What Mondays Tell You About Your Team
Monday attendance and attitude tell us a lot about our team and the subsequent action we should take.
Have you heard of a "tell" in poker?
It's a subconscious signal - perhaps via body language or something verbalized - that unintentionally reveals information to the other players. For example, a finger that taps the table a few times when an exciting hand is secured or a half-wink of the left eye when the dealer lays the next card. By observing these "tells," advanced poker players know much more about an opponent than the opponent wishes to reveal.
And in business, we have "tells," too.
And I love a good tell. I look for them everywhere. One of my favorite things to do in a meeting is not to watch the person speaking but listen to the person speaking and watch the faces of the rest of the folks in the room. Is that unnerving? I don't care; it's an effective strategy!
When it comes to your co-workers, one massive tell in business is what I call The Monday Tell. (No, I didn't name it after myself, but instead, the day of the week to which it refers…)
What is The Monday Tell
The way a team member approaches Monday, both in attendance and attitude, reveals their excitement for their job (are they in the right seat?), the health of your company culture, their physical and mental well-being, and to what extent their personal life is impacting their performance.
Let's dive in:
What Monday Attendance Tells You
If a co-worker struggles to make it to work (on time or at all) on Mondays, it tells you a lot.
I've found that it's often an indicator of a destructive lifestyle on weekends. This can range from poor decision-making to substance abuse to not getting the proper rest and nutrition needed to be your best self.
"But, but, I work hard so I can play hard!"
Well, playing too hard for too long rules out working hard. It catches up with all of us.
If you have a co-worker or team member who misses or is late on Mondays more than on other days, look into this. Is their issue temporary, and they need your support? Now is the time to come alongside and help.
But more often than not, this pattern reveals a "capacity" issue. For whatever reason, they do not have the "capacity" to be a reliable team member, and you owe it to the rest of your team to move them out of the business.
But What If They Make It, But Are Not Positive Contributors?
The idea of "Bare Minimum Mondays" recently came to my attention. While the concept of not working hard on Mondays because work is hard is not new, it's been repackaged as a sort of company benefit: a day to "recover" from the weekend.
So another thing we need to look for is those that show up on Monday but who fall short of maximum effort. These folks will destroy your business over the long haul and must be moved out as quickly as possible.
A while back, we parted ways with a team member. The Monday before their departure, I came into the office, and we chatted a bit. Their attitude, which was pretty typical, was one of "begrudging attendance." They told me how tired they were, how great the weekend was, and how hard it was for them to get to work that morning.
The following week, there was a different person in that seat. I came in once again on Monday. This time I was met with energy, and a sunny disposition and asked if I needed help with anything specific that morning.
The contrast was dramatic, and it energized me. And I realized the previous person, while certainly not having malicious intent, was an anchor on our company culture, was dragging those around them down, and was most definitely harming the business.
At the end of the day, we, as business owners, managers, and leaders, are responsible for that which we allow. If something is broken in our business, it's our fault. Full stop. I'm challenging myself to use The Monday Tell to decide better who's on the bus and what seat they are in. I hope this post helps you do the same!
Books of Note: The Chornobyl nuclear disaster was a historical event I knew of but never fully understood. Adam Higginbotham's Midnight in Chernobyl is a brilliant account of the tragedy told through a deep analysis of the main characters. Higginbotham's historical narrative reminds me of Erik Larson, one of my favorite contemporary historians.
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