One word whip (each person quickly picks & says their 1 word for the day, to focus them, fire them up, etc.)   

Now, You…

Healthy, kick-ass teams check in early and often, with process tools like these. It keeps issues cleared out, alignment on track, drama at bay, learnings feeding productivity, and that elusive “team chemistry” actually happening. So can you. You can call timeouts when the pressure is highest– to ensure team momentum, alignment of thought, and approach; you can do it in regular checkins to keeps little issues from becoming obstacles to fast progress, surface essential insights, and pivot to improve the work as you go. This practice will facilitate forward motion for the team, and cement learning, clear out those little things what would otherwise waste energy ruminating and internalizing in the background of their thinking. People hold and replay what’s emotionally vivid for them (good and bad), so now you’ll make sure that all the right things are preserved– keeping what worked so you can replicate it, ditching what didn’t so you don’t repeat mistakes, and declaring what could be different, so you all instantly, intentionally improve.

And now you now have multiple, solid tools to can get your team there, and on their way.

Enough reading… now GO actually check in with your team!!!