You have chosen your team. You know that each member of the team is amazing as an individual, but do they work well in a team? Are you maximising your team or are you hampering their flare? In this blog, we will explore some guaranteed ways to make sure that your team is performing at their best and how to keep it that way.
Competition shouldn’t be promoted within a company amongst co-workers.
There are always going to be people who believe the more competitive an enterprise is, the more effective the employees will be. Maybe this is true if your company consists of people who are primarily self-interested in making themselves as financially secure as possible and are not interested in building collectively. That is of course not to say that competitive endeavours are always incorrect, primarily if the competitive spirit manifests as a group effort.
The problem with encouraging intracompany aggressive competition is that it turns what could have been a fantastic collaborative project into a divisive method where all of the best resources your team could bring together instead goes towards outshining your competition. If you take the competitive spirit and construct it into your organisation, then you will see how much more efficient and satisfied your team will be. Instead of seeing someone’s weakness as an opportunity to take advantage to move ahead you can now help your teammate improve and instead of creating any feelings of bitterness and superiority we can see how much further you can take your team.
Aligning a team along common goals is best practice, but how exactly do you know if everybody is on the same page even after objectives and timelines established with KPIs set? After the initial team meeting, it is essential to schedule regular catchups with the team and discuss any issues, success or questions they may have.
Encourage a sense of welcoming any updates
Even the slightest difference in the knowledge amongst the team results in tasks duplicated and time ineffectively managed. If you are running a sprint, frequent updates are essential as any delay in communication can be costly. A good project manager is a must in these scenarios and plays a vital role in making sure everything is running smoothly.
If a member of a team is underperforming, instead of approaching the person with a list of their failures and rubbing their nose in their shortcomings in a humiliating manner, reach out to them with the question, what do you need? It’s amazingly common how often team members are afraid to ask for what they need to complete a task. That can be a failure on behalf of the team member for not speaking up, but it can also be due to creating an unapproachable environment.
There is a right way of telling where you failed; if the team member can answer what it is they would need to complete the task, then we know that it was a failure on the team member to communicate their needs accurately. If the response is entirely unsure of what it is they need to complete their task, then we can assume they do not understand how to finish the job at hand, and they should be assigned to different work.
Constructive criticism is mandatory
Making sure that those who are underperforming understand that you don’t have a problem with them personally or with their work on a whole. Pick the lowest possible level of analysis of where it is they have issues. The first move must be to praise where and how they are useful before moving on to any criticism of their work, as they will be much more likely to be receptive to the objections and will be less likely to take the criticisms as personal attacks.
Confine your criticisms to the lowest possible level of analysis, don’t take a mistake as being indicative of a more substantial fundamental personality flaw. If the problem was specific be specific, don’t phrase your criticisms with words like “always” and “never” as they are inaccurate and makes the criticism irrelevant for the person hearing it as they don’t understand where they failed. Have dates, times and specificities before addressing the issues that are manifesting.
Conclusion:
Each of these steps is important for creating an active approach to solving problems after each of these steps are implemented correctly; you should be able to see the benefits immediately. The most valuable asset a company has is the team who make it up and by refocusing your problem-solving in a constructive and collaborative method then you will have a team who shares in their triumphs and deals with failures as one and will be more focus, determined and united.