Welcome back, fellow managers and leaders!
I hope you enjoyed the holidays and that you’re feeling motivated to have a great 2022. If one of your resolutions is to continue growing as a leader, look no further than this biweekly newsletter.
In today’s issue, we’re covering…
- Our top 5 Supermanagers interviews of 2021 🎧
- Team meeting ideas to kick-off the new year 🚀
- How to welcome a new employee 🤩
- Why systems are better than goals 🎯
Let’s get into it!
🎧 Listen to these 5 interviews to become a Supermanager
- How Shopify’s president builds highly effective teams with Harley Finkelstein
- How to get sh*t done fast and fair in the workplace with Kim Scott
- Efficient one-on-ones and diligent hiring with Mark Horstman
- Stop directing people, start designing systems with Daniel Terhorst-North
- Owning the manager role with Melissa and Johnathan Nightingale
🤩 How to Welcome a New Employee (8 min read), Fellow Blog
TLDR: First impressions are everything and you want to make sure that your onboarding process makes the new employee feel comfortable right from the get-go. This article covers 5 ideas to best welcome a new employee and 21 message examples so that you can cultivate an excitement to work in every new hire from here on out! Here are the first 3:
- Write a welcome email: One way of welcoming your new employee is by writing them a welcome email. Renée Solorzano, Director of Product Design at Faire, shares why a welcome email is a fantastic way to make your new employee feel welcome:
- “… we send every new hire the day that they join a welcome email, that retells the story of why we hired them. It’s such a special moment, feeling like, ‘oh, I’m recognized already. And this is what I’m going to bring to this community,’ which I found inspiring.”
- Have an onboarding checklist ready: A new employee’s first day of work is not meant to be spent wondering what they’re meant to be doing… Make sure that you’ve updated the onboarding checklist and that you have some training and preparations ready for your new hire.
- Encourage coffee chats: You can suggest that your new hire reaches out to people on the team, but this can be pretty intimidating as you’re starting out a new job! If other team members are inviting a new employee to grab a coffee, they’re sure to feel more comfortable and it’s also the perfect opportunity to get to know each other.
🎯 Forget About Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead. (6 min read), James Clear
TLDR: Research from Results have very little to do with the goals you set and nearly everything to do with the systems you follow. According to James Clear (author of Atomic Habits), goals are good for planning your progress and systems are good for actually making progress. Here are 3 ideas that will help you fall in love with systems:
- Winners and losers have the same goals: Every Olympian wants to win a gold medal. However, it is only when someone implements a system of continuous small improvements that they achieve a different outcome.
- Achieving a goal is only a momentary change: When you solve problems at the results level, you only solve them temporarily. In order to improve for good, you need to solve problems at the systems level. Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.
- Goals are at odds with long-term progress: A goal-oriented mindset can create a “yo-yo” effect. Many runners work hard for months, but as soon as they cross the finish line, they stop training. The race is no longer there to motivate them. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game.
🚀 9 New Year Team Meeting Ideas to Kick-Off on the Right Foot (10 min read), Fellow Blog
TLDR: Kickoff meetings are great tools to motivate your team for the upcoming year. During the first meeting of the quarter, your team can discuss what went well in 2021 and what steps and processes can be improved in the new year. Check out these 3 (out of 9 ideas) to help your team get back into the swing of things:
- Reflect on 2021: Let attendees know in advance that they’ll be encouraged to join conversations about the ups and downs of the prior year. Your meeting agenda can include areas of discussion such as new collaboration ideas, ways to effectively utilize team resources, or ways to improve team communication.
- Conduct a SWOT analysis: If anything, the easygoing settings of new year team meetings can often encourage the exact sort of critical thinking needed to address your challenges head-on! And to properly organize and move through your new year SWOT analysis, Fellow’s SWOT analysis template is all you need to get started.
- State your goals for 2022: To meet your expectations and adhere to your vision, you’ll need to set up SMART goals for your team. Personally, I like using the OKR feature in Fellow to document the objectives and key results that each person on my team will focus on.
No agenda, no attenda! 👋
If you’ve been a TLDR subscriber for a while and haven’t tried Fellow.app yet, January is the perfect time to create an account and start having more productive meetings with your team! Reply to this email or contact our team at [email protected] if you have any questions. 🚀
… and that’s a wrap! We hope that the content we curated inspires you to continue growing as a leader!
If you enjoyed this issue, please share the newsletter with a colleague or friend.
You can also connect me on Twitter and/or LinkedIn!
Thanks for being part of our community,
Manuela & the Fellow.app team
