Are You a Coffee Person or a Tea Person?

𝘈𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘦𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯? It is one of the first questions I ask when I want to break the awkwardness at the beginning of a complicated meeting. Like when I have to convince people to work on things they don’t want to do (and they know it) or at the beginning of a new project. 

You know what I’m talking about: eyes looking down, hands crossed, putting on standard smiles when the camera is on or just hiding in the collective silence when it is off.

𝘒𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘯, 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘵𝘦𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯? 

Kevin doesn’t expect this. No one does, which makes it a good attention grabbing tool. It also shifts the focus away from work where people might defend different positions and territories and onto the inoffensive and enjoyable field of thinking about their preferred warm drink.

This harmless and apparently naive question has the power to bring people on the same level. After all, we all have our preferred habits and small rituals, right? Sharing them brings people just a little bit closer together. 

Done right, sharing spreads trust. Done consistently, it spreads a safe space. Spread enough safe space and you’ll grow a healthy culture that will get you better results and a nicer atmosphere at work.

By now you probably figured out where this is heading. Trust makes people less defensive and less concerned to protect their derrieres. Provided they have good intentions (which most people do), they’ll have more energy and motivation to do good work for the sake of the team. 

Remember how liberating it feels when you can just trust your team mates to get something done? Take all the energy your team spends on control and on being controlled and pour it into doing meaningful work. You now have a positive compounding effect in your favor.

If you are in search of a reliable and motivated team, know that they are less a product of luck or improvisation and more of quality facilitation and deliberate team building techniques. The most effective ones don’t rely on citations from fancy methodologies, but often come disguised as inoffensive questions about your go to morning drink.

Myself, I’m a coffee in the morning, espresso after lunch and green tea in the afternoon-type of person. No sugar.

What about you?

The Unexpected Meeting

An effective morale busting and workflow disruptor for team

One of the most effective cards you can play to mess-up the work flow of your team is The Unexpected Meeting.

The Unexpected Meeting is one of the most effective cards you can play to completely mess-up the work flow and engagement of your team.

Is especially damaging to Engagement if sent without asking permission or at least giving a heads up on chat.

Main effects:

• -5 Productivity damage AoE to all recipients

• -1 Morale damage if none or vague subject line

• -1 Engagement damage if don’t include an agenda or expected meeting objectives in body of invite

• -3 Brainpower damage for every 30min of duration

• removes Concentration if sent during peak brainpower hours mid-morning / afternoon

• inflicts Sleep if no. of participants > 6

• inflicts Miserable if title includes “Meeting” , “Status” or “Report”

  
  

Conclusion: nothing spells “I don’t really respect you that much” than bullying the brainpower and time of you co-workers with vague and intrusive meeting invites.

If this is what you want, just go for it!