Resetting Team Habits

Strong planning and execution habits yield business growth and team development. However, many teams abandon a disciplined rhythm when day-to-day work becomes overwhelming.

Taking intentional pauses during high-stress seasons is essential to making the right decisions. Teams that do not devote regular time to identifying blockers and making adjustments—particularly in collaboration with each other—risk burning their energy in low-impact areas. This fuels a negative and unproductive culture. 

Signs That Habits Are Slipping

Catching habit lapses early is key to getting the team back into a disciplined rhythm. When you notice signs in any of these three areas, it is time to reorient the team.

Area #1: Inconsistent Updates

The 13 weeks in every quarter provide 13 opportunities to reflect on progress, identify problems, and make crucial adjustments. The regular habit of statusing goals, setting Tasks, and prioritizing for the week ahead ensures that every employee maintains momentum on their projects.

Your team may be losing this essential rhythm if…

• KPIs and Priorities are missing status colors and comments

• Tasks are frequently overdue and/or not set for various goals

• Multiple team members are not writing Week In Sync notes

Letting these practices slip for more than a couple of weeks can set your team dramatically behind. Because they have neglected the chance to understand their progress and plan next steps, they have missed opportunities to achieve success faster. They also come to team meetings unprepared, burning their colleagues’ valuable time.

This easily becomes a vicious cycle. As employees fall further behind on goal execution, they become increasingly stressed. They may feel they do not have time for weekly updates, or the idea of giving an update and statusing their goals Red becomes overwhelming in itself. As they drift further away from execution discipline, they likely perform worse and have a more difficult time reestablishing healthy practices.

Area #2: Abandoned or Wasteful Meetings

Meetings are the most expensive recurring event on your calendar, particularly if they involve Exec Team members—but conducted well, they can yield excellent ROI (return on investment). When meetings are poorly run or abandoned altogether, the team risks falling into serious misalignment. This leads to missed deadlines, rework, waste, and unnecessary conflict.

Your team’s good meeting habits may be slipping if…

• Recurring meetings are canceled multiple weeks in a row

• Significant time is spent giving routine status updates instead of honing in on—and solving—real problems
• An intentional agenda is disregarded and time is lost in unproductive, “rabbit hole” discussions

Even the busiest teams need live touchpoints to surface key issues and make breakthroughs. Spoken conversations offer a layer of nuance that cannot be achieved through email or chat.

At the same time, poorly-run meetings are what make people prefer email! Losing sight of what the meeting is for and losing accountability to best practices, creates meandering, unproductive conversations. Again, a vicious cycle arises: Undisciplined meetings create negative mindsets, so team members skip the meeting or attend with an unhelpful attitude. This, in turn, drives an even less impactful and more unpleasant meeting. When this goes on too long, it’s difficult to shift team perceptions from dread to enthusiasm.

Sign #3: Failure to Plan

Planning is like coming up for air after being underwater: Suddenly, your head is clearer, your stress is lower, and your view is unobstructed. Teams that do not plan regularly waste energy in low-impact areas, overburden employee bandwidth, and lose sight of high-level strategy and purpose.

Your team risks failure to plan if…

• They do not commit to planning dates until the last minute, especially after the quarter has finished—or they do not commit to a date at all

• They track KPIs but lack strategic Priorities that could impact their success
• Their goals are long lists of misaligned or incoherent activities that have little to do with company strategy

The longer a team goes without planning, the more overburdened and unfocused they become. This is the third vicious cycle: Teams that do not plan do not address root-cause issues, so the issues compound. Teams that are out of touch with company strategy do not understand the purpose behind their work, which makes them feel disconnected, unmotivated, and uninterested in strategic planning. They operate with little understanding of why they do the things they do, and therefore, they often spend time and energy in the wrong areas.

Strategies for Resetting Habits

When Your Team Is Starting to Slip 

If your team is only starting to slip, they can benefit greatly from a few clear, firm reminders.

To ensure success, follow these recommendations:

• Ask a person with an established rapport or authority to deliver the reminders. This may be you or another company leader.
• Set expectations that are straightforward and accessible. Document and share these expectations. Formatting should be readable, and team members should be able to locate this resource easily.
• Communicate expectations consistently. Revisit this topic regularly at all-hands meetings and with departmental teams who are notably struggling.
• Emphasize the WHY behind every habit. Highlight how steady habits create a healthier, more successful organization. Warn employees about the risks of falling away from disciplined rhythms.

When Your Team Is Stuck in a Vicious Cycle

Teams that have abandoned good habits and developed negative mindsets need more serious intervention. Through open, honest conversations, your team can commit to turning a new leaf.

To ensure success, follow these recommendations:

• Align with your Rhythm Success Coach on what is going wrong. They have guided teams like yours through similar issues and are ready to provide impactful recommendations!
• Plan a team session—or multiple sessions—to work through the issue(s). Invite transparent feedback and group collaboration. This will surface core problems and encourage breakthroughs!
• Commit to achievable steps forward. Set corresponding SMART goals in Rhythm to drive the right behaviors and a sense of accountability.

Creating & Maintaining Accountability 

Developing real accountability is one of the most complex—but most important—endeavors that an organization can undertake. Continually revisit the 5 C’s to understand what this process entails.

Teams do their best work when they are motivated by a strong sense of ownership, purpose, and enthusiasm—not by fear. That being said, a team member who has received ample support and guidance and still chooses to neglect commitments may not be in the right seat. Logical consequences should be a low-drama but well-understood element of your culture. 

Next Steps

1. Identify and document the signs of slipping habits. Is this a one-off occurrence or a developing pattern?

2. Understand the degree of the issue. Is the team just starting to slip, or are they already caught in a vicious cycle?

3. Respond accordingly. Clear and consistent reminders may be enough. For more serious cases, consult your Rhythm Success Coach and plan next steps.

4. Maintain accountability. Invest in developing your team in each of the 5 C’s. Follow through on logical consequences when appropriate

Resetting habits can seem daunting, but it is essential to your team’s success. Remember that you are not alone in this process. The Rhythm team is here to support you and your team, even and especially when change feels grueling. Leverage this partnership to affect real, lasting change in your team’s mindsets and practices. Get excited about what the future can hold for your organization with the power of good habits!