“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” begins Charles Dickens’s historical novel A Tale of Two Cities. For most of us, we know how to communicate with our team in both of those scenarios.
In the best of times, we seize the opportunity to celebrate wins, offer positive feedback, highlight the impact of individual contributors and the team overall, crystallize key learnings, and leverage the esprit de corps for the work that’s ahead.
In the worst of times, we (hopefully) triage the damage, get curious about what went wrong, communicate what’s happening in the moment, share the plan for the future, give and receive feedback, and regroup before starting again.
