Radically align your team for 2025
Skip the small talk and set your team up for success.
It is Monday morning, early January, and your team meets for the first time in the new year. How will you spend this precious time?
Here’s what happens in most teams: After some mandatory small talk about everyone’s holidays, we get back to work as if nothing has happened. In the end, we all know what we need to do, don’t we? We review the goals and priorities that we’ve set in December and get going.
However, if you’re doing that, you’re missing the opportunity for radical alignment. To set your team up for success in 2025, I suggest skipping the small talk and going for big talk instead.
Four powerful questions
Take the opportunity to let each team member reflect on these four simple yet powerful questions below.
Looking at the work that lies ahead for us in 2025…
🔥 Intentions: Why do you want to be part of it? How would you like to contribute?
🤔 Concerns: What might go wrong? What worries you?
🤝 Boundaries: What do you need to be at your best? What agreements should we put in place to work well together?
🌟 Dreams: What will be true if this goes incredibly well? What might be possible?
Here’s a short video where I talk through these sections (abbreviated to ICBD).
How to do it
Start with 10 minutes in silence, where every member writes their answers individually.** Then, let everyone place their answers on a board for everyone else to see.
After some time to read, take 5 minutes for each of the four sections, let people ask clarifying questions about each other’s post-its, and listen empathetically without responding or discussing.
After going through each section, ask: “What did you notice? Did anything surprise you?” Finally, to put the insights into practice, ask, “What working agreements should we make?”
** Download a 1-page ICBD template as part of the bonus materials of my new book.
Why it works
ICBD was invented by Alexandra Jamieson and Bob Gower. In their book Radical Alignment, they share that they developed these questions to increase clarity, reduce miscommunication, and build a shared sense of trust and respect.
A meaningful conversation about people’s aspirations and worries increases empathy among team members, accelerating team development and performance.
When Google studied 200 teams across their organization, they discovered five factors that consistently differentiate top-performing teams:
Psychological Safety: Team members feel safe taking risks and being vulnerable in front of each other. Psychologically safe teams accelerate learning and innovation because their members feel confident admitting mistakes and offering new ideas.
Dependability: Team members reliably complete quality work on time and take their responsibilities seriously.
Structure and Clarity: The team has clear roles, goals, and plans — members know what is expected of them, what they are aiming for, and how they will get there.
Meaning: Team members have a sense of purpose in their work or the team’s output.
Impact: Team members believe their work matters and makes a difference.
The conversation that ICBD encourages grows psychological safety, dependability, clarity, and meaning.
NOTE: Of all the dynamics in this top five, psychological safety had 𝘣𝘺 𝘧𝘢𝘳 the most impact on performance. One surprising result was that who is on a team matters much less than how team members interact. The number of top performers on a team, or the team’s average intelligence, wasn’t a good indicator of a team’s effectiveness.
ICBD is only one practice that helps build an effective team. I’ve included many others in my new book, Unblock.
Conclusion
Taking time to answer the four questions at the start of the year can save you a lot of time later. Having everybody’s ICBD on the table drastically increases the chance of everybody getting what they need to give 2025 their best shot.
I wish you the best for the upcoming year!
