Once a month, my team in DiGi meets for a “team meeting”. We try to keep this as efficient as possible by focusing on 3 things: (a) every one gets a chance to chair the meeting to understand the dynamics of managing people, (b) every one gets a chance to present ideas and speak out, and (c) we put a hard stop at 60 minutes to complete everything on the agenda.

At last Friday’s meeting, we decided to tweak the agenda to incorporate some time to reflect on our individual achievements over the past month. We went around the table starting with me, and everyone picked one achievement that they felt proud to talk about.

It was one of my most inspiring moments as a leader. Everyone, regardless of rank, had something they wanted to share, and there were moments where some stood up to give a standing ovation to their peers.

It’s moments like these that I love most at work.

It got me thinking.

In an ideal world, I would like to measure what I do on a daily / weekly / monthly basis. Being able to document what you have achieved regardless of how big / small it is, is critical to knowing whether you are being productive. I have read some articles talking about how some companies force their people to email out one achievement at the end of every week to the rest of their team mates – this puts pressure on everyone to perform and have something worth talking about before the end of the week. It takes a lot of discipline to implement something like this.

For now, I am happy with my team’s small step forward. If we can be consistent in how we reflect on achievements as a team, I believe we will work harder to outperform every month.