In manufacturing, maintenance teams will perform preventive maintenance checks on the equipment needed to run production lines. The purpose of preventive maintenance is to assess a piece of equipment to ensure that it does not break down unexpectedly. Despite these proactive efforts, breakdowns will still occur from time to time, but the frequency and significance of each breakdown can be mitigated by this process.
While people aren’t the same as machines, there is a lesson from the preventive maintenance practices that can be borrowed into the people practices within our teams. An unexpected departure from one’s team can feel like an equipment breakdown as everything stops while a manager must deal with the surprise and disruption that follows. What can a manager do to be proactive? While there are several answers to this question, one action that we’ll explore here is to take stock of each person on your team and conduct what I call a “Troika Test”.
Troika means 3 elements working together. When these 3 aspects of work are present, your team members are more likely to stay and more likely to be engaged in their work. What would each member of your team say about these 3 statements?
- At work, we trust and care about each other.
- I contribute through my work in ways that are important to me.
- My work contributes to my life in ways that are important to me.
If you are not sure, one thing that you can do is conduct a “Stay Interview”. This is a conversation that is specifically focused on closing the gap in your own understanding of how engaged a team member is at this time. For folks on your team who are running a key project, prospective future leaders, or in a key role, this conversation may be of even more importance. In this conversation, get curious. It’s an opportunity to learn more about each person on your team and to build your relationship with them. In fact, it’s an explicit example of how you, as their manager, is demonstrating the first of the 3 elements – You care.
In our next blog, we’ll further explore some of the best questions to ask in an effective Stay Interview.
