How it works
A chief of staff for the people part of the job.
Sphere learns how you and each person on your team work. Then it helps with the one-on-ones, the hard conversations and the follow-through that slip when you’re busy.
Meet your coach
Answer a short set of questions about how you work and tell Sphere what you’re working toward. About six minutes later, you have a quick read on how you work, and your full read follows right after.
Already have a personality report? Upload it, and Sphere uses it in place of its own questions.
- Where you’re strong
- Getting hard things right. You spot the flaw in a plan early, and people bring you the problems nobody else can fix.
- Where there’s room
- You want a team that runs without you, and you take the work back the moment it’s late. That keeps them from learning to do it.
- Under pressure
- You go quiet and fix things yourself, which can leave the people around you guessing.
- Working with you
- You take feedback best one on one, with a real example. Bring a problem to you early, with a first idea, and you’ll help solve it.
Bring in the people you work with
Once Sphere knows you, it asks to meet the people you work with: your team, your peers, your boss. Each of them starts with themselves too, and every person who joins makes Sphere more useful to the people around them.
Now that I know you, let's bring in the people you work with. Invite your boss, your peers, anyone you work with, and I'll help you with each of them. They each get their own read, and you never see each other's answers or scores.
Invite peopleWalk into every one-on-one ready
Keep a running record of each person: your notes, the transcript you drop in, what they’re working on. Fifteen minutes before each one-on-one on your calendar, Sphere sends your prep.
Your 1:1 with Dana is at 9:00
Your 1:1 with Dana is at 9:00Last time she was worried about the Q4 launch and asked to lead more client calls. She finished the vendor review early. Thank her for that, then ask whether she still wants the calls.
How did it go with Dana? Reply with a sentence and I'll add it to her notes.
She's taking the next client callRemind me laterGet the hard conversation right
Ask Sphere about anyone by name. It knows how they tend to work, so it tells you how they’re likely to hear it and how to bring it up. Then practice with Sphere playing them until you’ve said it well once.
MarcusHow do I tell @Marcus his update ran long again?
Marcus cares about being seen as thorough, so frame it as making his work land. Ask him for the one slide he'd keep.
Practice it with Marcus
Know how your team is really doing
Ask Sphere to brief you on your team and get the week on one screen: a heads-up if the whole team is under strain, how each person is doing on what they’ve shared with you, and one tip for each of them.
- Send a quick anonymous pulse whenever you want to know more.
- If something the whole team faces gets worse, Sphere tells you without ever saying who raised it.
- See how a team you put together works: where it’s strong and where it may struggle.
- Run a Team 360, where the people your team works with say how it’s going.
Your team’s been under strain lately.
From your team’s conversations with Sphere, never who or what was said.
Dana
Two of the three moves in her plan are done.
Tip She asked to lead client calls. Give her the next one.
Ryan
His plan: raise concerns earlier. One of three moves done.
Tip Thank him for flagging the testing risk on Monday.
Priya
Three weeks in. Her plan isn't started yet.
Tip Ask what she needs from you this month.
Grow, and help your people grow
Every person gets a development plan Sphere follows up on, and your goals cascade to your team’s. Ask for 360 feedback whenever you want it, and let your team tell you how you’re doing, anonymously. When someone does something worth noticing, Sphere reminds you to tell them.
Five of your six people answered three questions about how you're doing. Two themes: they want more context on decisions, and they value that you protect their focus time.
Add to my planDana finished the vendor review on her plan, a week early. Tell her today, while it's fresh.
Draft it for meIt shows up where you already work
Microsoft Teams
Talk to Sphere in a chat, and get your prep and reminders there.
Outlook calendar
Prep before every one-on-one, and a quick note after.
Google Calendar
The same prep and follow-up from a Google calendar.
Gmail
Reminders, and a Monday list of who to check in with.
Sphere knows you and the people you work with
You
How you work, what you're working toward and what pressure does to you. It starts from a short assessment designed by an I-O psychologist.
Your people
How to work with each person on your team, your peers and your boss, drawn from their own read and what they choose to share with you.
Your week
Who you're meeting, what you talked about last time and what you said you'd do. The prep arrives before the meeting and the reminder after.
So when you ask Sphere what to do, the answer fits Dana on Thursday. Your working relationships get easier, and every conversation does more.
Who built it