top of page

The Turnaround Sprint:

Engage in 45 - 90 days.​

Our approach to turning around team engagement and performance can be summarized in one word:​

​

Fast.

​

Not because we're reckless. 

​

Simply because:

 

  1. The causes of low engagement are more consistent across workplaces than they are different; and 

  2. Time is a factor.

​

We've crafted a 6-12 week sprint based on proven engagement principles—and three Leadership Steps—with a little help from the world of agile development.

 

(For reference, both timings for each are provided below.)

​

Feel free to run your own sprint, using these free tools.

​

If you need help, reach out for a chat.

​

​

​

Leadership Step 1:

Lay an accountability foundation.​

(Weeks 1-3, or 1-6)

The Accountability Pyramid

Source: Framework

"Accountability" may sound like something employees would be scared of.

 

In practice, they love it.

​

Employees' basic needs include understanding their specific:

​

  • Accountabilities: what deliverables are expected of them and when.

  • Resources: what inputs/supports they're entitled to from others—especially their boss—so they can deliver.

  • Consequences: what they can expect as a result of performance that is great (career development) or wanting (training).

​

The most effective way to satisfy this lies in what we call ARC agreements: evergreen contracts between each manager and their reports which

​

  • Spell out the above

  • Form a standing agenda to review and update in monthly check-ins

 

Get a free template to start with on our Resources page. 

accountability pyramid white.png

The Leadership Circle (TM)

Source: Leadership Circle

leadership circle.png

Leadership Step 2:
Support leadership skill development.​

(Weeks 2-3, or 4-6)

​

Not only are managers largely responsible for supporting the employee experience, including execution of their accountabilities.​

​

They are also far less confident in their ability to provide that support than senior leaders assume.

​

The solution? Treat leadership like the core driver of performance that it is.

​

Give every manager tools to candidly self-assess, such as the Leadership Circle (TM).

​

(To encourage candor and real development, don't make this part of their compensation scorecard—focus the latter on results.)

 

Follow up with targeted training and coaching to address development areas.

​

For extra credit: Consider measuring leadership skill instead of employee sentiment.  The former consistently correlates with the latter, and it's the one organizations can drive directly.

Leadership Step 3:

Foster consistency with a Culture Champion.​

(Weeks 4-6, or 8-12)

A weak or inconsistent culture is fundamentally a governance problem: a failure to align leaders' and managers' walk with their talk, and to have strong processes to deal with their (literal) disintegration.

​

Culture starts at the top. Not the CEO (who can often be part of the problem), but at the board level.

​

The solution starts with making someone accountable to the board for the problem: a Culture Champion.

 

A Culture Champion must be a senior, high integrity individual empowered to do three things:

  1. To ensure the organization's stated values are really its values; 

  2. To track and point out behaviors that don't fit; and

  3. To speak truth to the boss.

​

The first act of a newly appointed Culture Champion is typically to kickstart re-alignment by creating (or refreshing) a Culture Deck that spells out exactly:

  1. What the company's real values are.

  2. How they should impact day-t0-day decision-making.

  3. What behaviors will get people hired, promoted, and fired. 

​​

(The classic template for an effective Culture Deck is Netflix's, which may be found on our Resources page.

​

Thereafter their role is establish effective reporting mechanisms to gauge leaders' and managers' compliance, such as pulse surveys and meeting hygiene assessments.

​

See our Resources page for more.

​

Final note: ideally the Culture Champion should be a role, not a person, to avoid becoming a power trip, keep fresh ideas flow and convey that culture is a collective leadership responsibility.  

 

So rotate every 6-12 months.

Excerpt from Netflix's "Freedom & Responsiblity" Culture Deck

Source: SlideShare, Framework

culture deck enron.png

Then, iterate.

Deliberately.

(From then on)

The Engagement Flywheel

Source: Framework

Screenshot 2024-06-27 at 12.13.23 PM.png

At the end of your sprint, two things are all but guaranteed:

  1. Engagement will be up, as the team will have witnessed leaders' care for their experience and commitment to improve.

  2. The project will be a bit of a mess.

 

Don't worry about the latter.

 

Building engagement in any environment is a learning process. Like all effective learning, it's all about mindful iteration, or what experts call deliberate practice.

​

What makes deliberate practice work is:

  1. A clear focus on the learning goal—in this case, increased engagement and productivity; and

  2. A structured pattern to follow in each repetition.

 

The pattern we recommend is what we call The Virtuous Flywheel (pictured).​

​

A flywheel is a mechanism that uses a small amount of applied energy to create an all-but self-perpetuating motion.​

​

Stanford's Jim Collins has famously applied the concept to business as the essence of all great strategy and business transformation.

​

Ours looks like this:​

  1. Apply the first Three Steps described above with a view to boosting engagement. 

  2. Leverage higher engagement into stronger productivity.

  3. Re-invest the cash generated into further engagement-driving practices.

 

Repeat.

 

Of course, that's a deceptively simple description. 

​

For help with all the details, reach out for a quick consultation—or whatever you need.

bottom of page