Gap-to-Goal: Is Your Team Thriving?
We continue our Gap-to-Goal series (check out the first two posts in the series here and here) focusing on the next “lane” in the worksheet, the team experience. The exercise is similar to that of the client experience, but from your team’s perspective.
As a reminder, the Gap-to-Goal worksheet is a tool that helps you look at your firm from the perspectives of your client, your team, the financials, and the firm owner. You’ll assess what’s happening for each currently, what you want in the future (the goal), why that goal matters, and how you’ll reach the goal.
Your team may consist of 100 individuals or you alone – either way, it’s important to get honest feedback on the team’s current experience. Remember that the team experience begins with the first time they become aware of your firm, the interview and onboarding process, continues through training and development, and includes their experience with respect to delivery of work. Focus on their experience in their current role.
Use employee Net Promoter Scores if available, distribute anonymous surveys using a tool like Survey Monkey, gather feedback real-time in team meetings or check ins, or interview team members at different levels in your organization. Remember that you need honest, accurate feedback about the team’s experience – not just the good, and not just the bad – so it is important to ask about the best and worst aspects of the team’s experience. Here are some useful frameworks you could consider as you think about how you’ll gather feedback:
In addition to the resources above, consider asking your team the following questions to determine your strengths and weaknesses around the team’s current experience working in your firm.
- Is your team clear on the firm’s vision?
- Does your team know the 3 uniques that differentiate your firm from the competition?
- Does your team clearly understand the scope of their role and responsibilities to the firm?
- Does your team have the resources they need to do their job effectively and efficiently?
- What communication does the team receive from firm management, how often, and what is the “feel” of that communication?
- Do you meet with your team regularly and is the agenda published in advance so that the team is clear on what to expect and what they are responsible for?
- Most importantly, what is your team saying to others – inside and outside of the firm – about their experience with your firm (through email responses, surveys, reviews, in the market, through their actions, at the watercooler, etc.)?
Note the key strengths and weaknesses of the current team experience in the first block of the Team Experience lane on the worksheet.
Next, outline the experience you want your team to have and the features of your ideal team experience in the “Goal State” block in the Team Experience lane of the worksheet.
Before you identify the action steps to take to get to your ideal Team Experience, think about why that matters to you. What is your motivation for getting to that goal state? Why do you care about making this shift? Understanding “why” you want to make this change will help you prioritize this work and help you persist in making it happen. Capture the “why” in the third block of the Team Experience lane in the worksheet.
Finally, review the current state, goal state, and why and decide what you’ll do to impact the team’s experience in the direction of your goal state – capture this in the last block in the Team Experience lane of the worksheet. Reaching your goal state may take several steps or iterations, but remember that progress is a step in the right direction, no matter how small.