Don’t lose engagement with your people, for the sake of “the process”!

I’ve been leading a project that has been done many times at my company before.

Multiple times a quarter, in fact.

There is a well-defined process for doing it.

But with the particular group of colleagues I’m working with right now, the process doesn’t really fit.

As a small example, this group doesn’t like to communicate by slack; it prefers email.

I spent two weeks trying to entice the group to communicate on our slack channel — in accordance with our process — with no success.

Until I realized yesterday, that I’m making a mistake: I’m trying to fit the people into the process.

It should be the other way around: I should fit the process into the people.

Great sports coaches naturally do that: They may have a process or a game plan, but they tailor them to the specific players they have available for each season, each game.

Don’t lose engagement with your people, for the sake of “the process”!