Photo by Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash

Sometimes I marvel at how simple tools can make hard jobs easy and easy jobs almost fun.  Take, for example, a good pair of work gloves.  It’s amazing how much more you can do with just a bit of protection on your hands.  How much farther you can turn bolts.  How much more yard waste you can pick up.  How much longer you can wrestle with your cat.

IKEA Fan

I’m one of those odd souls who actually enjoys putting together flat pack furniture.  As you can imagine, I’m a big fan of IKEA.  The most recent thing that I put together was a metal file cabinet.  It was only 2-drawers, but it was still a little awkward here and there. Working with the metal was a little harder, since it was thinner and more difficult to pick up and hold onto. Put my gloves on, though, and no problem.  Just thinking about my gloves makes me feel more confident.

In leading organizations, we have simple tools as well that can make us much more confident and more productive.  One of those might be to get in the habit of speaking to your people regularly, saying “good morning” and “how was that meeting” and “how is your coding going.”    It seems like a little thing, but that regular contact can provide immense benefits.

Team Time

In one job, all of us project managers got moved to the first floor, and our developers and QA department stayed on the third floor.  In some ways, it was great to have our own PM space, but I was conscious of the distance from my team.    I put on my calendar “team time”, and every day at 9am and 1pm, I got up and went to the third floor, and wandered around, asking all the folks on my team how the project was going, did they have any questions.  I was surprised at how many questions I heard during those walkarounds that I wasn’t getting on the phone or via e-mail.  I tried to keep “team time” sacred, but when I did end up with meetings scheduled during those times, I would walk around before or after.

Other project managers asked me how I kept things going so smoothly.  I happily told them about “team time,” and more often than not, I got blank looks.  They had plenty of excuses why they were too busy to walk around.   After all, they held regular team meetings where they talked to people. I even had a few say something like, “must be nice to have that kind of time in your day.”

For me, it wasn’t optional.  I gained too much valuable information, headed off a multitude of misunderstandings, and when I needed my team to work a little extra, they were with me.  Team time was a simple tool, just like those work gloves, but it made a huge difference.  It made me and my team successful, a success that even the skeptics couldn’t argue with.

Think about your role and your workplace.  Find a simple tool that can make a big difference for you and your team, one that builds connection, confidence, and most of all, success.