This HBR article is one of the best articles I stumbled upon in a long time. I laughed reading some of this because of personal and professional experience.

This is not only a leadership decision, but it's also realizing that no matter the age of your employees, and how seasoned they think they are, many of them lack basic team organizational skill. They may have been organized on a personal level, but then this is the only method they know and therefore the one they push onto a team.

I don't know about you, but organization, accountability, and communication in a team environment were not taught when I was in school. This was something I learned at home, especially from my father, (an Air Force veteran), and then again for myself as this skill became more refined in the Marines.

The acronym A.L.I.C.E stands for All-Purpose Lightweight Individual Carrying Equipment.

I'll bet when you pack a bag to go somewhere, chances are you pack your own bag, and you do so how you like to do it. Some do the clothing roll, some choose clothes designed specifically for travel, wheeled luggage, backpack, etc.

In the Marines, you're not allowed to pack your own bag. You're going to do it how they tell you to, and it's called by the numbers. When a drill instructor yells out that we're about to do something by the numbers, it means we're going to do it one step at a time. So, we lined up in platoon formation, (4 squads), and we put our A.L.I.C.E. packs on the ground in front of us, (empty), with all our crap on the ground next to it, and one by one, the drill instructor would call out an item, we would have to hold it in the air, and then he would call out exactly where it was going to go in the pack and that's where you put it.

Drill Instructor: "Is it done!?"

Platoon: "Sir, yes sir."

Drill Instructor: "I SAID IS IT DONE!?!?!"

Platoon: "SIR, YES SIR!!!."

...and on to item two. This could take 1-2hrs depending on the op you were packing for and how long it was.

Sounds childish, doesn't it? Is this how Marines pack their bags? Yep. It sure is. That was in basic training. Once in the FMF, (Fleet Marine Force), it's done as smaller teams without all the yelling, but it's the same practice.

Why?

Because when it matters most, there's no question where to find something. When in a firefight, and bullets are coming at you, and you need something, (IFAK, another mag, etc), and you can't get into position to put down your weapon and take your pack off and dig into your pack for it ... you won't need to. You can simply call out "IFAK NOW!" and the person to your left or right will get it for you because they know exactly where it is in your pack, because theirs is packed exactly the same way.

Remember, in the military, accountability starts with the person to your left and to your right. (remember this for later in this article because it'll come in handy) 😉

The All-Purpose Lightweight Team and Individual Collaboration Equipment

All-Purpose - It will work for everything
Lightweight - It's not full of bloat and features you don't need
Team - Everyone will use it
Individual - You will use it for yourself
Collaboration - We're going to use this together
Equipment - It's more than one tool

Over the years I have paid high switching costs, (meaning there's a real cost to making change and switching things up when it comes to “tool churn”), on collaboration tools at work. I've tried these:

Yes, it's been exhausting. It's an insane amount of tools to try. So why would anyone do this?

In the beginning it started with the desire to find just the right thing that would work. They were all new to me so I didn't know what I didn't know. But, inevitably, someone complains. They've worked somewhere else and had a better experience using another tool. So, I was willing to try it if the team is ... and off we go.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

So, I stopped letting everyone else decide. I put a process in place with the tool(s) I felt would work best and would fit a set of criteria. We communicated new procedures and set people up for success.

But then, you get the other kind of person. The one's who think they walk on water because they've been in the industry so long, (and likely disorganized then too), that no matter the tool(s), or processes and procedures you put in place ... they're simply not going to do it. Like mentioned above ... it's the naive mentality.

I've had people who couldn't mark a task complete by checking a box or moving it from one column to another. Seriously. They, of course, could do it, but just wouldn't do it. I had a team of "engineers" literally use nothing. They thought that by just meeting all the time, and  knowing each other from working together in the past that this was all they needed. So I'd ask questions like, when will X be finished? Where are we on Y? What's the status of Z? As you would expect, they couldn't answer any of it. If you can't answer a question like that with a single target date, you're part of the problem.

This is merely an example with engineering. I’ve had business team members who, instead of organized revisions of documents or spreadsheets, they'd just create copies upon copies which creates confusion to newcomers or someone taking over. They themselves were not sure which was the right one by the time there was 5 of them.

Call it bad habits. Call it insubordination. Call it laziness. Whatever you want to call it, it's sub-par performance. It's lacking in leadership, accountability, teamwork, and communication and it’s destructive to the progress and productivity of an organization.

Remember before when I talked about accountability; the person to your right and to your left? Part of being a team player is knowing that you're accountable to someone else - to the rest of the team. Employees deserve time off. Employees deserve a vacation. People get sick. Tragedies happen in their lives or with their families. Things happen. So for a team member to know how to pickup a project, work with a client, or continue development exactly the way you would do it, because it's exactly how they would do it is crucial to a team effort. It's being accountable to your team member and the team as a whole.

I shouldn't have to line everyone up in formation, yell out a tool, why we're using it, how we're using it, and make everyone acknowledge verbally like this is the Marines ... except that I do.

Just as the HBR articles references, "But when it comes to technology overload and digital exhaustion, the best and sometimes only way to reduce the problem is with strong, persistent, and even downright inflexible top-down intervention. As a leader, your job is not only to promote this conscious reflection but also to provide support and resources so employees can change their tech use.".

You can't track what you don't measure. 

You can't find what you don't organize. 

You can't lead if you're not accountable.

You can't be a team if you can't communicate.

Google Workspace has always been my go-to. It has always been my preferred tool for a multitude of reasons, but mainly because it closest follows the above approach. We occasionally use it in conjunction with Basecamp, and nothing else is required.

Processes and procedures have now been clearly defined . And if it’s still an issue for some, they may not be a fit for your team.