How To Set Better Boundaries as a People Team (Part 3 of 3)
Step 3 - Analyse & Course Correct
Note: This is Part 3 of 3. You can find Part 1 here or Part 2 here.
Reminder- This 3-parter is for you if any of the following are true:
You and your team are stuck in 'people pleaser' mode and are stretched thin
There's murmurings about your team like: "what do they even do?" / "How does HR/People team spend their time?"
You are struggling to articulate the value of your team to the business
You are struggling to communicate how you operate so that expectations from other teams on your time are managed
Resonate on some level? Let’s dive in together…
In Part 2 I talked about how you align with your own team after achieving full role clarity from your leadership team (part 1). We talked through building a team charter and launching it to the wider organisation. This next steps crucial… you work has only just begun.
Analyse & Course Correct
The last thing you should do now and let these earlier conversations & agreements both with exec and your own team grow stagnant. Same applies for that team charter you just built & launched. Your journey doesn’t end here…
Here’s what you do:
Run Week In The Life Of (WILO) Check-ins
TL;DR…
These are a Lean Management tool to help track time spent on various activities to spot areas for improvement and better time management. It's essentially a review of your calendar over a week, highlighting how your time is distributed and revealing potential inefficiencies or areas where you could be more effective.
What does this look like in practice?
When you are having 1-2-1s with your team members moving forwards it's a good idea to check in with them:
Are they able to focus on the agreed activity buckets?
Are we spending time where we need to be?
What challenges are cropping up in trying to do so?
This is going to help you understand whether your team’s able to manage the boundaries that you’ve all set. It gives you signal on whether there are any particular teams/individuals outside of your own team who are overstepping.
NOTE: If that’s the case you may need to personally follow up and help that team/individual understand the impact of their behaviour..
There’s also the perfect opportunity to use this conversation for an opportunity to understand people's individual work preferences and see how they are lining up against the kind of work being asked of them. These questions help:
You might also find it helpful to work with folks on their calendar. Jumping in and looking back at the last few weeks to map that against focus areas. This can feel ‘micro-managery’ if not done with skill but the goal here is to basically help someone prioritise and make sure you are giving them enough support to be effective.
A Few Extra Resources You Might Like…
A Team Charter Template on Miro
A Team Charter Template on Notion
Makers Schedule vs Managers Schedule (Super interesting read)
Adam Grant's TED talk on the dynamics of giving and taking in the workplace.
📔 If you want a much deeper solution to boundary setting then you should check our Setting Boundaries Playbook, available via Open Org’s Content Pass here (£120/year), which gives you access to other things like:
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