Start, Stop, Continue

Going through the motions: In our fast-paced, modern world, it's easy to get caught up in our day-to-day tasks and short-term actions. We're constantly juggling responsibilities, striving to meet deadlines, and navigating the ever-evolving demands of our personal and professional lives. It's no wonder that, at times, we find ourselves on autopilot, going through the motions without truly considering the effectiveness of our approach.

Q4 is often a time when teams come together to take a step back and reflect on the year that’s been and plan for the year to come. If you’re planning to meet as a team, how can you do a simple assessment on how you’re working together as a group?

The approach: I use an exercise for teams called ‘Start, Stop, Continue’ to identify what’s effective about your current approach and what’s holding you back. You might even find this a useful exercise to do for yourself as an individual!

Start: What do we need to start doing as a team to make us effective?

Stop: What do we need to stop doing?

Continue: What should we continue doing, i.e. what’s working well?

Make it safe for people to share honestly: In an ideal world, we would sit around a table and have an open conversation about the answers to these questions. In reality, however, people might not always feel they can be open and honest about sharing their true thoughts and feelings with the group. In advance of meeting as a group, I’d recommend sending an anonymous Google survey to the team with the 3 questions above. You can then collate the information and share themes with the group to dig into further, e.g. a common theme might be that you need to start connecting more as a team - sharing more about what you’re each working on and getting to know each other beyond work settings. Use these insights to get the group to come up with ideas and practices for how you can be more effective in connecting as a team.

Don’t just do it once! This is such a simple exercise and is worth completing periodically with your team so that you’re always working on being as effective as possible. To help hold yourself accountable, perhaps add a standing reminder to your calendar to do Start, Stop, Continue once a quarter. Even as an individual, this is a really valuable exercise, so grab a piece of paper and write down your thoughts now, or add a time block to your calendar for this quarter to ask yourself what you should start, stop and continue.