I am just about finished with the first semester of my doctoral program at Penn State. One of the things that I love about being a lifelong learner is how I can take what I am learning in class and apply it directly to the business problems I am working on today.
I’d like to review one thing that I have noticed in my sixteen years of advising and helping startups scale that falls under my current academic research. How many times have you read a job post for a role at a startup with phrases like, “we fail fast” or “we get stuff done” or “we need someone who can really roll up their sleeves”? While I appreciate the concept of full steam ahead, I think these phrases are missing out on one key thing; what do you do after you have rolled up your sleeves, failed fast, and accomplished your objective? What type of culture does your firm have in place to learn from everything it does so that it can become better? Enter the guided team debrief.
In Helping Teams to Help Themselves: Comparing Two Team-Led Debriefing Methods authors Erik R. Eddy, Scott I. Tannenbaum, and John E. Mathiew compared two team-led debriefing methods: unguided debriefing and guided debriefing which incorporated learnings from previous debriefs.[1] Here are the five main takeaways for why guided debriefing can help your firm:
1. Team debriefing helps to demonstrate better team process.
2. Team process helps to drive team performance.
3. Team-led debriefing helps to drive team performance.
4. Team debrief process helps to drive teamwork.
5. Team debrief process helps to drive enthusiasm for teamwork.
Imagine working for a firm that had a culture where after every project teams sat down and went through what they did, how they did it, what worked and what didn’t work, and how learnings from the project can be applied to what’s next. That sounds like a place where I would like to work.
Having a team that routinely debriefs their work not only makes them better at what they do, it also helps to break down departmental silos that often prevent true collaboration from ever happening. Debriefing is not a finger pointing session or an opportunity to talk about how great one team member is compared to another. Instead, it is a tool to help teams come together, learn from their triumphs and failures, and build trust across all members of a firm.
What are some debriefing strategies that have worked for you or your company?
