Canadian Management Centre's Training Blog

Team Members Should Feel a Sense of Challenge

As reported by HRI.  One of the best ways to ensure a team's success is to give team members a challenge that is irresistible. "A burning platform or aggressive deadline leaves team members no time to stall, hide, or point fingers," according to Allan Steinmetz, CEO of Inward Strategic Consulting. Teams are successful when their members feel they are an integral part of something bigger than themselves. Team leaders need to get their people to buy into the team on an emotional level for it to be a successful collaboration.

Leaders can use several tactics to help their team work together successfully:

• Share as much information as possible with the team, good news or bad news. People like to be in the loop, and it helps teams to share goals.
• Provide a proper amount of guidance. Teams need some autonomy to foster the open sharing of ideas, but too little guidance can lead to a breakdown in decision-making.
• Allow people to "stretch" beyond their current area of expertise. Team members should be given the opportunity to use skills they don't normally use in their everyday work. This will bring out new and creative ideas.
• Make sure the team has some fun. When team members are having fun, it boosts morale and camaraderie, allowing the team to operate at its best.
• Make the challenge visceral. When the team can experience the project on a "gut" level, it provides a great motivator to solving challenges.
  (Harvard Management Update [Johnson], September 2005, pp. 1-3)

Survey Finds Four Factors Key to Team Success

As reported by HRI. According to a survey conducted by Quality Progress, Guttman Development Strategies and Kepner-Tregoe, project teams are not always as successful as they could be. The survey had 1,905 respondents from various levels of various-sized companies, less than half of whom said their current projects always or often meet their goals. Only 32.6% of the respondents said their projects are always or often completed on time. Four factors emerged from the survey that are critical to the success of project teams but that don't seem to be getting addressed carefully enough.

• Leadership. The survey revealed that 70% of the respondents did not feel that their senior management team served as a positive role model very often. Also, when asked how effective team leaders were at helping meet team goals, 42.5% rated their team leaders a 3 or less on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being very effective and 1 being not effective at all. Even more respondents gave their team leaders poor marks for their leadership skills.
• Process Discipline. Two-thirds of those surveyed indicated that overall team goals were very clear, but 42% said that individual roles were not. Thirty-eight percent said either their teams did not have a project management process or they weren't sure if they did. Another 43% said they had no problem-solving process.
• Performance System. More than half of the respondents did not think their project teams always or often had the right people or leaders. Eighty-four percent said that team members were rarely or never relieved of their day-to-day responsibilities when assigned to a team. Fifty-eight percent indicated that upper management publicly recognized a project team's accomplishments only sometimes, rarely or never, and 87% said that financial rewards were given out just as infrequently.
• Interpersonal Dynamics. Almost half of those surveyed could not give high marks to conflict resolution on their teams, and more than 90% reported the teams spent up to half of their time dealing with unresolved conflict. Nearly 44% gave their team a score of 3 or lower for intrateam communication, with 5 being very effective and 1 being not effective at all.
  (Quality Progress [Guttman and Longman], February 2006)

Leaders Have to Set the Stage for Change

As reported by HRI. How does a leader set the stage for organizational change that can fuel growth? Judith Glaser, president of Benchmark Communications, recommends that managers ask themselves questions in seven areas when contemplating how to build a corporate environment that embraces change:

• Are the company's communication styles open and healthy? Workers should be comfortable and skilled at interacting.
• Does the company praise positive efforts? Organizations that dwell on negatives discourage enthusiasm for growth.
• Do company leaders embrace and communicate the organizational mission? Visions for growth and positive change need champions at the top level.
• Do employees network effectively throughout the organization? Companies that silo workers may discourage the interaction needed to innovate and grow.
• Are workers mutually supportive? Employees who are encouraged to build on each others' ideas can create powerful momentum for the organization.
• Does the company culture encourage a team mindset? Companies that communicate a collaborative atmosphere encourage engagement.
• Does the corporate culture foster excitement about learning? Without a commitment to ongoing development, an organization cannot hope to create a dynamic environment that embraces change.
  (Leadership Excellence [Glaser], September 2005, pp. 7-8)

Customer Service Tip of the Day

For excellent customer service, create customer focused processes, not company focused processes. If what you are doing is done to make the internal processes work better and not better for the customer, how long will they be with you? Your customer wants to know that you put them above the inner workings of the company. Focus your efforts on your customers; then let the internal processes follow.

Negotiation Tip of the Day

To get what you want from negotiations, ask for more than you think you’ll get and let the other side beat you down! Establishing a

Settlement

Range

is part of the planning process.  Be ambitious in what you ask for.  It doesn’t have to be agreeable the other side, just reasonable.

Project Management Tip of the Day

For successful project management, develop a team consensus on the nature of the problem. Otherwise, you can develop the right solution to the wrong problem or wind up with paralyzing bickering about goals.

Canadian Management Centre: Tip for Business Success

Make sure you are calm before giving reprimands. The reprimand should have a problem-solving, not an accusatory, tone.

Canadian Management Centre: Tip for Business Success

Ensure that staff aren't given tasks for which they are overqualified. Over-qualification often leads to boredom and a subsequent drop in the employee's performance.

Canadian Management Centre: Tip for Business Success

Develop a team consensus on the nature of the problem. Otherwise, you can develop the right solution to the wrong problem or wind up with paralyzing bickering about goals.

Canadian Management Centre: Tip for Business Success

Plan your budget carefully and spend according to where you are in the product life cycle. If you are at the beginning, then marketing should take priority. If you are coming toward the end of the cycle, consider serious research and development.