8 votes

Behold the flower box indicators: Unusual metrics for determining a team’s health

Posted by asteroid
Tags: work, management, teamwork, project management, metrics, flower box indicators, original content, source.economist, paywall.hard
https://applied.economist.com/articles/unexpected-ways-to-gauge-the-health

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Title
To gauge the health of your team, try these unusual metrics
Published
Oct 12 2020
Word count
1010 words

6 comments

  1. asteroid
    Link
    Thanks to a few Tildes folks for suggestions that were used in the article!

    Thanks to a few Tildes folks for suggestions that were used in the article!

    4 votes
  2. [2]
    joplin
    Link
    Ugh. This sounds awful. Oh god, no. In our office there's one person who does it most of the time. They're a good person and a really good engineer, but are terrible at working with others and...

    Ugh. This sounds awful.

    The people who are ‘dishwasher emptiers’ are your best leaders

    Oh god, no. In our office there's one person who does it most of the time. They're a good person and a really good engineer, but are terrible at working with others and would make a terrible leader. They mostly avoid people, coming in around 5PM and working to the wee hours of the morning. When they have been on projects with other people, as soon as it got a little bit stressful, they would blow up and lash out at others. Not a leader at all, in my opinion.

    A less obscure flower-box indicator is the number of plaudits team members give one another.

    I mean, this is a good thought, but I've also been in a meeting where this went way overboard. One person was giving a presentation and at the end wanted to thank some people who helped with the project. OK, fine, no problem there. But they went on and on for about as long as the presentation took, and it was like, how many people could have helped with this? It wasn't that big of a project! You don't have to thank the person who replied to your emailed question with, "I don't know, but it's a good question." Just thank the top few and then say, "... and all the other people who helped out!" Really, I wouldn't be offended if I did some tiny part and didn't get an explicit thank you!

    3 votes
    1. asteroid
      Link Parent
      ANY of these can be taken to extremes or done poorly -- as with any other metric. The point of the dishwasher emptiers is to show that real teams recognize that helping one another helps...

      ANY of these can be taken to extremes or done poorly -- as with any other metric.

      The point of the dishwasher emptiers is to show that real teams recognize that helping one another helps themselves. They do things to make life easier for other people, even if it's boring or takes time away from their own work. Personally I think that dishwasher-emptiers also could be the anal people who care too much about cleaning off their desk than getting the works done... and also there are people who take on the grunt work because they don't have a lot more to contribute... but I take the individual's viewpoint with the right intention.

      Similarly I too have known folks who take the "I want to thank the Academy..." process past usefulness. But I'd prefer to work with someone who puts "too much" attention on appreciating others' efforts rather than someone who never acknowledges others' work. We all want to feel that we make a difference. I like this particular one -- with team members actively calling one another out for Good Stuff -- because management can see if/when it begins to falter. That is, if TeamA used to say Attagirl regularly and no longer does... perhaps there's a reason why. Might make sense to look into it.

      10 votes
  3. [3]
    TheJorro
    Link
    Is there more information on Cisco's Connected Recognition system there? My workplace has been looking to implement something just like that, I'd love to see what the practical application looks like.

    Is there more information on Cisco's Connected Recognition system there? My workplace has been looking to implement something just like that, I'd love to see what the practical application looks like.

    3 votes