Building & transforming cross-cultural organisations - with a view for the future, with the people at the centre
How to keep going when things get tough? That year was not starting well for our team. The sales stalled and it seemed that whatever we tried, the results were the same. One day I was so struck by the long faces in the office, that I knew I had to act. These were brilliant people doing their absolute best. They deserved better. First thing the following morning I called everyone together. I dragged a flipchart to the centre of the room and divided the sheet into as many columns as there were teams, with five rows - one for every day of the week. I said, "Every day you do amazing things, every one of you. I want each team to put up a 'Post-It' note on this sheet by 5pm every day with their one win of the day - something that you nailed, something that you feel good about. Every morning we'll gather here to look at the notes and to award the Skylark of the Day to the team, whose win will be the most meaningful or the most hard-won. Whichever team collects the most skylarks in the week, gets the Skylark of the Week and I take them to lunch." The result was incredible! Not only we rediscovered pride in our work. Everyone learnt what everyone else was doing. We synched better as a wider team, and the success followed. All that it took was to ask everyone to share their small wins every single day, and to celebrate those wins together. #powerofsmallwins #progressprinciple
