How to manage the emotions of a happy team?

Today we talk about the importance of creating a pleasant work environment where people can be happy. It is this happiness that drives people to be more engaged, more motivated, and more productive.

Niko-Niko (ニ コ ニ コ) comes from Japanese and means “to smile”. Niko Niko Calendar is a tool that helps people end their workday with joy and not be burdened with complicated situations that occurred during the day. Niko Niko Calendar is made up of the names of the team’s people (from top to bottom) and the days of the workweek at the top (from left to right), as shown in the image:

The objective of this tool is for the team to meet at the end of the working day to review how their day went and share with what state of mind our day is ending. The important thing about the tool is that it helps us to have conversations that can help us dissipate difficult situations or rejoice for the fabulous day of someone on the team.

HOW DO I APPLY THIS PRACTICE?

In the operations area of the company, we have an outsourcing team, which is made up of professionals who work in our clients’ offices. In face-to-face settings, the members of this team used to be in the office every week for different meetings that were held in the company’s offices. Some of these meetings were for work and others for relaxation. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all the company’s teams began working remotely 100%, including the outsourcing team. This new way of working brought with it several challenges such as:

• Problems of lack of communication.
• Feeling of loneliness in the work environment.
• Problems in the use of tools that allow being connected with other people.
• Feeling of increased workload.
• Work balance with the family environment, among others

These challenges of remote work began to affect the motivation and happiness of the outsourcing team since meeting spaces with their other colleagues in the company were no longer feasible. This situation brought as a consequence that they were no longer listened to by their other colleagues.

I proposed to the COO (Chief Operating Officer) to use Niko Niko Calendar with his outsourcing team. I asked him to have short 20 minutes meetings with his team, at the end of the workday, every day, for one month. At the end of the experiment, we would review the results. We started the experiment with the following activities:

1. Calendar configuration: Design the calendar in Google Sheets so that the whole team has access, with the team names and the days of the entire month, considering the holidays. Then, we define 4 moods that we would use for each day: Green = It was an amazing day, Yellow = It was a good day, Orange = It was neither good nor bad, and Red = It was a horrible day.
2. Arrangement of daily meetings: To make the meeting informal and fun, I asked that the cameras and microphones be active so that it would be the closest thing to an informal face-to-face meeting, like when we meet in the kitchen of the company for coffee. Another agreement was that if several situations had occurred on the day, they should express the mood of the most representative situation (the idea of ​​the meeting is that it be short and at the same time productive for all). The goal is for it to be a meeting where we want to share a situation that affected us and for it to be the same team that listens to us, that generates empathy, and creates an atmosphere of trust (and if it’s fun, the better). Finally, I asked them that at the time of expressing their final state of mind we should write the reason in a note on the calendar, such as: “I had an incredible day because they approved the proposal of a project that I present”.
3. We started with “Day 1”: On the first day, I asked them to think about their day and how they were finishing it. I started by sharing my state of mind about something incredible that had happened to me that day. I had to ask each one to continue. We define that the one who finished expressing his situation passed the message to another colleague. After several minutes, people began to be more open to encourage other colleagues or to be happy about something obtained. We carried out these steps for the rest of the month, and we realized that the sense of loneliness that some people went through, they were managing.
4. We continue all month: After the 1st month, each team member took charge of facilitating this space to avoid getting out of purpose when using the tool.

After the end of the month, the outsourcing team has continued to use the NIKO NIKO Calendar with good results in their spirits and in creating a sense of belonging. The wonderful thing about this initiative is that other areas have been curious to use this tool and it is the outsourcing team that is sharing how to do it.

WHAT DID I LEARN WHEN USING NIKO NIKO CALENDAR?

My biggest learnings in the use of this practice are:

• When people share their situations, communication builds trust and empathy.
• This tool helps us to generate transparency in the team.
• Value judgments on the emotions of colleagues should not be allowed. We must create a safe environment for people to show themselves as they are.
• An improvement for the next month is for the team to define their moods (I think it will be a lot of fun).
• The key to using the tool is to keep it as simple as possible so that there are no excuses for using it. So the simpler the calendar the better.
• This tool allows us to identify patterns about situations faced by the company or decisions made by management, and that may be affecting teams.
• Agreements must be defined in the confidentiality of the situations that are shared in the group. Talking about third parties should also be avoided. The idea is to focus on yourself.
• This tool helps us to show the level of psychological security of people by sharing their situations, their joys, and their sadness.
• This tool helps some people offer their support to those who are going through difficult situations and encourage them to continue. This is a show of empathy.

Use Niko Niko Calendar and help your team to be happier!

Thank you!

For more information: https://management30.com/practice/niko-niko-calendar/

You can download the Niko Niko Calendar template: https://management30.com/download/22942/

For remote teams, you can download the template at: https://management30.com/download/34533/