A Monday routine for tired teams

The best leadership habit I ever built takes ten minutes and happens every Monday. It started as an emergency fix during the hardest year of my career and turned into the thing teams ask me about most.

Where it came from

In 2019 my best team burned out in the middle of a merger. Two people resigned in the same week, and I realised I had no idea how tired everyone was. Our weekly meeting covered every project in detail and never once asked how people were actually doing.

So I changed the first ten minutes of Monday. Same meeting, same people, three new questions.

The three questions

• What is the one thing that matters most this week? Not five things. One.

• What are you carrying that nobody else knows about? The hidden work: the difficult client, the sick parent, the task that keeps growing.

• What should we stop or delay? Every week, something comes off the list.

Everyone answers, including me. Answers are short. Nobody solves anything in the moment; we just listen and write things down.

Why it works

The first question gives the week a shape. When everyone names one priority, you can see clashes and gaps before they turn into late nights.

The second question is the one that changed everything. People do not volunteer that they are struggling in a normal update. But when the question is asked every week, to everyone, it becomes safe to answer. Within a month, I knew more about my team's real workload than I had learned in a year.

The third question is the release valve. Tired teams keep adding and never subtract. Asking what to stop, every single week, makes stopping normal instead of a failure.

How to start

Do not announce it as a new initiative. Just start next Monday. Ask the questions yourself first and answer honestly, especially the second one. If you say what you are carrying, others will follow.

Keep it to ten minutes. The moment it becomes a long discussion, people stop being honest because they worry about taking up time.

Write the answers down in the same place each week. After a month, read them back. You will see patterns: the person who always carries too much, the project that keeps getting delayed, the priority that nobody actually owns.

What changes

Teams that use the Monday routine tell me the same things. Fewer surprises. Fewer weekend emails. And, slowly, more trust, because people learn that saying "I am struggling" leads to help rather than judgement.

It is a small habit. That is the point. Big changes in how a team feels usually come from small things done every week, not from one big gesture once a year.

When the answers are hard

Sometimes the second question brings out something heavy: a health problem, a family crisis, a colleague who is clearly not okay. Do not try to fix it in the meeting. Thank the person, move on gently, and find them afterwards for a private conversation. The routine only works if people trust that being honest will be handled with care, every single time.

That trust is slow to build and quick to lose. Protect it.