← Insights · Lessons in Momentum

The tennis game that made a new report less scary

There’s a brand-new report on the screen, and I can see it on my team’s faces.

What are we even looking at?

In 8.5 years at Expedia, the reports changed again and again. Dashboards, Excel sheets, pivot tables and bigger online reports. Every time, I made it my job to learn what the heck I was looking at and how it could help me and the team.

This time, there’s a lot to take in. Some people are curious but overwhelmed. Some can find the basics. A few have already spent enough time with it to know their way around.

Everyone needs practice. So I borrow a game from tennis.

It’s called Touch the Fence. You have 3 lives. Make a mistake and you run, touch the fence and get back in time to return the ball. The mistake doesn’t automatically cost you a life. You have to get back into play.

It’s a lot of fun and a great workout. It also stops you chasing winners on every shot. You keep the ball in play until the winning shot is clear, then take it.

My version involves considerably less running.

Here are the rules

You have 5 seconds to tell us something, anything, you see on the report. Then it moves to the next person. You lose a life if you don’t come up with something new in 5 seconds. I keep time and the energy up.

An answer can be as simple as naming a column: room nights. That counts. But there are only so many columns.

As the easy observations get used up, people have to look more closely. They might compare booking patterns across different days or devices. Everyone has to pay attention, because you can’t repeat what someone else has said.

The more familiar people get to show what they know. Everyone else learns where to look.

They have fun. And the report isn’t so scary anymore.

Later, I run it with other leaders too. It’s a new report for all of us, and some managers need a bit of practice as well.

Give the practice somewhere to go

The game helped people find their way around the report. To take it further, I’d finish with one question: which observation is worth investigating?

Choose one. Agree who will look into it and bring it back next time. That gives the practice a purpose beyond getting better at the game.

You can repeat a meeting every week. Momentum needs something to move between meetings.

Something you can try this week

Choose a report your team needs to use. Give everyone a moment to look at it, then play a few rounds. 5 seconds each, no repeats. A simple observation counts.

If the time pressure gets in the way, slow it down. The point is to help people use the information.

Finish by choosing one question to investigate, with someone responsible for bringing back what they find.