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Knowledge & Insight
THE DREAM TEAM
The dream team… do you have one? What does it look like? How do you get it? All possible questions that crossed your mind as you read the title.
Do you have one? I’m sure you can answer that straight away. Sometimes you are lucky enough to inherit a great team when you first join an organisation, but usually you as a leader, will need to create a great team, or at the very least, maintain a great team. Having a dream team is not a set and forget exercise, it takes constant investment… investment in your people.
What does it look like? Words that come to mind as you think of the dream team, could be target hitting, highly engaged, competent and positive. The dream team is usually a group of employees working towards a common goal, assisting each other in reaching that goal. Yes, there are disagreements, issues and sometimes strive. This should be expected when you mix people with different personalities, culture and experience together in a group and task them with the same goal. Each employee will approach a task differently, and that’s ok. You as the leader need to set the standard, the guidelines of the process, but allow a measure of freedom for the individuals in the team to reach the goal.
How do you get a dream team? It all comes down to the culture of the team, and yes, culture is an overused word, but it still rings true. Culture is effectively defined by the worst behaviour a leader is willing to accept / tolerate within the team. For example, if staff turn up 10 minutes late for work or 10 mins late for meetings and the leader lets this slide, then it becomes acceptable within the team to be late… whether this is for internal meetings or external customer meetings, handing in projects, returning customer phone calls, collecting overdue accounts. Here are 5 quick tips on how to create the culture that will give you a dream team:
1. Hire Slow, Fire Fast
When you recruit staff, ensure you take the time to find a someone that will be a good match for the team, validate experience and education, check references thoroughly, have multiple interviews, be picky! When you have staff that are poor performing, make sure you address it fast – retrain, address behaviour, penalise or let go, but don’t tolerate it. It will detract from the dream team.
2. Invest In Training
The old saying – “what if I invest in training and they leave, what if you don’t and they stay?” Think about that. Wouldn’t you rather have capable staff, contributing to the team. Doesn’t have to be expensive training either – think about using other experienced staff on the team or in your network that can provide informal training or use YouTube resources.
3. Praise In Public, Reprimand In Private
Exactly that. Praise your staff out loud, make sure the others hear you say well done. Give a round of applause and let the others join in. On the other hand, if (when) you need to address an issue with a staff member, do it in private. There is no need to embarrass them in front of the team. And believe me, the team will see that you respectfully addressed the situation, albeit in private.
4. Have Their Backs
When you are in meetings or talking about your team, have their backs. They will make mistakes, other teams will blame them, their results might not be what it needed to be that month, but it’s your job as the manager to back them. Find ways to showcase their wins, talk about the way the team is improving and how much effort they are putting in.
5. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
Most importantly, communicate with your team. They need to be aware of what is going on in the organisations, what is their role, what do you expect of them, what is going well, what is not going so well. Do this face to face, formal or informal, get the message across. Follow up conversations with an email if need be, but please, don’t let email be your first (only!) way of communicating with your team. And remember, communication needs to be 2 way to be effective, learn to listen.
There are a number of things you can do that will positively affect your team and the way they work together, ultimately creating a loyalty among them… which creates The Dream Team.
For more tips and information or if you require help to get paid, contact me directly below or for in-house consultation via Marlé Ambrose website.
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