#496 4 Team Habits That Are Holding You Back (and What to Do Instead)

0:00Hey, it's Christy from Lululemon and I'm here at the office checking out the Shake It Out shorts. These have been my go-tos and I kind of think of them as a middle ground between a true run short and a more playful, athletic, sporty short. They have all the performance you want for running, so a comfy liner, our lightweight, swift fabric, even a pocket for your keys. But what I really like is the flowy fit and layered hem. It gives it a little bit of volume, a little bit of fun, so they feel as good on a run as they do just at coffee afterwards. You can find the Shake It Out shorts in-store now or online at lululemon.com.

0:30I wrote a little song to remind you, Choice Hotels gets you more of the experiences you value. The Cambria Hotel's got it all.

0:39Helen:A rooftop bar, have a ball. Cocktails up here feel just right. It's Cambria amazing, alright. Bring a date, your team, or even your mom. Book direct at choicehotels.com. See you on the roof. I kind of think a team is like a puzzle. I think sometimes we have to put the puzzle pieces together and go, what's the picture? Sometimes that picture is just a bit messy and sometimes you realise the whole piece is missing. I think we have to have these conversations quite regularly or there are gaps that we just can't see and there are problems that we're not aware of. We all get stuck in status quo, acting on autopilot and doing things that you would never design from scratch.

1:26Helen:Like how are we going to work together as a team? How are some of these things going to work? Most teams probably make a decision at some point about using a particular platform and not talking to each other out of hours. But then what happens over like a three to six month period is sort of bad habits creep in. And we message each other on WhatsApp at nine o 'clock or emails where the action that you need from someone isn't clear or where actually the emails are really, really long. Hi, I'm Sarah. And I'm Helen. And this is a Squiggly Careers podcast. Every week we pick a different topic to do with work and your career and we share some ideas and some actions so that we can all navigate these squiggly careers, the ups, the downs, the opportunities, the obstacles, just with a bit more confidence, clarity and control.

2:12And before we get on to what we're going to talk about this week, I just want to let you know about a pretty important milestone for the podcast, which is that we are very close to hitting 500 episodes, which you may not care about. but what is useful to know about this milestone is it is a moment when we release a pod book i would do a drum roll if i could but i can't so wait there you go there's a desk roll it's a

2:33Helen:desk roll with my fingers sound effects that's the equivalent of our sound effects that's how professional we are high quality podcast everybody um so what does a pod book mean it is um uh a collection of all of the one-page summaries that we produce for each episode so why do i think it is useful we get a hundred all in one pdf um and i think it is quite useful to kind of scroll through you know almost like i would just do it at random i'd be like you know i'm just gonna look at number 65 i'm just gonna look at number 33 and i'd be like i'm gonna do that one or you there's like a contents page at the front of it where you could just scan down and you could just think you know what what do i need a bit of squiggly support with and then you've got a one page summary with ideas for action and coaching questions and links to learn more from so that is why the pod book is useful and you can get it I would suggest I best thing to do sign up for Squiggly Careers in action the link for that will be in the show notes for this episode or if you go to amazingif.com there'll be a little thing that pops up when you're on the website that means you can sign up for it or followers on LinkedIn so go to amazingif on LinkedIn and we'll be posting about it there and if you still can't find it just email us helenandsarahatsquigglycareers.com so aside from the pod book.

3:45This episode is all about, I guess it's continuing our September theme. So our first episode in September, we did September stops and starts, stopping things that might be getting in your way and starting some new things that might be able to kind of help you keep progressing, keep learning. Today, we want to talk a little bit about teams because that was quite like individual last week. So we'll talk a bit about teams. I want to talk about things that you might have got used to doing in your team that might not be very useful. And we thought we would call out some common stuff that we see, perhaps in our team too, and some other things that you can do so that you're using your time as a team together kind of most effectively.

4:30Helen:I was reflecting on this and it's almost critical thinking about your team. and the reason I think that's useful is we know that we all get stuck in status quo acting on autopilot and doing things that you would never design from scratch you know I was thinking about some of the things that we do as a team or that I've done in other teams and if you were creating like how are we going to work together as a team how are some of these things going to work it's never what you would do you wouldn't ever recommend it to anyone else but you just get used to it and it does take a bit of a you know when you have to press pause to critically think about it because it is hard I always think it's so much easier to just keep doing what you're doing you know you need to like everybody has so many asks of them you know in the jobs they do there's always like there's there's so much to do all the time like in everyone's job critically thinking about how you work as a team I think can just feel too hard to do and so one of the things that I definitely recommend with some of the ideas we're going to talk about today obviously because we're talking about teams I'm like this is a really good one to talk about as a team and you're not blaming you're not blaming each other or you're not trying to feel bad because I think sometimes you could end up feeling like really awful about like oh why do we do things this way because you are pointing out things that are not working you know which can feel a bit negative but I think if you do this with that sort of the it's not oh you know why do we do meetings in that way we're not kind of blaming things but actually almost like together we're just trying to get better together I think it's the kind of mindset you bring to this probably is quite important well yeah I think it just gives people permission to to to to raise these things because if you haven't got like a space for this kind of conversation then people might be feeling frustrated by stuff or might be thinking oh this isn't a very good use of my time but they don't quite know how to bring it up so I really think it a lot of this is some of the things we talk about the team might go oh it's not really a problem that we've got used to it and it still feels useful and that's okay but I think what we're going to talk about is four areas where we see that there is likely to be something that might not be working as well as it could do and it was it is you know it's a good use of time to talk about it together.

6:43Helen:So we've got four areas and for each area we're going to talk about what have you potentially got used to why it isn't useful and then what to do instead so that you can maybe listen to us uh our suggestions might not be right for you but perhaps at least a springboard to think about well what what would you do um and interestingly actually i was putting some of these into claude my current preferred ai it should be like squiggly careers with sarah and claude yeah the new helen is claude um for some reason it sounds french and quite glamorous i don't know if that's true um but me me and claude were playing around with some of these this morning and actually so we did all of this without ai and then you know back to kind of critical thinking i then put into i put into claude a what else question you know like well we've already thought about some of these things that we're going to talk about like what else how else i was asking it um what might I have missed what do other companies do that I could learn from I really like I really like it I'm really on board I've gone from not using AI that much to being like it solves all my problems this is so good so that might be um you know like you could do that live in your team right you could get your own ideas first and then you could kind of you could put those into whichever AI you use and go well what what other ideas as well as these um or if we approach this as a very different kind of company what do you think they would do um that would be kind of quite a nice way to kind of either play devil's advocate or just to see your world in a different way i feel like it's like everyone's got like a chief innovation officer in their team where it's basically like claude like make it better come with a new idea see how would another all that kind of stuff um okay so our first um thing that we think that lots of teams might be used to that might not be very useful is everybody kind of doing the same role on repeat So obviously we all have our particular job roles.

8:44So we're not necessarily saying swap those around because people have different expertise. But it's more like your roles in meetings or your roles on projects. Like often, you know, maybe the same person is always leading the meeting or it's the same person who always. We have a meeting called our monthly metrics meeting, our metrics that matter. And maybe we go in the same order for that meeting, don't we? We go in the same order. it's probably the same person who shares the presentation every time and and you just kind of fall into that it's like an autopilot thing and there is an element of ease in doing that because then people don't have to quite prep as much but then I think sometimes you might miss out on the energy of someone doing it differently or the the the insight that might come from kind of running the meeting back to front where you're like oh I haven't thought about it that way before So I think for this to kind of work well, you probably need to start thinking about when are those meetings where we fall into the same roles on repeat?

9:45There's probably kind of two or three in a week or a month, and they're probably the ones to focus on first. And as well as, I guess, the reason why you might want to do it, I've talked about, oh, we might see different things. But also it might not be very inclusive. Like, you know, if it was you and me, it might be always you and me leading it. And someone else might think, oh, I'd love the opportunity to do that. Or I've got an idea, but I don't quite know how to get into the conversation because I'm always sort of stuck doing the same thing in that particular meeting.

10:14Helen:Also, I think it just doesn't give you the chance to practice taking a different role. So, you know, we all default probably most of the time to what you feel most comfortable doing. So you're very good at creating clarity and bringing energy to meetings. Like I'll always have an idea, always have an idea for people. but you know sometimes you're like but that might not be what that is needed but also there might be somebody else who would you know like who would like to do those things so it's um one of things that we've talked about before but I always find quite helpful here around roles is you know like your listening talking ratio yeah so one of the things you might be like well my role here is to actually talk a bit more I think we talk a lot about listening more because that's probably what most of us need to get better at but there will be lots of people listening where it's like actually they maybe don't contribute as much as they would like to like even my partner was saying to me this morning he was reflecting on meetings he used to be in you know where he always got that you know that after the meeting sort of regret of like oh I actually had something to say there or I could have contributed something but I sort of could you know to your point I I wasn't sure when and then you just go oh it probably doesn't matter or I'm not regret is Is that like a, do you ever have it?

11:29Helen:Um, not now as much. I definitely had after meeting regret in big companies where, you know, afterwards I'd think of an idea and I'd be like, oh, I wish I'd said that in a meeting. Or I didn't feel like I contributed enough. Maybe I got a bit nervous about someone. Yeah, definitely. I would probably term it like a frustration more than a regret. Like, you know, I'd be like, oh, I'm so annoyed that I couldn't get in. Like, rather than a, I wish I'd said it. Yeah, no, I think I would say, I think I would say regret. And again, I think what to do instead here. So, you know, obviously you can rotate roles, but I don't think that just happens.

12:05Helen:I think in a team, you actually have to be quite intentional about it. So thinking about the times where you are together, where there are kind of clear roles, like, well, maybe somebody, perhaps less so now, you know, people don't take notes in the same way because you don't need that. That's what AI can do that. Claude can do that for you. But you probably do have that person who, you know, like naturally steers you through the agenda or ends up summarizing or whatever it might be. And so perhaps you actually even identify before you even get to the people. What are the roles that we need in this moment?

12:38Helen:Actually, summarizing would be really useful. We do need someone to kind of just talk us through and to kind of keep it on track. Maybe there are two or three roles. and then you just go well in this meeting these people are going to do these roles it's not a surprise I don't think you ever want to put anyone on the spot with it I think people need to know it's coming um but I think if you've got um something that you do quite regularly you could just put it in the meeting invite and be like oh so for us we have that metrics that matter meeting you could say right okay for this metrics that matters meeting and we are going to go in reverse because we could right there's absolutely nothing stopping us doing those metrics you just always go yeah you're like it's like a deck isn't it like a presentation you always start in page one or like we start from exactly the same metrics lead the way like we'll just go backwards for once it just at the very least i think it would just feel different so you'd probably get a bit more engagement rather than just be like people may be feeling disengaged until it's their turn or something like that i was also thinking you're like you should play around with claude on this you could have a little role randomizer so all you'd need to do is put into like claude like these are the five things we need to talk about in our meeting and these are the you know the 10 people in it you know randomize people to roles or whatever you could do but you don't want to put people on the spot but you could do it you could do it yeah you get it to help you generate those kind of different things okay so that's number one uh number two connected as a team to kind of spending time together what loads of us will have got used to is recurring meetings so there was some really interesting research from not even research it was just a sort of experiment that Shopify did where they took out all recurring meetings for two weeks because they basically they've been smart enough to work out how much they cost and then they said after two weeks um you can put them back in so quite a lot I like the low pressureness of that experiment because they're sort of going two weeks not that long you're going to have the opportunity to bring them back if you think they're really important and I might be getting not the stat not exactly right but it's definitely in this ballpark it was about 15 percent of meetings I think that went back in and most people just went oh yeah doesn't doesn't need to be a recurring meeting there's a really interesting post I'm getting my phone because I want to talk about so I'll be like don't pick up your phone midway through your podcast but the reason I'm doing it is Stephen Bartlett on LinkedIn today he's actually posted something about this exact point about um killing meetings it's quite it's quite it's quite aggressive I'm going to show it on screen which people will only see if they're watching this on YouTube but um it's quite like there's a there's The man, I think he's got a knife.

15:06Can you see this? It's a poster he's done. It says, Stephen Bartlett's title on this post says, I'm at absolute war with scheduled meetings, not because I'm antisocial, because I've done the maths. And the post is basically, is this point around like the amount of time you spend on these kind of scheduled meetings that are just recurring and just eat into your time without a team ever really being aware of it?

15:31Helen:Yeah. And so I think we all know why it isn't useful because it's not a productive use of our time um you know we there's always this catch-22 isn't there like I've got too much to do but then I spend all my time in meetings so then I've not got the time to do the work I need to do um and in that research I was reading about Shopify pretty much everybody agrees that their job satisfaction at work would increase if they spent less time in meetings um and I think often recur is not that's all meetings but I think often recurring meetings fall into that trap of we've just got used to it we've just got used to turning up on a Monday at that time and we just sort of do that and no one you know like no one really questions it we don't critically think about it I do like putting a number on it I don't think it's that hard I'm sure again AI could work it out for you but you could you could put a cost on that and say well if we are all doing these meetings that we're not quite sure how useful they are even if it's just a question mark this is how much it's costing yeah and so what to do instead you could just you could do the Shopify thing you could go one week two week let's stop the ones that you're in control of I appreciate if you're in a big company now I'm just trying to imagine what would have happened if it Sainsbury's I just like was like yeah like a lone wolf just being like getting rid of all these meetings so most of us have some control over some meetings or as a team you might the ones that you do as a team might be easier to just take out I also think there are probably some less dramatic certainly than Stephen Bartlett's um post this morning on LinkedIn less dramatic options that are more about taking things away or subtracting so we have a recurring meeting on a Monday for example and I wouldn't want to take that meeting out because that starts our week with connection and we're a team that works all over the place so I sort of go oh, I think I would be less satisfied at work, actually, if that meeting went.

17:23Helen:Like, I look forward to that meeting. But could we make it half the amount of time? You know, does it have to be every week? Could it be every other week? And just sort of ask yourself some of those questions to think about, well, we've got used to it being a certain length of time, and no one has ever questioned whether that's the right amount of time. And, you know, it's a bit like, maybe this is not true for everyone listening, but I sort of go oh I spend the money I have I'm a bit like you use the time that you've got you know like the same so I've got a half an hour meeting why do those meetings just seem to take half an hour probably because you're just like oh that's what that's what it takes and I just wonder what would happen if you were like I think that Monday meeting for is usually is half an hour if we made that 20 minutes what would happen let's just be more focused you know because like we were just talking before this I was like oh something's going to die it's half an hour but probably five minutes but it's because the setting for meetings like you have to work quite the setting for it is always half an hour so it's like units of time are booked in our diaries like that so you have to go and do something extra to make it a 15 minute meeting or something like that but if everybody is doing it like that then meetings that could be done in five minutes or 15 or actually what Stephen Bartlett was saying was a voice note like you could probably just send someone a quick voice note and say like let me know if you need to follow up on it um rather than a meeting and there is I think it is it is it is interesting because you could tip too much the other way couldn't you then like someone's saying oh the meetings have gone out but I've got 50 voice notes from people who've got this so you've got I think you do have to be kind of you do have to be careful with it but it's just the it's just I think if you looked as a team about what all your recurring meetings were and for everyone you said do we keep it as is do we reduce the time or do we change the frequency and you just stress tested each one of them so that they weren't just accepted I always think quite fun who who loves meeting so much they don't want to have a bit of a play with meetings so our third thing is one-to-ones and this is an interesting one because I guess Sarah and I's context on a one-to-one is we've worked in lots of large corporates where just one-to-ones are the norm you just have a one-to-one with your manager it might be weekly it might be fortnightly it might be desired but never happens because your manager just never does them but there's this language of one-to-ones and um in theory it's a it's a time where you are able to I think maybe like align on your priorities and unlock problems and get your questions answered um but I think sometimes they just I don't know they're a bit of a catch-up chat and all the usefulness of them doesn't actually materialise.

20:06And so you kind of have these one-to-ones, but they're not really doing what you need them to do in terms of your work. And so a nice reflection was we've gone from our corporate life into running our own company, which you don't really want to feel like a corporate. And we have just taken into this work some of the things that we had from our corporate life. One-to-ones is one of them. And so we're starting to go, actually, are one-to-ones doing what they need to do? are they something that we've got used to that has actually stopped being useful um and so i think this is one that feels very real for us right now because we're thinking what could we do instead if we think they're not doing all those things that we need them to do in terms of clarity and prioritizing and problem solving then how else could we do it um so i think we need to talk to our team about this but i think one of the things we're going to experiment with hello team this can't be the right way to tell our team stuff no no we need to talk about it they will know before this goes live but it's taking one-to-ones out um and replacing them with sort of less i guess less frequent conversations but potentially more meaningful ones where they play to sarah and my strengths so for example if you do need a bit of clarity creating or a problem solving then you can schedule those with me you can schedule because i'm i'm good at that and that i can do that in a quick meeting or actually if you do need a bit of a challenge or a bit of perspective sarah you're very good at kind of zooming out and questioning and so what we are trying to do is rather than just having this sort of default one-to-one that goes in that's supposed to cover everything and sometimes just turns into a nice chat we are trying to have kind of identify go to helen for when you need put this time in for helen and be more specific about matching your need to the person is what we're trying to do a little bit instead of just one-to-ones that cover everything

21:55Helen:I always think what's interesting about this is kind of letting go of levels. So often I think you do get a bit, your development and also your one-to-ones tend to be with somebody more senior with you with your manager. And I think, and I think this is true in big companies as well, but especially in our company where you are smaller and you have a load, you have a load less structure is having a conversation with somebody, a purposeful conversation is usually because you've got like an outcome in mind. um I'm feeling a bit confused about something I need to create clarity um I've sort of lost sight of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it I need the ability to zoom out and that doesn't have to be with me or you and again I think because we are used to working in a certain way for 20 plus years first you go oh we sort of went oh one-to-ones have to be with Helen and you know well they but but they don't you know what what they are is they are a conversation usually to try and achieve something so I think actually almost um it's a bit like Priya Parker's stuff on why gatherings work and when they work really well it's when it's a hundred percent clear you know what we are spending time together for and on so I can imagine um say meetings going into Helen's diary that look different where it might say um the invite is like creating clarity on um I don't know a partnership we're working on and so and it's 15 minutes and Helen goes oh I'm really clear like I'm turning up for a conversation with Sarah and our team to create clarity on that learning partnership because maybe it's all kind of got a bit messy and I know Helen's really good at creating clarity um and then suddenly that just you know like you all turn up very focused I think we might be asking too much of a manager and too much of a meeting to be you know like a bit of an emotional connection um a bit of a problem solving but prioritizing like it's just asking quite a lot and I think it would be much more useful if people were really clear on that this is how I can help you like I'm going to be the best person you can talk to if this is what you need and to your point recognizing that some of the other things that you might need your manager might not be a person to talk to and so in the team you know advice if I think about if I kind of mapped our team there are people that I think are amazing at empathy you know if you're going through a tough time they're amazing for that no people like ideas there is no one better than you like because you love it like i could do some ideas like have an idea conversation with sarah and i think almost if you banned the word one-to-one just for a bit you don't just like just say like for the next quarter or the next month if that feels too scary ban one-to-ones and replace them with like these 15 minute conversations but what you do need to know is like who's what kind of conversations can you have with different people so problem saving conversation with me clarity creating conversation with me idea generation conversation with you and just have those in the diary rather than these sort of one-to-one one size fits all discussions yeah i guess for it to work you've all got to be able to talk talk to each other first about how you can be helpful so when we were preparing for this that's the question we both asked ourselves and each other we because we were debating this and we were like what would we do and then we both just said to to we were sort of we actually saw each other this week we're like okay well how how are we helpful and initially I was like I don't know really so it took me a moment and actually for some things I think we got there very quickly but other things and I was I was thinking about this again this morning some ways that I can be helpful are often not meetings so one of the ways that I know I'm helpful is and I mean it even gets referred to in our team is like the Sarah scan I'm good at looking at something that I've not seen before I'm working out is the tone right does the brand look right making making some changes i don't need a meeting to do that but also it would help me probably to be focused on that and not forget and not to miss it you know if someone was like um can i almost have like a 10 minute window for a sarah scan this is what i need um this is when i need it by and yeah okay yeah great we don't we don't need to chat about it i just but i do need to just read it and then add some comments then you might need to chat depending on how clear it But then you're just, I think you're always being, you know, being specific makes things so much easier for everyone.

26:10Helen:And I think I'm often guilty of not getting this right. Like I'll, I love talking to people in the team. And sometimes I don't start with that really good question. Like what's most useful for you? Or what do we need from our time together today? I perhaps just have some things in my head and then that's sort of where you start. And it does become quite meandering. meandering um and it's not to say you know like i i'm always a bit worried about you don't want everything to be like hyper productive in a sort of soul destroying zapping way like no no one needs that you're talking about my sarah i'm here to solve a problem yeah yeah yeah and you know it could get it could get a bit robotic couldn't it and then you could just replace we could all just replace ourselves with ai you're like there's got to be some humanity in all of this but i i don't think I do this particularly well at the moment at all yeah I can see so much room for improvement like in our team but also in myself um so our last one was really about communication communication and collaboration so we think that lots of teams have got used to um ways of communicating with each other and ways of collaborating with each other which actually might not be that useful and our reflection was you kind of start with good intent so you you know most teams probably make a decision at some point about using a particular platform and not talking to each other out of hours and all these kind of things and then what happens over like a three to six month period is sort of bad habits creep in where we message each other on whatsapp at nine o 'clock or we're you know doing sort of i don't know emails where that that action that you need from someone isn't that isn't that clear or where actually the emails are really really long so someone has to take minutes to go through it to work out what is it that you need from me and again it's not it's not to be sort of critical and blamey about those things with people but it is I think as a team taking a moment to review well what channels are we what what channels are we using at the moment as a team and what's working and what isn't and I was actually writing down a few I was thinking oh if I was to sort of to have a little 30 minute conversation with a team about communication and collaboration I would talk about times like when are we talking to each other and I talk about panels so where when and where are we talking to each other I would talk about the volume does the volume of communication feel right or are we getting it wrong and I also wrote down responsiveness so because I think this goes both ways right like just because I send an efficient email if if you then don't respond to it then it communication falls down it's obviously a two-way thing and i think talking regularly with a team bit of like a review and a reset on those things could be really helpful one thing i did and this probably works i'm sure lots of other platforms have this but we use microsoft teams as um like the platform that we primarily use for our communication and collaboration as a company and they have um like a little bit of software called viva within microsoft where you can analyze certain things about your communication your collaboration so it tells you who are the people that you talk to the most both in the company and outside the company i can see myself on there a little star there obviously i should be like she talks to other people more than me and i'm looking at that obviously next but i'm like oh who won i win and you could i think you could compare these a team how many emails you read versus how many emails you send so mine was really weird there like i had way more emails that i'm having to read because i get so many of them versus the the amount that i actually send oh yeah on the diagram that you've showed me yeah you do you have a big proportion of read versus sent yeah so within four weeks i had 1400 red but only 1800 but and again it's more i think if you just talked to each other about that and you were like oh that's a helen's a bit an outlier there what's what's going on why is why are we getting so i should do mine and compare yeah so yours are 1412 red but 187 cent i think you said 1800 but it's 187 and so actually there's a massive difference which might not be wrong it's just it's quite interesting yeah it's interesting and so I think when you compare it you're then getting the insight and you can also compare your communication habits like how many hours you're spending in meetings how many hours you're spending on email it's quite um I just think it's sort of data that can drive a discussion as a team you need to make the decision I'm not I'm not sure I 100 % trust all of this data But I think you can use it to at least compare and discuss and then go, OK, well, over the next six months, what are we going to decide to do?

30:49But I do think this is an every six months check in things. I just think everyone's working, everyone's busy. These bad habits creep in and change even our best intent.

30:59Helen:Yeah. And I guess if you don't do it, I was thinking about some of the consequences or like maybe sometimes the unintended consequences. I was looking back at our mistake moments, which we all share as a team in the same team's channel. So you can really easily analyze them, which is useful. And I think when we get into miscommunication over collaboration or those kind of things just not working, it often results in things being missed. You and I in particular, we can't keep up. I see quite a lot of our team re-asking for the same thing. And you go, well, that must be that's not good for us because we both feel like, oh, that's we've obviously missed something.

31:39Helen:you know like I don't ever feel good when I see that but also that's annoying for other people right you're like okay I'm having to I'm you know like I'm re-tagging I'm re-flagging those kind of thing and I think you can there are often signals and signs that you can look for that might tell you your communication isn't quite working so that was one that I I saw in our team I was like oh there's there's some mistake moments where things just get missed like the on some days the volume can be quite high and there might be lots of asks of the same people so let's say we're like well there are 25 asks today but they're all of Helen you know so you're like well the likelihood is you're going to miss something along the way and then there is sometimes your point on length I think some there's we don't seem to have I think the the ones that seem to work well when we're on teams are you know quick fire messages and we're going kind of going back and forth doesn't need to all be at the same time but there are some times where you're like wow that is that is a really long message and we you and I were talking about both of our response to that was I sort of looked at it and went that feels just hard to figure out I'm like I don't know I don't know what I don't know what to do with that and and you just sort of went because you're so kind of fast and reactive you're like well that's just too long so I kind of get confused by it I think you just sort of move past it and so again conversation with the team to sort of say and I don't think anyone wants those right just like you don't want long emails you don't want long teams messages if something almost gets past a certain point what might we do is it pick up the phone as much as I don't like phone calls is it pick up the phone old school is it do a video is it um is that one of the 15 minutes oh hell and Sarah I need a getting unstuck or we need to make a decision you know back to decision discussion agendas yeah I think some of those things I always remember somebody telling me I worked for once that almost once you got to like an email that was any more than three bullet points her like rule of thumb was any more than three bullet points and you've got to pick up the phone yeah and I remember being and I that's always stuck with me just as like a a quick proxy like even if it's not an email even if it's just a team's message if like today actually I was doing something probably because I was thinking about this and I nearly put quite a long brief for something into a team's message and then I thought actually do you know what no I need you know like this needs to be a word document this needs to be something separate that you can keep updating and keep coming back to and this is not this is not just a message um and I was I think that is that voice in my head that leader in my head going but that brief is not just three bullet points is it Sarah so you know basically don't be lazy I think sometimes it's actually the lazier option to just like put it all in there because you have to think I had to think a bit more to be like lazy because you're just probably doing what works for you without you know working out yeah works for the other person you're the person and so yeah I think on this I think on all of these the way I would think about this thing with like kind of what we get used to that might be not be useful is that we were all I kind of think a team is like a puzzle we're all a bit of a puzzle and we're often only seeing our piece of the puzzle and I think a lot of things whether it is one-to-ones or whether it is the way that we communicate or whether it is the roles that we play in meeting I think sometimes we have to put the puzzle pieces together and go what's the picture and I think sometimes that picture is just a bit messy and sometimes you realize the whole piece missing and it's just it's and I think we have to have these conversations quite regularly or there are gaps that we just can't see and there are problems that we're not aware of so I don't think it's bad I think it is a healthy team reviews some of these things quite regularly and then sort of makes little adjustments but if you're not having the conversation you can't you can't take the action and in lots of ways I often think it's quite a playful thing to do so you could see this as a problem or you could see it as we're going to have a play let's have a play with the things that are in our control because often as well as a team if I think back to all my days in all big companies same for you there's loads of things that you couldn't do so the things that you can do in your team that you can have a play with I'm like oh that's quite motivating because I'm like well I've I can determine that and I can do something different I can try something out because there'll be a whole load of stuff where I'm like well I couldn't I couldn't change that even if I wanted to I might not want to go to a steering group for three hours but um but I sort of can't I can't change that but maybe what I can change because I'm leading a team is how I do my team meetings with my team and so you know just I think there's quite a nice bit here about like control and being able to play and, you know, like doing the things in your world, even if it's kind of a small thing versus your whole big organization.

36:25Helen:If you are listening and you work in like a big, complicated company where you think, well, I would love to turn off WhatsApp, but my five of the teams all use it all the time. Or I'm in a global function where messages are coming left, right and center. I think it's OK to sort of almost start and think quite small here. Yeah, experiment, experiment together as a team. and so what we will do is we'll put those four kind of common areas that we think are kind of right for a bit of experimentation into the pod sheets that you can look at them and you can see our ideas for sort of what you could try out instead and if you've got any other things that you noticed like oh this is a bit of a reoccurring issue for us that I think is not useful anymore and let us know it'd be really interesting to hear about it just email us helenandsarah at squigglycareers.com and then two other bits of news that might be useful for you so next week is the start of our sprint so if you are not signed up already already please do um it is on squiggly sprint.com you can sign up and join us we'll have hopefully about 10 000 people sprinting with us and learning together as a giant team uh next week we're in a table drum roll for that oh yeah yeah another one um and then after the sprint we're going to do something slightly different with the podcast so would you like to let people know what's in store after the sprint yeah i mean I don't think it would be that dramatic for people, but it will feel, maybe it'll feel a little bit different.

37:39Helen:It feels different to Helen and I when we were talking about it. So we want to make sure we keep being useful. That's our number one value in our company and bring energy every week. And we also don't want to repeat. So we don't want to keep going back over old things. And obviously we've done 500 episodes. So there's not loads of career topics we've not touched on in some way that we do, you know, sometimes spot something where we're like, oh, that's an interesting angle or something's kind of topical. so our question to ourselves I suppose we were like how do we make sure we keep being as valuable as we we can be for everybody who is kind enough to listen and so on a Tuesday our episodes are going to focus on some borrowed brilliance so that might be a LinkedIn person that we follow that we're borrowing brilliance from it could be a book it could be a podcast it could be a stat or a data point anything that Helen and I see where we're like oh that's intrigued and interested us it's got us curious it's got us thinking we will share the borrowed brilliance so hopefully we all feel a bit smarter together but what we will hopefully bring to the conversation is the like the so whatness so to give you an example I've recently read moral ambition um quite a confronting read for anyone who has has also read that and that's a bit of borrowed brilliant so you could just be like oh that's a good read or you could do what we're going to try and do is go okay so what does that mean for us in our squiggly careers so that's going to be our Tuesday episodes um and Helen and I'll take it in turns to bring lots of different borrowed brilliance so I'm already looking forward to that sort of even more reasons to be curious which is never a bad thing and then on Thursdays we are going to experiment with squiggly shortcuts so this is where we are going to take really popular topics important topics where perhaps you don't want to listen to a whole episode or perhaps you know someone who you think they just need the five minute version they don't they perhaps don't want to listen who can believe it to half an hour or 40 minutes about careers and career development but what they could do with is the squiggly shortcut three ways to ask for a pay rise how to prepare for an interview how to get started with your strengths and so we're going to look back over the episodes that we know have been really popular we've had loads of listens And we're also going to think about the areas that we know will work well for shortcuts.

39:56Helen:We'll be recording them as new. So they're not just sort of highlights reel. We'll kind of go back and we'll put that filter over like, right, if we were going to make it just three things. But they will be five minutes. They'll be out on a kind of Thursday. Maybe they'll be useful for you to share with some people who don't listen today. Maybe they'll be useful for you. And we're just going to see. We're just going to see if they feel helpful. Brints, Borrow Brilliance and Squiggly Shortcuts are all coming soon on the podcast. and make sure you're signed up for Squiggly Careers in Action because all the links for everything you ever need to learn with us is there for you.

40:27Helen:So that's everything for this week. As always, thank you so much for listening and we'll be back with you again next week sprinting. Bye for now. Bye, everybody.