You Got to Sell It: 4 Tips on Checking-In With Your Team Effectively

Most of my clients manage teams. These days, they talk a lot about check-ins, mostly around their teams’ mental and emotional wellbeing. No big surprise there. We’re coming out of something and the trauma and grief is dialed up to ten.

What I hear from managers is that it's not going well and when I talk to the people they’re accountable for, I get a variation of these sentiments: 

“It feels forced and disingenuous,” and “I don’t trust their intentions, and "I'm not buying what they're selling."

The first thing I say to managers is congratulations on seeing the breakdown. Many managers walk this earth oblivious to how their teams experience them, unintentionally and intentionally. 

The second thing I say is that their teams’ perception of them is probably not off-base. They’re picking up on something you can’t see or hear in yourself. There’s a great saying, “you’re the least qualified to know what it’s like to be around you.”

The last thing I say is that landing a check-in effectively means selling it and selling it is not intuitive. It’s learned and there are several ways I’ve found to be effective. Here are 4 tips on checking-in with your team effectively:

1. Be prepared to share. Your Spidey sense tells you they have a story to tell but are hesitant. Sometimes sharing a story about your own well-being is the only way to establish the psychological safety your team needs to open up themselves. It’s the old adage, “don’t ask of others to do what you’re not prepared to do yourself.”
2. Manage your need to share. Many managers experience a strong impulse to empathize and it gets them in trouble. Chances are you’re perceived as not being able to relate and you come across tone-deaf. If it’s already flowing out of them, hold your tongue and let it flow. It’s the old adage, “there is no greater gift to give than the gift of being heard.”
3. Be prepared to act. There is a lot of training on active listening these days. This is a great skill to develop and not meant to be a replacement for offering solutions. You’re not a surveyor but the person your team relies on to break down barriers, real or perceived. It’s the old adage, “if you’re not here to help, why are you here?”
4. Manage your need to act. Many managers experience a strong impulse to jump to solutions. Chances are your team isn’t looking for a solution but to express themselves, and you have insufficient context to offer anything meaningful. It’s the opposite of the old mantra, “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions,” which has proven ineffective. 

You might be thinking these tips are paradoxical or contradictory. They’re not but they do reveal something complex - that there isn’t one way to be when checking-in with your team. 

To share or not to share? To act or not to act? The answer to these questions will arrive when you’re able to be with your team free of your own thoughts, feelings, and emotions long enough to hear and see what the moment calls for.

The devil is in the execution as they say, and I’m happy to discuss that execution with anyone that wants to take it on.

Thanks for reading.