For our own 'Team Thinking Asia' team, our emotional wellbeing is critical right now, given both the Covid situation & the current coup in Myanmar. We've a small closely knit team and due to the Covid situation, we are currently split between Myanmar and the UK. Our own challenges have, like many people in Myanmar, become even harder this last week.

Wherever you are in the world at this time, one thing that is critical when things get tough is to check how everyone in your team is feeling. As a small team, it's easier for us. We try to chat on video each day or at the very least, message on our phone apps to check-in.

It is more difficult for larger teams, however it's not impossible and the size of your team should never be an excuse to ignore the wellbeing of individuals. We know of many organisations that have effective daily check-ins, but we are sure that there are some others around the world, who barely know who is on the payroll.

Right now, with remote teams and challenging environments, daily checks-ins are critical and we don't mean for checking on work progress. We mean for the emotional wellbeing of your team. If you're not doing it now, you need to be.

So what can you do?

You need to decide upon a method of communication and a process for sharing and then invite everyone to share how they are feeling. This provides a view of how your team are doing each day and helps everyone to be more open and feel supported by others. Just remember you can't force people to do this, but always offer and encourage it.

Another great way is to start using a Niko-Niko calendar. It’s a simple calendar (online or paper if you are working face-to face) with your team names on it. At the start or end of a day, everyone is invited to share their mood, completing the boxes with the colour representing how they feel.

The calendar idea originated from Japan and Niko means to 'smile' in Japanese. Happy teams are productive teams.

Click the button below to download a free Niko Niko calendar that we've created for you. Simply download the spreadsheet, adapt it with your own team members names and change the current month and days to suit.

A great way to use right now, is to then share it as a Google Sheet with your team & everyone can check in daily. Using Google Sheets means that any updates are automatically saved for everyone, so you can use it collaboratively. 

Whether you use a messaging app or the Niko Niko Calendar, you can explore everyone's feelings a little further during your team check-ins. If you wish, you can invite people to express how they are feeling by labelling their emotion. Labelling emotions has been shown to dampen down our emotional brain & helps us feel calm. There is a no need for people to go into detail, they can just label how they feel & give a simple reason why, if they wish e.g: 

"I feel stressed right now, because I'm behind with my project"

"I'm feeling anxious, because of the current situation"

"I'm feeling happy, because we are all supporting one another"

Team wellbeing is crucial right now and will contribute hugely to your team's on-going success.

Stay safe everyone and look after yourselves and those around you.

The Team Thinking Asia Team

Please feel free to forward this email on to anyone else it may help

AND LASTLY ......

If we can assist your team with a 90 minute virtual wellbeing workshop, that helps give takeaway actions to be calmer and more effective in challenging times please let us know. We can run sessions in English and Myanmar language.