It doesn't matter whether you're a senior associate, a partner, legal counsel, general counsel, a judge, a professor in academia, a strategy consultant, an operations director. We all have to work with other people to achieve certain goals, and we often have to do it in teams.
Chances are you will have had a few to hundreds of "project" or "team" kick-offs.
So, before you read on: how do you look back on your most project or team kick-offs? Was it effective, was it fun? Did it make you excited to work on the project and with the team? Or was it not so great?
How was your most recent project or team kick-off?
No idea what I should be doing and not looking forward to it
Meh - it was OK, but no more than that
Good. Goal, context, responsibilities & timing are clear
Great, got all info I need and excited to get to work!
That was the most recent experience.
Now onto... What was the best kick-off you've ever had? What was the worst or most "memorable" one? Any come to mind? If so - what made them so?
Undoubtedly, you'll have had your fair share of good, bad and so-so kick-offs. Either way, hopefully your project & team kick-offs will have achieved the bare minimum: provide everyone involved with the substantive context and background so they know what they're supposed to be doing to get the result the team is working towards. We won't go into that more substantive part for now.
We're going to discuss another key element of project & team kick-offs which goes beyond people knowing what they should do and when - and is just as key to achieving the team's common goal of result X or deliverable Y.
It's about achieving the goal in the most efficient & effective way possible - it's not about the result, but about HOW you get there. And we'd like to give you some practical guidance on how to get off to a good start.
As you may already know, we're fans of Liz & Millie, authors of Wall Street Journal bestseller "No hard feelings".
They created a user manual called "A Guide to Working with Me" based on conversations with hundreds of executives, managers, and academic experts. It’s been used to help teams successfully collaborate at a range of organizations including Viacom, Okta, LinkedIn, and Google. And I think it's great!
So... without further ado, we'd like to share a few of the questions included in this 9-question guide. Liz & Mollie - and I concur - recommend asking each person to fill it out and then hosting a discussion with the team on how to best navigate potential differences in individual preferences.
Here are a few honest, unfiltered things about me:
It drives me nuts when:
My quirks are:
I particularly value these qualities in the people I work with:
A few things people might misunderstand about me are:
I prefer to give and receive feedback (e.g. over email, in person, one-on-one, in a group):
[....]
Access the full "Guide to Working with Me" (incl. example answers for the "unfiltered things" question) by Liz & Mollie here.
So, are you going to ask your team to prepare this for and discuss it during your next kick-off? If so - please share your experience with us. One-click poll below.
Tried the "Guide to Working with Me" and...
A bit of a bummer, people didn't take it seriously
OK, but some people seemed slightly afraid to open up
Pleasantly surprised - learned something new about everyone
Great insights - this will definitely improve our WoW!
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