Power of the Pause
The pause is an often overlooked feature of team success. Here are the top five ways where pausing to reflect can improve the performance mindset of your project team:
- 90-Day Team Check-In
Good team hygiene includes taking time every 90 days to reflect on progress and identify critical steps the team must take over the next 90 days to improve performance. Project teams often focus on doing the work at hand and not how they might continually improve how to do the work. These 90-day check-ins are a chance to reflect and improve how the members work as a team. - Widening your margin of safety
When project teams finish one activity, they must clean up after themselves. In a mining accident, a man tore his rotator cuff after slipping on snow covering a large sheet of metal that hadn’t been put away. The margin of safety had narrowed. - Heightening Your Personal Awareness
Buying time for a sensible second thought is an important element of a performance mindset. Knowing yourself and taking time to make a decision is a useful component for your toolkit. - Pausing to Evaluate Options
A reflective pause allows you to evaluate options. Ask yourself if an option meets both short-term and long-term requirements and what the consequences are of taking action or not taking it. - The Gift of Time to Your Teammates
The better the team members manage handoffs through jointly owned processes, the better the team manages time. Pausing to think about who needs to know your information, whom you should inform, and who has information that would help you, can all create time efficiencies for the team.
Time is common to all these stories. Take time to reflect and your project team will have a higher chance of success. Take time to be aware of your surroundings and your project team will be safer. Take time to prepare for things going wrong and your project team will be better able to respond to emergencies. Take time to reflect and share your reflections with the project team, and your project team will be more likely to continually improve.
We have several services to help teams and leaders significantly improve their performance. Contact Bill or Esther today for a no-obligation conversation to find out how their work could help your team.
