Get Your Team Health Check To Work
Every year organisations ask people to complete engagement surveys. The results are collated, reports are produced, leaders review the data, and then nothing happens. The results are never shared. The team never discusses them. Action plans gather dust. Twelve months later everyone is asked to complete the same survey again.
In my view, that is a waste of everyone’s time and the organisation’s money. The purpose of the Team Health Check is not to produce a report. The purpose is to help teams identify where to focus their conversations and actions.
The Team Health Check should be part of a leadership system, not just a survey. A few things to think about.
Start At Onboarding
The best time to influence a Team Health Check score is before someone completes their first survey. Include Team Health Check as part of your onboarding process so new team members understand what matters, how feedback is used and how feedback becomes action.
One organisation I work with introduces Team Health Check, CliftonStrengths and Boss to Coach as part of their induction so that new team members quickly understand the expectations, language and leadership approach used across the business.
Share The Results
If people have taken the time to provide feedback, they deserve to know what happened. Share the results with the team. Discuss what stands out. Discuss what surprised you. Discuss what the results might be telling you. The fastest way to kill trust is to ask for feedback and then disappear.
Debrief The Results
The purpose of a debrief is not to explain the data. The purpose is to understand the team’s experience and decide where to focus next. Get curious. Look for patterns. Listen more than you talk. The best leaders do not use the debrief to defend the results. They use it to understand them.
Focus On One Or Two Priorities
One of the biggest mistakes I see is teams trying to improve everything at once. Fifteen questions does not mean fifteen action plans. Identify the one or two questions that would make the biggest difference to your team if they improved.
Ask yourselves: If we improved one question over the next six months, which would have the biggest impact on our team? Where would improvement create the biggest ripple effect?
Use The Question Guides
Each Team Health Check question includes key insights, discussion questions, team activities and suggestions for action. You do not need to create solutions from scratch. Use the guides to help generate ideas and discussion. The goal is not to implement every suggestion. The goal is to find actions that fit your team.
Review Progress At Team Meetings
Once actions have been agreed, keep them alive. At regular team meetings review progress by asking:
What’s working?
Where are we getting stuck?
What can we do differently?
These conversations are no longer about the survey. They are about the actions the team agreed to take and whether those actions are making a difference.
Use The Questions As Conversation Starters
Some teams choose to dedicate 10 to 15 minutes of each team meeting to one Team Health Check question. Over time they work through all 15 questions. The value is not in finding problems. The value is in creating regular conversations about what great looks like and how the team can continue to improve. Even teams with strong scores can benefit from this discussion.
Managers Go First
When a question is low, start by looking at leadership behaviour before looking at team behaviour. One manager discovered their team felt they were not being heard. After discussing the results, they realised they were constantly jumping in with answers, direction and solutions. The change was simple. Pause. Ask a question. Create space for others to contribute. Sometimes small leadership changes create the biggest shifts.
Build It Into Existing Rhythms
Do not create another programme. Use the conversations you already have. Include Team Health Check actions and reviews in:
Team meetings
Check Ins
Development Plans
Progress Reviews
The strongest teams make team health part of how they work rather than something separate from the day job.
Hold Leaders Accountable
Many organisations include financial, operational and safety measures in leader performance reviews. Very few include team health. Consider including Team Health Check progress as part of a leader’s Progress Review. The goal is not to hold leaders accountable for survey scores. The goal is to hold leaders accountable for conversations, actions and follow through.
Play The Long Game
Culture change takes time. Most organisations overestimate what can be achieved in six months and underestimate what can be achieved in five years. The strongest teams are rarely the teams with the highest starting scores. They share the results. They discuss the results. They act on the results. Then they do it again. The survey identifies the opportunity. The conversations create the change.
If you have Team Health Check results sitting in a folder somewhere, don’t start with another survey. Start with the conversation you should have had after the last one.