The magic of the personal check-in: red, yellow, green

Many years ago, my coach Jerry Colonna from Reboot taught me the idea of a “red / yellow / green” check-in. In a nutshell, it’s a practice where meeting participants kick off a meeting and talk about how they are feeling coming into the meeting: happy, angry, frustrated, tired. . . . any answer is fine. “Red” means you are having trouble focusing, you’re extremely distracted, and/or you’re feeling distressed. “Green” means you are feeling good, focused, relaxed, and ready for any discussion. “Yellow” is somewhere in between. Bart Lorang (founder/CEO of FullContact) wrote a great post about the use of personal check-ins in his company, which he also learned from Reboot: “Red, Yellow, Green: Bringing Personal Check-Ins to the Office.”

I’ll admit up front that when I first was introduced to this many years ago, my first thought was, “this is business, why are we doing this?“ but I’m game to try anything. Since then, I’ve seen it work with my own eyes and became a passionate believer in the practice (on the rare occasion when it didn’t seem to work, it was usually because one or more participants weren’t willing to be truly vulnerable — success in this practice does require expressing how you feel authentically!)

Proof that it works

Much later, I learned that there are quantitative proof points that the “red/yellow/green” practice delivers real business results. See this excerpt from a Harvard Business Review piece, “How One Hospital Improved Patient Safety in 10 Minutes a Day“:

Most modern health care improvements seem to involve expensive technology and an uncomfortable amount of change management. But clinical and nonclinical staff at the Rotterdam Eye Hospital have improved patient care and raised staff morale at a very modest cost: 10 minutes a day and a special deck of cards.

Members of the hospital’s design thinking team were inspired by something they saw when they boarded a KLM Airline flight: During a pre-flight huddle of the cabin crew, team members introduced each other and then asked each other two questions on flight safety.

When they got back to Rotterdam Eye Hospital, the managers asked themselves why couldn’t they add a similar feature to their own “team-start” huddles?

. . .

Here’s how it works:

At the start of every shift, the team members get together for a brief “team-start.” Each team member rates his or her own mood as green (I’m good), orange (I’m okay but I have a few things I’m concerned about) or red (I’m under stress). The rest of the team doesn’t need to know that you’re under stress because you’re having a dispute with your landlord or you are worried about your ill toddler. How you feel, however, is important because it affects how you should be treated.

. . .

. . . the hospital’s performance on its patient-safety audits has risen, and caregiver job satisfaction has improved substantially, moving from 8.0 to 9.2 on a 10-point scale after staff began playing the game. The nursing home and rehabilitation center reported similar results.

The staffers have observed a variety of other gains as well. For instance, the game has encouraged team members to get to know each other better, and patients are reassured when team members are familiar with each other.

Psychological safety

Still thinking this is weird or that expressing one’s “feelings” doesn’t belong in the results-oriented business world? That it’s all about being tough and hiding one’s emotions? Be sure to read Charles Duhigg’s excellent piece in the NYT Magazine: “What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team.” Put simply, Google — a data-driven company if there ever was one — did a huge study of what makes teams successful and this was the core conclusion: “Google’s data indicated that psychological safety, more than anything else, was critical to making a team work.”

What is “psychological safety”? It’s “a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up. It describes a team climate characterized by interpersonal trust and mutual respect in which people are comfortable being themselves.” (from a 1999 paper by Amy Edmondson at Cornell)

The reason that the red/yellow/green exercise is so powerful is that it can quickly create a space of “psychological safety” that helps teams do better work. It’s also quick and simple. You don’t need to hire expensive consultants or take personality tests or get a special certification. In my coaching practice, I’ve had a couple of initially skeptical CEO clients try it and the reports back have been glowing. As Bart notes in his post: “it’s not intended to be a big group therapy session. It’s intended to be a tool for us to use to note how we’re doing, understand the root cause, put that aside, and get to work!”

Yes, expressing how you’re feeling in your team meeting actually has the effect of helping you more quickly get down to business. If you’re serious about building a great team at any level, I highly recommend the practice.

(Note: I am “green” at the moment because I enjoyed writing this post. -CD)

p.s. It’s good for one’s personal life, too. Ever had a family situation where someone said, “I wonder what’s up with [mom/dad/brother/sister]?” Imagine how things would be if that person you’re wondering about said up front how they were feeling and why so you didn’t have to speculate?