How to Adapt Your Team Habits During Seasonal Shifts

Your team shifts with the seasons. How do you make this shift smoother?

Today is pub day for Team Habits! Finally! If you haven't picked up your copy or gotten some for your team, please do so today. And if you'd like to promote Team Habits, please share my LinkedIn post or email your colleagues about it.

We're approaching Labor Day in the US, which for many of us in the US, means that summertime is over. Kids are back in school, the weather is changing, and it's full-on "Back to Work" mode. (If you’re outside of the US, substitute your country’s holidays and seasons here.)

We all know this is happening, but it's rare that we use this knowledge to explicitly communicate changes in expectations and team habits. Consider this your nudge to practice making the obvious explicit.

Since every team is different, I can't give a one-size-fits-all set of actions to take. Besides, your team either knows the answers or is best suited to co-create them.

Below are six guiding questions to discuss during a dedicated meeting block over the next few weeks. I suggest doing them earlier in September before Q4 planning happens, otherwise, people are going to feel behind at the start of Q4 and barely able to engage. Reminder: The team leader/manager does not have to facilitate the conversation and, if need be, it can be an "unofficial" meeting.

1. What's a nonwork highlight of the summer (last season)? Why is that one meaningful for you?

2. What insight or learning emerged because you had more space over the summer?

3. What's the practical difference between our "Back to Work" and "Slower/Vacation" periods?

4. Do we need to adjust our meeting cadence, and, if so, why?

5. What 1-3 priority projects do we each need to get back in the groove on and how can teammates support us in that?

6. What slipped over the slower/vacation period and how does that require us to adjust our goals or plans?

Questions 3-6 are fairly straightforward, so I'll not go into them further.

Question 1 is the warmup and belonging question. It helps reinforce that teammates are more than just co-workers; they're rich, wonderful souls who contain multitudes. You'll inevitably find that you share interests and values, too - those bonds increase belonging and empathy.

Question 2 works to undercut the idea that "Slower/Vacation" periods are less productive and necessary evils. Aside from them being important for our well-being, which is reason enough for these seasons to be valued, they're also often when insights, epiphanies, and key learnings emerge. There are many teams who spend a full year (or more) just playing out the insights and innovations that can only emerge during these Slower/Vacation periods.

Do not discount the importance or sequence of the first two questions. If you give them due space and importance, they will shift the conversation from a "yeah, yeah, I know, we have to get back into things" vibe to a "Oh, we're just shifting into different kinds of work that we get to get into” vibe.

You're already going to be dancing around the questions, so why not engage with them, together?