Every quarter we tell leadership what the work added up to, and almost nobody tells the people who did it.
Our QBR went fine. The quarter's accomplishments lined up behind the strategy, and leadership got the version where every project connects to something the business values. Then the leaders in that room mentioned that a State of the Team hadn't happened in a while. They had just seen how broad the combined effort was, and our teams had not heard the entire story the accomplishments tell.
Each team knew its own piece. What none of them had seen was the amount of time and effort it took to transform an entire platform, which came to more than 76,000 hours of combined effort.
The calendar forced the issue. Budgeting for next year had already opened, and every department was starting its strategic plan. Asking people to plan next year's work when they had never seen what this year's work added up to felt backwards.
So we called one. Seventy-plus people got one hour, and all 11 section leaders told their team's story to the larger team, from network and platforms through operations, architecture and the security teams.
It was overwhelmingly positive and impactful. You could see it in the engagement, the questions, and the feedback.
Most of us treat the QBR story as cargo that only moves upward. We build it for leadership, polish it for leadership, and shelve it once leadership nods. The people closest to the work get the deadlines and the task list, and the narrative stays one level above them, where it does the least good.
The team writing next year's plan is the team that needs that story most. Our department strategic plans aren't finished. They are improving as a result, and that's the part that would have been invisible if the story had stayed in the QBR.
It's also the cheapest fix for the resistance I wrote about last week. People push back on what they don't understand, and nobody understands a strategy when all they ever saw was one slice.
So, here's the MondayMove
Before your teams write next year's plan, give everyone one hour in the same room and have every section leader tell their team's part of the story you told leadership.
They did the work, so let them hear what it bought before they plan the next round of it.
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