Building and Leading teams is often a quite difficult task and a long one enough for a Leader to endure. Building and Leading teams is more often like Operations if the engagement that has to be delivered is of a longer duration. Skilling, re-skilling, up-skilling, learning, unlearning and re-learning both for the leader and the team is essential through out the journey of the engagement.
With my experience of being managed and led, and having managed and led teams, I wanted to share a few learnings of mine which have helped me in being a part of a successful team and also in building and leading successful teams
Trust– Trust is the highest of the order element that come in while building and leading teams. Most often than not a manager/leader has to risk of trusting in the capabilities of the team before experiencing it first hand. This leads to a reciprocation at most of the times from the team.
Transparency – Create an environment of Transparency at least with in the team. This is most important to ensure that information is available to all and that information is no longer a power. This also mean that all statuses of the projects & Operations, Waterfall from Senior Leadership meetings etc are all available at the disposal of the team.
Tip: When I led teams, I ensured that my one note is shared with teams so that the information is relayed to them real time if they accessed my one-note. e-Collaboration always comes in handy.
Fail Fast Learn Fast – A culture of failing fast and learning fast is an absolute must. This culture enables the team to be inquisitive and exploratory. This also curbs the fear of failure to a great extent which allows the team to experiment and succeed.
Culture/ Environment of Fearlessness – This essentially refers to providing an environment within the team for the team to speak their mind out about the work, team dynamics, or anything related to the team and it’s delivery. There should not be an iota of doubt of being perceived wrong or understood wrong. The leads to an open feedback culture which is most benign in the interest of the team. The leader of the team needs to act as a moderator here and should encourage only the constructive feedback ensuring the development of the team.
Purpose – This is the second most important element of building and leading a team. As a leader one needs to always present the purpose to the team. The “Why” element of our work always motivates us subconsciously. Therefore, it is the responsibility of Leader of the team to seek the purpose if it is not clear for him/herself and then translate it till the last member of the team.
I often spoke to my team about Simon Sinek’s Golden circle. It is indeed one of the most powerful theories that has been propounded. Here is a visual of the same below
Impact Analysis – Usually, in organizations and teams one of the phenomena that is spoken is Business Impact Analysis. As much as the Business Impact Analysis is important, it is important to understand the impact of the work on the greater good of the organization. It means both the positive and negative impact of the work we deliver needs to be understood by every team member which in turn leads to a great quality output. To me, this has always been a quasi-static process. Greater the quality of output, greater the motivation to deliver better output every time.
The Big Picture – Another most important aspect towards building/ leading a successful team is to ensure that the team always have a visibility towards the Big Picture. This exercise needs to be repeated often so that the there is no deference from the main goal and hence the team starts to believe in core idea or The Big Picture
Patience is a Virtue– Most of the teams, whether it is a Project team or Operations Team go through the various stages. Forming, storming, Norming and Performing. The Project Teams go through adjourning as well. Therefore it is very important to be a little patient til the entire team comes together and starts performing. As a Leader, that space has to be given to the teams to self nurture.
Meaningful Goals – While a lot has been spoken about the outer dynamics, what is most important for each member of the team is the question – “What should I do?”. Hence it is most important to have meaningful goals for individuals and the team to develop collectively. As much as it is important to show the big picture to the team, it is equally important for the Big Picture to be broken down into quantifiable, measurable and achievable goals which can be first understood and then delivered by the team.
One of the most useful methodologies in achieving them is the “OKR“s – Objective and Key Results. A brief of OKR can be found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OKR
Another way of defining the goals is to give the team the Big Picture and ask them to deliver the OKRs for the year. Therefore, both the onus and the responsibility is on the team to deliver what has been promised. It would bring in a sense of ownership from within.
Have the Talk – It is a very good practice for the leader of the team to have conversations with the team and with individuals very often and on a recurring basis. It helps build a rapport, help the leader understanding what work is ongoing and helps the team express their state of affairs on one count. On another count, it gives the team a confidence that there is always some one who cares.
Having the talk on most occasions can be informal unless a documented output is absolutely necessary. Knowing and addressing every team member by name no matter how big the team is, having a small talk regarding their personal life or casually asking about their hobbies will definitely bring the team closer and make them confident in the leader
Emote & Articulate – Do not expect the team to understand what you as a Leader want from the team. It is always better to express yourself clearly and emote as well. The team is always capable of emoting and expressing back and thus further enhancing clarity.
Often, Leaders fail not because they have a bad idea or lack of vision, but because of the lack of articulation of the vision to the team. Remember, not everyone in the team is as intelligent or experienced as the other. Therefore, it becomes very important for you to articulate your vision as a leader very clearly so that the most nascent and least experienced has also understood the vision to the letter ‘T’.
Leader from within – Lastly, it is very important that you are a leader from within the team. It is not meant that you are to rise from with in the team to the leadership position, but it is more towards being a leader who is amidst and within the team.
Most often, it is observed in organizations that the Leaders spend more time with the Leadership team or the Senior Management. It is therefore, a very important task to strike the right balance of spending time with the senior management as well as the team. This way, you will always have the opportunity to inspire the team from within, being together and most importantly continously.
**The above tenets are coming off from a personal experience and which have worked mostly in Building and Leading Successful teams so far. Hope is that it would also work in the future and yet everyday is a new learning in all aspect.
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