Jonathan and Melissa Nightingale have a unique and insightful perspective on management - especially middle-management of distributed workforces. In their book Unmanageable: Leadership Lessons from an Impossible Year, they tackle many topics from the first year of the pandemic head-on. All of those lessons are still applicable, and impactful, today.
Out of the gate, they try to distill down who needs to know what. One great way to do that is by eliminating the 80% in the middle.
It goes like this: There are plenty of other places for your middle 80%. What we want in this room are the things that are going so well that we should celebrate and the things that are so wretched that you need help to get through them.
As a leader, this helps cut through some of the clutter, and as a contributor, this helps narrow your focus. If your team shares these, it helps everyone understand the context others are working in and where they might be able to help. It is a masterful tool to get to the areas that need the most attention.
STAND-UP EXERCISE
Create a white-board chart where folks can fill in their top 10 / bottom 10. As you talk through the board, it can be helpful to start at the bottom. Try to find an action step for each of the items if possible, or find connections between folks or their sticking points that could help each other. Without dwelling too long on any one issue, make sure folks are heard. Then move to the top. Celebrate! Each entry should be something to acknowledge and recognize. Encourage folks to take this exercise to their product or working teams, as part of a retro or review.
