“Leaders need to provide strategy and direction and to give employees the tools that enable them to gather information and insight from around the world. Leaders shouldn’t try to make every decision.”
— Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft
Today, leaders are often confronted with the challenge of building high-performance teams. With jobs going virtual and generation Z entering the workforce, creating a high-performance team has become one of the most important leadership responsibilities.
A leader has to make a conscious effort, especially in the initial days, to build performance and get the best out of the team. In this article, we will take a look at six tested steps that a leader can take to get the best out of their team.
1. Identify the strengths of the team
The essence of a team lies in the wealth of knowledge, experience and diverse abilities that each member brings to the team. However, unless these strengths are identified, a leader cannot put them to good use.
A leader should initially focus on identifying the capabilities of team members. This can be done by monitoring the contribution of each member during a period of team formation or during a new member’s induction and probation period. Each of the members should be tested by giving them different responsibilities. One way to do this is rotating roles within a team. This period of formation and monitoring could last days, weeks or months, depending on the nature of the project that the team is working on.
Once a member’s strengths have been assessed, the leader should discuss with the team member about his or her proposed responsibilities that will leverage the member’s strengths and about a plan of action to tackle areas of weakness. People give their best when they get the opportunity to contribute and improve by building on strengths and ameliorating weaknesses.
2. Establish ground rules with consensus
Having ground rules to handle common responsibilities is a good way to establish discipline and avoid confusion. This helps to set expectations and increase the team’s efficiency at completing routine tasks.
For example, a simple ground rule of responding to clients within 24 hours of receiving an email can go a long way towards increasing the efficiency of the team. Further, it also helps in communicating the leader’s expectations and creating a reputation for speed of execution with the client. Moreover, having a clear ground rule ensures that everyone on the team is judged by the same yardstick.
The ground rules should be set with consensus. This has dual benefits. Firstly, it creates transparency and shows that team member opinions are important. Discussing and gaining feedback on proposed ground rules can be a slower process than simply creating rules by dictate, but the process is likely to be educational. At minimum, it will give the leader a chance to explain the reasons for the new ground rules. However, it may also lead to more appropriate ground rules being created as the team may have some good ideas that the leader hadn’t considered. Secondly, gaining consensus helps to gain acceptance from the team and avoid conflict at a later date. The team will be much more likely to implement ground rules if the leader obtained their buy-in before the rules were laid down.
3. Give responsibility with trust and flexibility
The new age companies such as Google have habitually focused on empowering employees. The millennials and generation Z, who are taking over the organisation leadership and workforce have always been keen on open communication. Open communication includes not just talking about expectations but reiterating trust in the team.
Set the goal and timeline with the team and give the team the flexibility to chase the goal their way. While setting goals, it is important to not hand over the answer. Let the team find it. Do not micromanage. Monitor the progress at regular intervals to make sure that the things are on track and the final deliverable does not suffer.
Let the team know how important the goal is for the organisation and that you are entrusting them with the responsibility. This approach should make the team feel empowered and more likely to give their best to the project.
4. Praise efforts and reward your team
Nothing is more motivational than giving praise and credit for milestones that team members have achieved. If hard-work is recognised, the team will throw themselves into the next job with much more enthusiasm. Most team leaders fall short because they focus their feedback only on what went wrong and what can be improved. An important part of leadership involves praising ‘what went well’. By the same token, feedback only on ‘what went well’ is generally not appreciated.
Essentially, feedback should focus on three questions:
- What went well?
- What did not go as per expectations?
- What can we do better going forward?
Leaders should not wait for periodic appraisal meetings to praise or reward hard work. This has to be done in the moment of the celebration itself in order for it to have maximum impact.
5. Give your people time to recharge
Getting time to rewind brings fresh energy back into the team. Give team members the chance to take a break after an intense project. This shows that the leadership cares about the health and sustainability of the team.
Celebrating a win or project closure with the team in an informal get together is also a good way of letting people unwind. These opportunities can also be used to create a feeling of camaraderie amongst team members as well as between the leadership and the team.
Giving team members flexibility during the project also increases efficiency. For example, in large cities where travelling to the office can be time consuming and expensive, giving people the flexibility to work from home can increase productivity multi-fold. Of course, there are risks attached to such an approach. However, if the hiring team has done their job right by getting responsible people on the team, this strategy can work to get the best out of the team.
6. Focus on training and career development
The way to bring out the best from a team is to care about each team member. One thing that definitely motivates people is the potential for personal and professional growth and development. Giving people the opportunity to attend training and receive guidance on professional development has been shown to increase employee engagement. Gallup, a management consulting firm, has a 12 question survey that they use to assess employee engagement. It is very telling that 3 out of the 12 questions are directly related to professional development:
- Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
- In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
- In the last year, have you had opportunities to learn and grow?
The training plan should be created based on discussion with each team member and observations of the leader. Each person probably knows what they need to learn in order to excel at the responsibilities given to them. It may be technical training or soft skills-based training. The leader will also have a view on required areas of professional development based on a review of the work delivered by the team. Having the team’s buy-in on the training plan will help to inspire commitment, and motivate the team to give their best.
Conclusion
In this article, we have explored some of the important learnings that I gained from my tenure as a manager in the consulting industry, leading a diverse set of teams. It is worth noting that, in order to execute the six steps effectively, it is important for a leader to have social intelligence and be aware of his or her biases. At the end of the day, teams are made up of people like you and me. If we understand what motivates people, it becomes easier to get the best out of them.
Vishal Agarwal just finished his MBA from Kelley School of Business, Indiana University and is a consulting enthusiast. He interned last summer with EY in their San Jose office. Before Kelley, he was working with EY and he carries 7 years of experience with EY’s International Taxation and Transfer Pricing Consulting practice.
Image: Pixabay
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