Day 25: This Is How I Failed My Team In January 2024

Tomorrow is the last day of January, and I already know how I failed my team.

Let me paint the picture: I’ve doubled the number of direct reports in late December. And my days have been increasingly hectic these past months.

As so many crazy topics appeared these past weeks, my main failure was that:

I haven’t been as available as I should have been.

For those who know me, I’m a big fan of 1:1s.

The devoted time between me and my direct report for us to discuss how things are going, what worries them, next actions, etc.

Sometimes, even if all I’m doing is stand there and listen.

But I haven’t been as available as I should have been these past weeks.

I’ve skipped a couple of 1:1s, which I hate, and I feel like I’m always rushing from conversation to conversation.

Have you been here before?

I’ve decided not to wait for tomorrow to fix this and just finished rearranging my calendar.

And what a challenge it is.

With a mixture of weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly syncs, I’ve completed adding syncs with 15 people (not counting syncs to which I’m invited, like my own 1:1 with my manager).

The good thing about this is that I can have a brand new feeling about how it evolves by the end of February as my schedule loops every couple of weeks. It’s my version of Agile Calendar 🤣

How about you? How was your January? 📅