We are in the final two months of the year and it’s peak time for your team to deliver their projects. At this point in time, it’s not only their technical skills and experience that matters, but also their resilience. How can you give your team a boost in resilience? Get them together (virtually perhaps) and do this exercise together to solve a big hairy challenge.
Step 0. Focus
Why? To slow down, become calm and focused to transition into deep thinking.
How? Take a piece of paper and a pen or pencil. Put your pen down and start drawing an outward spiral without lifting your pen. Keep going for 45 seconds keeping the lines as close as possible with little space between them.
Individually, answer each of these questions. Give your team one or two minutes for each question. When they look up into the screen/webcam is when you know everyone is done. Tell them to write down what comes immediately to them and not to overthink it.
Question 1. Purpose
Facing up to [the big challenge] is important to me because …
Question 2: Context
The uncertainties most critical for me right now are…
Question 3: Baseline
Honestly, it feels like I’m starting from…
Question 4: Challenges
The impossible truths (paradoxes) I am / we are facing include…
Question 5: Intention
Now, what I hope and believe possible is…
Question 6: Actions and Evaluation
Action Items: I am starting and stopping include…
(things you are spending time doing or imagining)
Question 7: Stakeholder Relationships
Relationships: stakeholders I am spending time with or plan to reach out to include…
After they have all answered these questions individually, ask them to share to the group:
- What stood out as surprises in your writing?
- Is a next step coming to mind?
Then invite them to:
- Write their actions down in a shared document e.g. Google Doc, Jamboard, Confluence page, etc.
- Write their stakeholder relationships down
- Write their next steps down •
Once they have done that, give some time for everyone to read through their answers. Believe it or not, the collective answers point towards the emergence of a strategy to tackle the big challenge. But more than that, your project team will feel the support from each other and build shared resilience.
If you tried this out, please let me know how your experience went.
Acknowledgement: This is adapted from Keith McCandless, Liberating Structures