Whether it’s building a better culture, reducing mistakes or avoiding failure, the best companies are constantly seeking to improve as a team.
Some of the best companies will take each project and huddle together to find out what went right, and wrong. The huddle is often called a “debrief” and it’s not just for the business world.
In many of the best companies (and military groups), each project/mission will debrief afterwards to talk about what made it successful and where there are areas to improve upon. One of the key takeaways is to always be positive and never play the blame game.
Our COO, Sukhi Jutla, was recently quoted by Media Leaders in their article ‘Debriefing to Win: How Company Culture Excels When Teams Debrief’.
She said: “The biggest difference between low and high performing teams is that high performers take accountability and responsibility for their own actions as well as the collective actions of the team as a whole. This is also how high performing units like the Navy Seals operate – they take ownership, have an open mind, and learn not to take failure or mistakes as a personal attack. Each mistake is viewed as an opportunity to improve the process. Low performing teams, on the other hand, have low levels of trust between team members which results in more blame and the need to protect the ego. They care more about their individual standing and less about the collective unit.
So how do you encourage your teammates to take ownership and responsibility? Provide the right incentives. This can include the opportunity to learn, lead a team, and learn new skills. You also need to create an environment where teammates won’t feel blamed or victimized if things go wrong.
A debrief needs to be depersonalized. Assess and talk about only the actions or processes that were taken and assess them – not the individual who took them. This puts the focus on the actual task that was done and can be assessed without emotional baggage rather than focusing on WHO took the action.”
Read the article here.