Every month, I post three types of culture inspiration: a visual, a book, and an article to bookmark.
Visual: Design The Team You Need to Succeed
Christina Wodtke is an author, professor and speaker who teaches techniques to create high performing teams. In her article Design The Team You Need to Succeed, she provides a comprehensive guide to helping teams work well together. I love this visual about the norms that we navigate every day.
Book: The Coaching Habit by Michael Stanier
While this book targets coaches and leaders, the techniques are actually helpful for anyone working in teams. Each chapter of The Coaching Habit covers one of seven coaching questions, complete with a scientific explanation of why the questions are effective, and suggestions for when to use them. If you want to open up a coaching conversation, the first question to ask is, "What's on your mind?" This helps shift the conversation from being focused solely on the problem at hand, to focusing on what's going on with the person as a whole. The second question to ask is, "And what else?" This allows you to dig deeper, since the first answer that someone gives you is rarely the best answer. I've started using these questions in my facilitation and teamwork.
Article to Bookmark: A New Approach to People Ops That Puts Employee Experience First
First Round Review interviews Lucia Guillory, Head of People for Patreon. She has her PhD in organizational behavior and she’s building a rapidly-growing team while rethinking what it really means to create an outstanding experience for employees. In this article she talks about how she's expanding the scope of what falls under People Ops, planning for an employee’s needs over their entire lifecycle (from hire to exit), and creating a culture of data-driven decision-making.