Quarterly Themes: Creating alignment and Boosting Team Morale

As we have been working in a pandemic for more than a year, there is one thing that all the leaders I have spoken with have agreed upon: we and our teams are exhausted. I am a big believer in optimism, but I am an equally large proponent of addressing what Admiral James Stockdale calls the “brutal facts of your current reality,” and, in this moment, addressing the brutal facts means recognizing that team morale and alignment may be suffering. 

One powerful way to re-inspire your team and bring energy (and fun!) back into your workplace is to announce a quarterly theme that you and your team can rally behind. Quarterly themes are generally created by gathering a representative from each department and/or your leadership team for a quick 45 minute meeting.

In the meeting, you and your team should consider where your company is at, upcoming priorities and future goals. The most important thing to remember while creating this team is that it should create a “win x4;” a win for the company, a win for customers, a win for the employees, and a win for the community. By ensuring that your theme is one that will motivate your employees and create value for customers and community, you will effectively be drawing in a crowd of individuals who will support your work. 

As an example, this quarter we at PFD have decided that our quarterly theme would be “Paddle!” We wanted to capture the idea that in order to catch a great wave of change, you have to put in significant effort to ensure that the wave does not pass you by. As a company, we have several key thrusts in the works, which led us to choose a theme that will remind us to keep paddling so that we can catch a wave that will generate enormous benefits for our team and community. 

Q3 2021 Theme: Paddle! The Key Thrusts have been generalized so as not to give away our strategy.

If you would like more inspiration on potential themes for our company, check out some of our past themes:

Q2 2020 Theme: “Our Finest Hour”. For this theme, we were in the height of uncertainty with the pandemic, and we were searching for empowerment in our team. We found inspiration from another period of history marked with fear and uncertainty, WWII, and specifically Winston’ Churchill’s “This Was Their Finest Hour” speech. It was because of this speech that we decided to rise to the challenge - making that quarter “Our Finest Hour” - and finding creative ways to positively impact 1,000 lives. If you would like to read more about this theme, check out this blog post here.

Q1 2021 Theme: And… Action! For this quarter, we wanted to inspire our team to be very action-oriented, so to accomplish this end, we had our team track their use and adoption of our new project-management software. By ensuring the team used the project management software, they had a clear means to track progress on their projects, thus inspiring action. There also was a celebratory component, as we also had our team members submit photos of the different things they were doing - both within work and outside of work - to commemorate all that been done during the quarter.

Q3 2020 Theme: Partner Pinball (names removed this blog post). For this theme, we wanted our team members to engage with key partners throughout the quarter to help facilitate a strong launch to a project. A star was added next to the name of each partner engaged, to make sure we kept the focus on partners present and at the forefront. The relationships we have with CEOs and other leaders are critical to our success, so we wanted to focus on treating those partners well for the duration of the quarter.

If you would like more help creating your quarterly theme, I recommend this 9-minute video: Developing a Theme for Your Team.

It’s Time to Strategize Self-Care. Your Leadership depends on it.

We are living in an era where stress is the norm. At PFD, we recognize that there are numerous stressors in our own lives, including but not limited to political, social, and cultural upheaval, the continued economic hardship, as well as our own individual challenges. At PFD, we are also deeply saddened by the terrible acts of violence that have happened across the country, as well as in our own community in Boulder, Colorado. To add extra pressure, we know business leaders feel continual and immense pressure to lead well in order to be able take care of the people they employ, as well as the broader community. These stressors accumulate fast – in the past couple of months, 84% of adults said they experienced at least one emotion tied to prolonged stress – like anxiety (at 47%) sadness  (at 44%) and anger (at 39%). Further, 67% of people in the United States said that the challenges they face are overwhelming. There’s no way around it – we are facing an inordinate number of stressors that affect our ability to lead and live stable, healthy lives.

 As leaders, we are also prone to sacrificing our mental and emotional well-being to try to serve those around us. We do this because we know what’s at stake – we put in the extra hours and take the personal sacrifice to protect our team. While this quality is admirable, we are at risk for depleting our time and energy at unsustainable rates. We know that we cannot to pour from an empty cup, without taking time and refill it. In the past year, we have gone through so much, collectively and individually. This being said, there are definitive ways that we can refill and rejuvenate ourselves to be able to bring our best selves to our leadership positions.

Plan on sleeping

A third of your day should be dedicated to resting. It may sound simple, but we often neglect our sleep in favor of other activities; however, sleep is extraordinarily important. Consider these facts:

• Good sleep can improve concentration and productivity

• Sleep is important to regulating mental wellness. Mental health issues, like depression are strongly linked to poor sleep quality and sleeping disorders.

• Sleep is important to regulating health. Poor sleep is linked to increased inflammation (like Chron’s disease), a greater risk of heart disease and stroke, and even a greater risk for type 2 diabetes.

• Sleep is important to your emotional and social interactions –poor sleep can reduce your social skills and ability to recognize emotional expressions in others.

Try these strategies for setting yourself up to sleep well:    

• Go to sleep and get up at the same time every day – this will help set your body’s circadian rhythm.

• Control your technology and light exposure. Using bright screens within 1-2 hours of your bedtime, can negatively impact your ability to fall asleep

• Exercise during the day – even light exercise can improve sleep quality

• Be mindful about what you eat and drink – caffeine, nicotine and alcohol, sugary foods, as well as eating big meals before bedtime can all disrupt sleep

• Wind down at night. Creating a nighttime routine can help you calm down at night more effectively.

Create mindfulness around media consumption 

We as people tend to have a desire to be informed. When we turn to the news or our social media feeds, we are tuning into the lives of the people we care about or admire, or the major events in our community and the world at large. This is not inherently a bad thing, but it doesn’t take an expert to understand that an excess of media is detrimental. For several years now, we have been coming to understand the adverse impacts of social media, in that it is deliberately designed to be addictive, with features like the ‘like’ button, consistent alerts, and the ‘infinite scroll’, and heavy social media use is linked to increased stress, anxiety, depression, isolation, and feelings of loneliness. Similarly, constant access to negative and alarmist news media can take a similar toll. When our bodies sense a threat, our brain activates our flight or fight response – even if the threat is being relayed to us through our televisions and news applications.  Consuming news can cause our brains to release stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline, and prolonged exposure can lead to an increase in fatigue, anxiety, depression, and sleep loss.

            Because we should be informed, but overconsumption can cause harm, we should employ strategies to moderate our exposure to media. These strategies could be:

• Limit your time on news each day. Rather than having the news be background noise, take no more than 30 minutes each day to catch up with what has been happening in the media and on social media.

• Create list of “purposes” around your different media outlets. When you define a purpose for each piece of media, limit your consumption of that media to that purpose. If your main goal for using Facebook is to catch up with close friends and family, edit your notification settings to just to see when they post, rather than aimlessly scrolling around the site. If your main goal for going to a news site is to get business-related news and economic forecasts, but you find yourself mindlessly frequenting the celebrity gossip columns, create the intention to change your consumption habits.

• Acknowledge your emotions when consuming media. If you are feeling particularly pessimistic or angry one day, it might be a better strategy to avoid the news that day.

• Subscribe to a reputable newsletter or podcast. Rather than flipping through different news channels and sites, a newsletter or podcast that summarizes the large news stories for that day inherently limits your time and contact.

• Do something healthy after you watch the news. Because the news can be a stressor, following your news consumption with healthy action can reduce your stress and the adverse impacts of the news. These activities could be exercising, taking a walk, talking to a friend, or working on a hobby.

Schedule your routines

            At PFD, we are proponents of routine. As leaders, we often face unpredictable situations that require creative action and solutions. Because these situations can be energy-depleting, we encourage you to create structure in your day to replenish your energy and mental wellness. Routines have been linked to better stress levels, sleep, health, and self-esteem.

Try these strategies to improve routine in your life:

• Write out the specific steps in your routine and schedule those routines in your day. By writing down the steps, you are taking the first steps to making these routines an actionable part of your day.

• Begin your day with an intentional routine. For more information on an effective routine that sets the tone of your day, check out this blog.

• Make sure you include getting outside and exercise into your routines. These activities have been linked to decreased stress and overall improved health, and are therefore crucial to maintaining resiliency in our lives.

• Cultivate mindfulness as a part of your routine. Taking time out of your day to meditate or engage in another mindfulness activity can help relieve stress and improve focus and productivity.

In a world of continued stress, it is crucial we continue to engage in self-care activities so we have the bandwidth to lead our teams and communities well.

3HAG Way & PFD Group Strategic Thinking & Execution Planning Workshop May 14th

Have you ever struggled with confidently crafting a differentiated strategy? One that the whole company understands and aligned to deliver? One that puts your company in a unique and valuable position now and in the future? One that you can clearly make great decisions today and looking out 3 years –12 quarters?

These burning questions and more are answered in Shannon Susko’s & Ethan Martin’s 3HAG Workshop taking place on May 14th, 2019 in Denver, CO. You will learn how to ‘Gut Out’, develop, and implement your 3HAG (3 Year Highly Achievable Goal) and build a detailed 12 quarter-over-quarter plan (your Swim-lanes) to provide a confident execution plan designed to keep you on track to meet or exceed your stretch goal. This workshop is designed for business owners and CEOs looking to refine and focus their strategies. By learning and practicing the 3HAG 12-step process, you will dig into the key areas of your strategy to create the confidence you need to grow your business.

Learn More Here