#Just checking up on you how to
#Just checking up on you software

Finally, checking in - if done well - means sharing information about what you are up to, especially if it might be relevant to what your team is doing.Ĭhecking in is really about collaboration checking up is about suffocation. And, more importantly, you will be in a much better position to provide your people with the resources and help that they really need. Instead, try asking questions like, “What do you need to get this project done?” “Is anything getting in your way?” or “What can I do to help out?” In this way, you can check in with people and find out how their projects are going without making them feel as if they are under constant surveillance. As a result, it kills both motivation and creativity. This is classic micromanagement, which makes people feel that their judgment, talents, and skills are not valued it also constrains experimentation. If you are constantly monitoring how people achieve their goals, then you are checking up. If you are mostly asking employees whether they finished this task or that task, then you are checking up on them. Perhaps the most important thing you can do is to adopt a mindset of “checking in” with your subordinates rather than “checking up” on them.

#Just checking up on you how to

Giving people real autonomy in deciding how to achieve those goals is even harder.

If you’re a leader, setting and communicating clear, inspiring strategic goals is hard enough. This is what provides meaning in the work. Third, local leaders - those supervising people in the trenches - should help all employees see how their own individual actions play a role in achieving the organization’s goals. Second, leaders at all levels should communicate and model those goals to each employee, ensuring that everyone in the organization is on the same page. This model would not be economically viable for an organization with large startup costs for product development.īut this doesn’t mean that your organization can’t borrow some ideas from Valve in trying to achieve that balance of goal clarity and autonomy.įirst, the leaders at the top should articulate an inspirational mission, describing the overriding goals of the organization and how those goals serve both the organization and its customers. Second, because Valve is developing software, no large capital expenditure is required for initiating and implementing new products. It is unlikely that this loose structure would scale well to much larger organizations. For one thing, Valve only has about 250 employees. Valve’s total autonomy in project choice wouldn’t work for most organizations. Because the projects they do are truly theirs, they are more likely to see the work they do as meaningful, a crucial element of work engagement.ĭoes this sound anything like the place where you work? Probably not. As a result, these employees enjoy both goal clarity - because they create the project goals themselves - and strong autonomy.

#Just checking up on you software

Valve Software believes that, because everyone working there is really good at what they do, they can be trusted to make good decisions and work hard. This Darwinian model involves a natural selection process, in which strong (i.e., really cool) projects staff up quickly because employees see them as valuable. Instead, projects grow organically, based on how many people want to work on them employees with new ideas actively recruit others to join them. Managers don’t assign people to projects. It’s not easy, but some companies have pulled it off - sometimes, rather ingeniously.Īt Valve Software, the award-winning video game developer, employees have almost complete autonomy in what they work on. Perhaps the most difficult of those balancing acts is ensuring that employees have clear, meaningful goals as well as considerable autonomy (PDF) in meeting those goals. Recently we wrote about how managing for innovation requires balancing four critical factors to produce a highly motivated and creative workforce.