How to get the most out of teams | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Effective people management is about creating conditions where teams can act with autonomy, focus, and purpose. The article recommends a few practical systems: limit goals, protect uninterrupted work, make participation equitable, encourage experimentation, and actively support career development. These practices help employees do better work while making managers accountable for the team’s success.

Set Fewer, More Meaningful Goals

• Ask team members to list their priorities at the start of a quarter or half.
• Reduce an initial list of 10–15 goals to just three, forcing clear choices about what can realistically be completed.
• Connect individual goals to the company’s most urgent strategic initiatives.
• Make goals concrete and measurable by defining the impact they should create.
• Share goals with other leaders to improve alignment and accountability.

Make Meetings Worthwhile

• Work & Co. limits teams to one daily check-in, leaving the rest of the day for focused individual work and collaboration.
• Managers should distinguish between issues that require meetings and those that can be handled asynchronously in Slack or FigJam.
• For unavoidable meetings, use structures that prevent outspoken participants from dominating.
• Twitch adapted Amazon’s written-memo format for hybrid work:
  • Participants read a shared six-page document.
  • They spend 10–15 minutes adding questions and comments.
  • The group discusses the annotations afterward.
• Written participation gives quieter employees a meaningful voice, especially in large meetings.

Make Ideas More Valuable Than Turf

• Ambiguous responsibilities can cause conflict, while overly rigid job descriptions can prevent innovation.
• Oura Ring treats campaigns and projects as experiments built around strong hypotheses.
• Teams measure results, then decide whether to scale, repeat, or abandon an idea.
• Making experimentation everyone’s responsibility reduces confusion about ownership.
• Employees are encouraged to pursue opportunities outside their formal roles, even when that means occasionally crossing boundaries.

Support Nonlinear Career Conversations

• Careers rarely follow a straightforward upward path.
• Managers should help employees imagine multiple possible directions rather than presenting advancement as a single ladder.
• This guidance is particularly important in remote work, where informal networking and spontaneous conversations happen less often.

Managers can unlock their teams’ potential by replacing excessive control with clear priorities, focused collaboration, room for experimentation, and deliberate career support.